When his daughter disappears and a patient emerges as the prime suspect, a troubled psychiatrist comes to Espinosa for help, in the fifth novel in the beguiling Brazilian crime series
A hospital psychiatrist feels he's being stalked by a young patient. For as long as possible, he convinces himself that the young man is harmless, but when the doctor's daughter disappears and the patient goes missing, too, he calls on Espinosa for help. Soon after, the patient turns up dead.
With his death begins a chain of other deaths, each more mysterious than the one that preceded it, each seemingly linked to the doctor and his former patient. As Espinosa learns more about the doctor's history, it becomes harder to discern the stalker from the stalked, reality from fantasy, and the sane from the diabolical. In this installment of the "seductive, fascinating" (The New York Times Book Review) series, the sultry maze of Rio de Janeiro's streets conspires against Espinosa, confounding his judgment, stymieing his search, and, somewhere, concealing a murderer.
"With his existential sensibility, his exotic beat, and his literary merit, [Espinosa] seems poised to join the ranks of the great modern international fictional cops."
San Francisco Chronicle
"Who wouldn't want to read about a sympathetic, sensitive and literate cop who really wants to open a used-book store?"
Bloomberg News
"It's taken until now for a writer to come along to do for the corruption of Brazil's Rio de Janeiro what Chandler did for Los Angeles."
