In Praise of Lies - Softcover

Melo, Patricia

3.48

152 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1582340587 ISBN 13: 9781582340586

Publisher: Bloomsbury USA, 1999

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Written in the tradition of the classic American noir of Raymond Chandler and James M. Cain, In Praise of Lies is a brilliantly clever, fiendishly funny crime novel about a woman who raises poisonous snakes and the man who loves her enough to attempt murder....

Jose Guber is in love with a deadly woman. While writing his next crime novel, he is in search of a unique murder weapon, which is how he meets Melissa, a serologist who specializes in venomous snakes. Melissa becomes rather too interested in Jose's dastardly plots--unashamedly plagiarized from the classics: Chesterton, Poe, Dostoevsky, his editor none the wiser--and she especially likes the ones where diabolical women seduce and corrupt weak men. Melissa makes it clear that she would like to adapt one of the plots to dispose of her present husband, enabling Jose and Melissa to be together. But the course of true love and homicide does not always run smoothly, certainly not when the accomplice rattlesnake gets depressed and everything that can go wrong does go hilariously haywire. With sharp wit and impressive agility, Patricia Melo leads the reader into a teasing world of deviousness. Literary puzzles and comic swipes at book publishing trends are added pleasures in what is, above all, a glorious page-turner.

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About the Author:

Patricia Melo is a screenwriter, playwright as well as a novelist. Her last novel, The Killer, won the Prix Deux Oceans in 1996 and the German Deutcher Krimi Preis in 1998. She lives in Sao Paulo, Brazil

From Kirkus Reviews:

Brazilian screenwriter and novelist Melo (The Killer, 1997) shows great ingenuity with suggestion and implicationbut in a somewhat ordinary, noir-ish novel about people who cant be with the ones they love, so they kill the ones theyre with. Jos Guber, a Sao Paulo writer of cheesy mysteries and pulp paperbacks, is looking for something to enliven his plot proposals to his greedy, hard-to-please editor. He happens upon a serpentarium, where he meets Melissa, a beautiful scientist deeply fascinated by most things lethalsnake venom in particular. Jos, still struggling with his proposals, falls in love with Melissa, and together they conspire to kill her husband, who she claims regularly beats her. Joss mental states during the planning and execution of the murder are nicely reflected in the book proposals he continues to revise and submit, and husband Ronald is finally dispatched at the business end of Melissas pistol. We rejoin Jos after hes married and separated from Melissa (offstage), and reinvented himself as a writer of self-help books, handbooks on meditation, and, finally, Conversations With the Creator, a bestseller that suggests Joss newfound hubris. This sly joke is one of the novels genuine pleasures, as Melo includes interview transcripts with the newly idolized guru, commenting on his special relationship to God while hes fully aware of his scam. Having become lovers with Ingrid, his former publishers secretary, Jos then learns that Melissa came into a financial windfall after Ronalds death. Ingrids suspicions are suddenly raisedwith fatal consequences. The intrigue may please readers hungry for plot innovations, but the less-than-satisfying conclusion is sure to disappoint. -- Copyright �1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

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