The Killer: A Psychological Thriller - Softcover

Melo, Patricia

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0880016086 ISBN 13: 9780880016087

Publisher: Ecco Pr, 1999

Synopsis

"Melo's prize-winning novel (Matador) is a thriller about a man who accidentally becomes a hired killer and a local hero. Once again Landers achieves an excellent result: colloquial, entirely readable, and authentic, with just the right tone for its narrator whose language one reviewer has called 'racy hoodlum-speak.'"--Handbook of Latin American Studies, v. 58.http://www.loc.gov/hlas/When Maiquel, a young Brazilian used car salesman, gets his first taste of the kill in a barroom brawl, he soon becomes a killer-for-hire

About this title

Language Notes:

Text: English (translation)
Original Language: Portugese

From Kirkus Reviews:

An improbably dissociated killer stalks the So Paulo streets with the citizens' cooperation and gratitude in Melo's first English publication. A used-car salesman loses a bet on a soccer match and has to dye his hair and mustache blond. He's in a bad mood from a toothache anyway, so he picks a fight with Suel, an acquaintance at the local bar and challenges him to a duel. When Suel doesn't want to fight, he shoots him down. Now Ma¡quel is a wanted man: Everybody in So Paulo wants to give him thanks and presents for killing no-account Suel. Dr. Carvalho even offers him free dental care if he'll just kill his daughter Gabriela's rapist, and this time, reports Ma¡quel, ``the gifts were even better than when I killed Suel.'' Even though Ma¡quel just wants to settle down with his bride Cledir, the clothing-store clerk he raped--or maybe with Suel's grieving girlfriend rica--the increasingly lucrative offers keep pouring in so fast (would he please kill the kid who's ripping off Dr. Carvalho's friend Mr. S¡lvio? how about the car thief who's plaguing the neighborhood?) that eventually Ma¡quel, en route to being acclaimed Citizen of the Year, takes the step canny readers will have seen coming a long way off: He goes into partnership with a detective to offer protection--a little law, a lot of firepower--to subscribing locals. Through it all, whether he's killing bad guys, roughing up his women, or dreaming about a new pair of shoes, Ma¡quel resolutely (and eerily) declines to go into his feelings about anything deeper than that toothache, and the resulting flatness of his narration, faithfully rendered by the translator, gives a throwaway aura to his increasingly surrealistic adventures. Little Caesar recast as pitch-black Brazilian farce--with appropriately distorted echoes of The Maltese Falcon, The Stranger, and Yojimbo. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: Ecco Pr
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0880016086
• ISBN 13: 9780880016087
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 192