Leighton Gage's Legacy Novel: The Ways of Evil Men

I am doing something I ordinarily would never do.  Posting a piece here that I have already posted on another blog.  When you read this, you will understand why.  Leighton Gage was a very dear friend, an extraordinarily generous colleague, and a truly splendid writer.  His last work (words it pains me to write) launched yesterday.  His friends are doing everything we can to promote it.  The Ways of Evil Men is about the plight of Brazilian indians who are mysteriously dying.  Leighton's stories all bring out injustices in modern-day Brazil, but without ever preaching or distracting the reader from a suspenseful story.  You will love his work.  Buy his book.  And please help us spread the word by sharing this post.  Thank you for your help.  Leighton deserves it.

Annamaria Alfieri 

There are cultures where the people believe that when a person dies, his soul becomes a star in the sky.  I was tempted to say “primitive cultures,” but I thought better of it.  “Primitive” in such a context sounds almost pejorative.  But of all the things I have heard or been taught about what happens to a soul after the person dies, imagining it turning into a star is the loveliest, the most comforting, the most inspiring.

This past year we lost our beloved Leighton, but he left behind a book that arrives tomorrow.  And it comes with a star.

I am sure the book will earn many stars from readers, but the one I have in mind is the one The Ways of Evil Men earned from Publisher’s Weekly.  Their starred review, a prize not given lightly, said: "The late Gage (1942–2013) weaves an engaging plot and psychologically complex characters together with a sharp-edged social commentary on the Brazilian class system; his voice will be greatly missed in the crime fiction community."

The publisher’s description of the story is pure Leighton:

“Thirty-nine natives have recently dropped dead of mysterious causes. Given the tense relationship between the Awana tribe and the white townsfolk nearby, Jade Calmon, Pará's sole government-sponsored advocate for the native population, immediately suspects foul play and takes the two remaining Awana—a father and his eight-year-old son—into her custody. But when the father is discovered holding a bloody machete next to the body of a village big-shot, just before Silva's arrival, the plot thickens. Why would a peaceful man who doesn't believe in alcohol turn into a drunken killer.”

This coming June and July, the world’s eyes will be on Brazil when the World Cup competition takes place there.  Between now and then, what I hope for is that Leighton’s legacy book will be widely read and that the star of his talent will shine even more brightly than ever before.

Leighton Gage, a Personal Remembrance

At Bouchercon in Indianapolis in 2009, Leighton Gage moderated a panel called Murder at the Edge of the Map. The other writers on the dais included Yrsa and Stan. Since my first novel, out just a month, was set not only far away, but long ago, I was anxious to hear what other, more experienced writers had to say on the subject of stories set in exotic locations. The meeting room was packed with people.

Leighton showed the audience a bracelet he wore, made by a Brazilian Indians, that was a charm to boost one’s creativity. I remember wishing I had such a thing, but I was too shy to introduce myself to Leighton, much less ask him where I could get one. Had I been more courageous, I have no doubt he would have sent me one, if not taken his off and given it to me on the spot. That was the kind of man he was: generous, giving, helpful, encouraging. But I did not know that yet.

Several months later, out of the blue, an email from Leighton arrived in my inbox. He had searched me out to tell me that he had read City of Silver as part of his service on the Edgar Awards jury for best first novel. He had been disappointed that the book had not garnered a nomination, and he was talking it up on internet chat rooms because he knew how difficult it is to get a good book noticed. He invited me to Murder is Everywhere to do a guest post. He stayed in touch, always encouraging, open, warm, and charming.

Then, one day, we found we would both be in Italy at the same time. He came with his friend Jes to visit me in Florence. We had two days to eat good food, drink good wine, and talk writing, books, the biz, life. In those days, Leighton learned of my husband’s Alzheimer’s disease. One of the things I confessed to him was that my weekends were lonely, when I was caring for David on my own and when the love of my life could no longer be a companion. After that, on Fridays Leighton would write me an email posing a subject for discussion, usually one having to do with writing fiction. Then, through the weekend, he would keep me company in long written conversations.

In the past few days, with comments here on Murder is Everywhere and on Facebook, it has become clear how many people Leighton befriended in just such ways. It’s impossible to fathom how he had the time to do all that while being a loving husband and father AND writing such wonderful books—one every year.

The people Leighton gathered around him are themselves a warm, welcoming, affectionate bunch. They are generous and bring out the best in one another. They are different from Leighton and from each other in many ways, but not in all the virtues one would desire in a colleague and friend. He brought out in others what was wonderful in himself. It seems a magic trick, but he performed it. Then he gave us one another.

My gratitude and love and admiration are Leighton’s forever.

Annamaria Alfieri

The Royal Victoria

Today's guest is Leighton Gage, in a reposting of an article from Murder is Everywhere. Author of the acclaimed Chief Inspector Mario Silva series, set in Brazil, he has lived in Australia, Europe, and South America and traveled widely in Asia and Africa. He visited Spain in the time of Franco, Portugal in the time of Salazar, South Africa in the time of apartheid, Chile in the time of Pinochet, Argentina in the time of the junta, Prague, East Germany, and Yugoslavia under the Communist yoke. He and his wife spend much of the year in a small town near São Paulo,and the rest in Europe and the United States, where they have children and grandchildren.

---

The country I live in is a naturalist’s dream, a place where more than 1,200 new species of plant and vertebrate have been discovered over the course of the last ten years. That’s, roughly, one every three days. The Amazon region alone consists of over 600 distinct terrestrial and freshwater habitats, from swamps to grasslands to lowland forests, and it houses an incredible 10% of the world’s known species.

The Victória Régia, the Royal Victoria, is one of them. Its round leaves can attain a diameter of up to 2.5 meters (almost 100 inches), making it the largest water lily in the world.

And those leaves, while floating, can support up to 40 kilograms (almost 90 pounds) of weight.

The fragrant flowers open only at night. The petals, when they bloom, are white, often a slight pink...

...but turn darker as they age.

The plant was first brought to Europe by a German naturalist and explorer by the name of Robert Hermann Schumburgk. (And, no, that’s not a typographical error. That’s actually the way he spelled it. Schumburgk.)

Herr Schumburgk, while poking around South America in the mid 1830’s, came across the plant and brought it back to the Royal Gardens, where he named it after the reigning queen.

Her Majesty (shown here much later in life, but I liked the picture) was amused. She awarded him a knighthood.

The Indians of the Amazon, of course, had another name for their biggest water lily. That name translates (from Tupi-Guarani into English) as “the star of the waters” – and they tell a legend about how the name came about:

Back in the days when the world began, the moon, as dawn approached, would sink beyond the hills, there to consort with one of his chosen maidens.

And, if he truly liked the girl, he’d transform her into a star in the sky.

Naiá, the daughter of a chief, and a princess of the tribe, yearned to be chosen. So, each night, when her parents were asleep, she’d climb into the hills and follow the moon. But he never paid any attention to her. Then, one night, she saw his image in the clear waters of a lake. Thinking he’d come to visit her at last, she plunged in – and was never seen again.

The moon was touched. To repay her for her sacrifice, he transformed her into a star different from the stars in the sky. He made her the “star of the waters”. And so was born the plant with flowers that only open at sunset, when the moon rises to dominate the sky.


Leighton Gage

A Vine in the Blood, Leighton Gage's Latest

Today, I have invited my friend and splendid writer Leighton Gage to drop by and tell us about his latest, A Vine in the Blood, which launched last week in the United States and Canada. Leighton lives in a small town in Brazil and writes fascinating police procedurals set in that country. I already have my copy. Once you’ve read the reviews, you’ll want one, too!

Annamaria Alfieri

---

A Vine in the Blood, the fifth in the Chief Inspector Mario Silva series, is set against the background of the soccer World Cup.

But you don’t have to like the sport to enjoy the book.

Glenn Harper, writing in International Noir Fiction, put it best:

I'm not a fan of football/soccer, and the (subject matter) gave me a little pause – but I needn't have worried. The book is in part about the social phenomenon of football, but not really about the game.

A Vine in the Blood begins with the kidnapping of Juraci Santos, the mother of Tico Santos, Brazil’s greatest striker. And the timing of her abduction couldn’t be worse: only days remain before the beginning of the tournament.

Tico is distraught, and completely off his game. If Silva and his team can’t recover the lady in time, the team may have to play without him.

And that would put them in grave danger of suffering a humiliating defeat by their greatest rival.

Suspects abound, and they run the gamut from Tico’s gold-digging girlfriend, to his team’s manager, to a big-time gangster, to a cabal of Argentineans.

There are twists and turns, there’s not a little humor, and I think you’re going to like it.

But I’m not good at blowing my own horn.

Fortunately, a few folks have already stepped-up to speak on my behalf:

Gage knows Brazil well and has a cast of characters so amusing and so skillfully constructed that this novel is irresistible. — Toronto Globe and Mail.

Coincidence, that. The Globe and Mail used exactly the same word (irresistible) that the New York Times used to describe Every Bitter Thing, my last book.

The trade press was also very complimentary:

Rising above Brazilian brutality, corruption, and bribery with uncommon wit and the help of his colorful, appealing colleagues, (Silva) scores a winning goal in an enormously complex kidnap payoff scheme. — Publisher’s Weekly (starred review)

And Dana King, writing in the New Mystery Reader, had this to say:

Let’s take a moment to celebrate excellence…(“A Vine in the Blood” is) a great story, well told.

Dana’s review is a brilliant piece of writing, from a guy who knows the mystery genre inside out. If you have a moment, I suggest you go there and read what he had to say in its entirety:

http://www.newmysteryreader.com/November_and_December_Hardcover_Mystery.htm#vine in the blood

At the end, you’ll find a link to an interview he did with me.

Another fine piece of journalism is the lengthy, well-written and well-researched review James Thompson published in the New York Journal of Books:

http://www.nyjournalofbooks.com/review/vine-blood

Here’s an extract:

Mr. Gage is a master of the procedural who paints with a fine brush, using the tools he needs to craft a fine novel — and no more.

Want to sample the book? You can do so on the book’s Barnes and Noble page, where they’ve included an entire first chapter:

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/a-vine-in-the-blood-gage-leighton/1103377816?ean=9781616950040&itm=5&usri=leighton%252bgage
(Scroll down and click on “Read More”.)

Finally, for those of you who are into first lines, here it is:

Less than an hour after Juraci Santos was unceremoniously dumped into the back seat of her kidnappers’ getaway car, Luca Vaz crept through her front gate and poisoned her bougainvilleas.

Thanks, Annamaria, for inviting me.

Love this blog!

Leighton Gage

Talking Murder in Florence

Leighton Gage and Annamaria 

This past weekend, we got a wonderful visit from the gifted mystery novelist and generous crime-writing colleague, Leighton Gage. Leighton is literally an international man of mystery. (Yes, I know, I should find a more original way to say so, but I cannot resist my only opportunity to write this sentence and mean it.) Having lived in several countries and visited many more, Leighton now lives in and writes about Brazil. You can read about him and his fascinating books at www.leightongage.com.

We talked murder at the dinner table, walking in the piazza, and sitting on the terrace. We also covered a lot of South American history and territory of which he has an encyclopedic knowledge.

On Saturday, we witnessed a parade that seemed to be the investiture of a new group of rookies for the Polizia Municipale di Firenze. It included a Renaissance Band in costume, lots of flags, and handsome modern day citizens portraying Dante and Beatrice and Savonarola (presumably at some point in his life between the Bonfire of the Vanities and point where he himself was burned at the stake in the Piazza Della Signoria).

The newly-minted cops looked great in their full dress uniforms. I dare any other municipality to show us a chicer police force.

This got me to thinking about effect all this pomp and circumstance might have on the success of law enforcement. In New York, after all, our young police officers, as far as I know, get what amounts to a High School graduation ceremony with uniforms. If they are lucky, they hear a speech by the mayor and have an opportunity to get their picture taken with their mother. To my knowledge, a guy wearing red and white stockings and carrying sword has never attended.

So what of the crime rate in these parts? A brief Google search produced the following paragraphs from Wikipedia:

“At 0.013 per 1,000 people, Italy has the 47th highest murder rate in the world. This makes the murder rate in Italy less than 1/3 that of the United States. Italy is also safer than Finland, France, Iceland, Australia, Canada and the U.K. and only marginally less safe than Spain, Germany and Holland.

Italy is also a country with lower rates of rape than most other nations of the Western world. It has the 46th highest per-capita rate of rape in the world meaning that Italian women are 7 times safer than American women. Similarly, Italy has a lower per capita rate of rape than most of the advanced Western countries in the European Union.”

Do you think this gift of safety for the Italian people has anything to do with the ghost of Savonarola showing up when the municipal police recruits receive their badges?

Annamaria Alfieri

PS: I scanned the crowd at the parade and saw no trace of Hannibal Lecter. Perhaps he was off somewhere having lunch.