This "gripping crime fiction" is the first in the acclaimed police procedural series set in Brazil (Florida Sun-Sentinel).

Chief Inspector Mario Silva of Brazil's federal police is a good cop in a bad system�Brazil's justice system is rife with corruption, and constantly a beat behind criminal elements. But Silva and his team of colorful sidekicks�baby-faced Gon�alves, who is irresistible to lady witnesses, chubby, crass Nu�es, and Mara Carta, the chief of intelligence with a soft spot for Silva�still manage to crack their difficult and sometimes ugly cases.

In the interior of Brazil, landless workers are battling the owners of vast fazendas. When a visiting archbishop is assassinated, Silva is called upon to investigate. Then a newspaper owner, a TV journalist, a landowner's son, and a priest are brutally killed, and Silva's team faces a challenge unlike any before . . .