Southwesterly Wind: An Inspector Espinosa Mystery [Hardcover]

Luiz Alfredo Garcia-Roza (Author), Benjamin Moser (Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 2, 2004

A young man predicts a murder and identifies the perpetrator—himself—in this third entry in the critically acclaimed Brazilian crime series

When a terrified young man arrives at the station with a bizarre story, Chief Espinosa of the Copacabana precinct is more than happy to set aside his paperwork. A psychic has predicted that the man would commit a murder, it seems, and the prediction has become fact in the young man’s mind. It’s a case more appropriate for a psychiatrist or philosopher, but Espinosa rises to the challenge and slowly enters the web of this psychologically conflicted man.

As the southwesterly wind—always a sign of dramatic change—begins to blow, what at first seems like paranoia becomes brutal reality. Two violent murders occur, and their only link is the lonely, clever man who had sought Espinosa out a few days earlier for help.

In Southwesterly Wind, the third in this atmospheric, erotic series featuring the inimitable Inspector Espinosa, Luiz Alfredo Garcia-Roza once again “breathes fresh air into the crime novel genre” (Los Angeles Times).

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

So palpable is the role of loneliness in Southwesterly Wind, the third installment of Brazilian author Luiz Alfredo Garcia-Roza's seductive police-procedural series, that it almost deserves a separate listing among the cast. Nobody here escapes its casual ravages. Certainly not Gabriel, a 29-year-old office drone in Rio de Janeiro who still lives with his religious-fanatic mother, fears intimate association with younger women, and might well have remained a societal cipher had he not been the recipient of a most dubious prediction: "A psychic saw that I would commit a murder before my next birthday. There's less than two months to go," he explains to Sergeant Espinosa of the Copacabana precinct. It would of course be absurd to launch an investigation into a slaying that hasn't occurred yet to a victim who isn't known. However, the compassionate Espinosa at least puts a police tail on the would-be killer, and he interviews one of his fellow workers, Olga Marins, who witnessed the misfortune-telling and looks increasingly to Gabriel as the remedy for her own solitude. Espinosa even tracks down the psychic reader responsible for setting these events in motion--an economist-turned-entertainer who's oblivious to the damage his auguries might cause a troubled mind. With Gabriel's birthday fast approaching, and people perishing around this paranoid and soon-to-be armed young man, it falls to Espinosa to identify the real murderer and discover the startling truth behind Gabriel's "craziness."

As he did in The Silence of the Rain and December Heat, the divorced and bookish Espinosa acts in this tale greatly from instinct and emotion, his heart keenly on view as he pursues a winsome but elusive girlfriend of Olga's and indulges a precocious teenage neighbor who thinks him in desperate need of canine companionship. Garcia-Roza glosses over the violence for which Rio's cops are known, preferring a more romantic conception of Espinosa and his colleagues that allows the author to focus on the psychology of his inexpert criminals. With its lucid prose and loving portrayal of Brazil's largest city, Southwesterly Wind is crime fiction for the connoisseur--as thoughtful as it is thrilling, and displaying more intriguing loose ends than the thongs of Ipanema. --J. Kingston Pierce

From Booklist

In Garcia-Roza's third Inspector Espinosa novel, the streets of Rio are again the marquee attraction. This time, though, the Copacabana precinct lends atmosphere not so much to the peregrinations of Espinosa himself as to the tortured wanderings of an unassuming clerk who is convinced, thanks to a psychic's prediction, that he will commit murder before his next birthday. The young man turns up in Espinosa's office and asks to be stopped before he kills. With the text jumping between the man's life and Espinosa's growing fascination with the psychologically turbulent aspects of the case, Garcia-Roza twists his story in multiple directions, showing how reality itself comes to reflect the tangled synapses of the would-be murderer's mind. As fascinating as all this is, however, readers of the earlier Espinosa novels will miss the emphasis on the inspector's own conflicted psyche. He is perhaps the most interesting new crime protagonist in the genre, and when the focus of the story shifts elsewhere, it's hard not to feel a bit disappointed. Bill Ott
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.; 1st edition (March 2, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0805068910
• ISBN-13: 978-0641842511
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.8 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,920,031 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Sublte & Evocative, March 28, 2005

By 

EddieLove "EddieLove" (NYC, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Southwesterly Wind: An Inspector Espinosa Mystery (Inspector Espinosa Mysteries) (Paperback)

A very low-key South American procedural. It will get under your skin like the sinister premonition that sets the story in motion. The enigmatic finish will nag at you for days.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Espinosa's a top rate policeman!, October 6, 2004

By 

Billy J. Hobbs "Bill Hobbs" (Tyler, TX USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Southwesterly Wind: An Inspector Espinosa Mystery (Hardcover)

It's a catchy narrative hook. A young man approaches Inspector Espinosa of the Rio de Janiero police to tell him of a most bizarre prediction: that he knows a murder is about to happen and he knows who the murderer is-himself!

Thus, "Southwesterly Wind begins, the third in the Inspector Espinosa series by Brazilian author Luiz Alfredo Garcia-Roza. In translation, Garcia-Roza's compelling police procedural is well worth the time. Over the course of the trilogy, the author has developed and presented a respectable policeman and story line.

Gideon (thirty) is a single young man who lives alone with his mother. At his last birthday party, a seer approaches him to predict that before his next birthday, he will murder someone. Unsettling, of course, and Gideon finally yields to the intense pressure of such a prediction to arrange a meeting with Espinosa, in which he confesses of the prediction. He asks for help.

Espinosa is a bit skeptical but a sixth sense tells him not to dismiss the young man so easily. And before long, a co-worker and friend of Gideon's is found dead in the subway, having been run over by the train.

Then another death, this time the clairvoyant who'd made the prediction in the first place. Espinosa is left to tie the clues together and to solve the case, as all the evidence indicates that, despite the fact Gideon knew both victims, he has alibis in both instances.

Garcia-Roza not only masterfully handles the police procedural here, but also underscores the work with landscape and atmosphere of Rio. Espinosa's mannerisms, his personal thoughts and developments which make him into a human being, all are woven intricately into this work. He's a policeman we can admire and respect, a character "worth knowing."

This is a series that should continue. The publisher's comments indicate that the author is a great success in Brazil. Now we have him here in the States. It's a welcomed immigration.

5.0 out of 5 stars Another winner, May 31, 2011

By 

J B Carioca (Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Southwesterly Wind: An Inspector Espinosa Mystery (Inspector Espinosa Mysteries) (Paperback)

I read this when it first came out in Portuguese. The English translation is excellent and loses nothing at all. A delightful story.