A Vine in the Blood

Leighton Gage

ISBN: 9781616950040

Published: December 2011

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Paperback $14.95

Leighton Gage

Brazil

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Description

It is the eve of the FIFA World Cup, the globe’s premier sporting event. The host country is Brazil. A victory for the home team is inextricably linked to the skills of the country’s principal striker, Tico “The Artist” Santos, the greatest player in the history of the sport. All the politicians in Brasilia, from the President of ...

It is the eve of the FIFA World Cup, the globe’s premier sporting event. The host country is Brazil. A victory for the home team is inextricably linked to the skills of the country’s principal striker, Tico “The Artist” Santos, the greatest player in the history of the sport. All the politicians in Brasilia, from the President of the Republic on down, have their seats squared-away for the finale, when they hope to see Argentina, Brazil’s bitterest rival, humbled by the Brazilian eleven. But then, just three weeks before the first game, Juraci Santos, Tico’s mother, is kidnapped. The star is distraught. The public is appalled. The politicians are outraged. And the pressure is on Chief Inspector Mario Silva to get her back.

Suspects aren’t lacking. Among them, are a cabal of Argentineans, suspected of having spirited the lady away to put Tico off his game, the star’s gold-digging, top-model girlfriend, whom his mother dislikes and has been trying to get out of his life, his principal rival, who wants to play in the World Cup in Tico’s place, and the man whose leg Tico broke during a match, thereby destroying his career. In the end, Silva and his crew discover that the solution to the mystery is less complex – but entirely unexpected.

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“The book has clever dialogue, a twisting plot and an adventurous glimpse at the seamy parts of Rio de Janeiro, Brasilia and Sao Paulo. The case takes Silva and his team all over Brazil in an engaging, fast-paced story that is hard to put away for the night.”
—Minneapolis Star-Tribune
“Mr. Gage is a hell of a good craftsman.”
—New York Journal of Books
“Realistic characters that readers can care about. . . . The ultimate story of the haves vs. the have nots.”
—Detroit Free Press
“Gage smoothly expands his focus on the assassination of an ambitious bishop to encompass the controversial and entirely absorbing issue of whether the clergy should involve themselves in the politics of land distribution among the poor.”
—The New York Times Book Review