Theres a new Brazilian Detective in Town... It started out just like any other morning in Palmyra, a small historic city on the coast of Rio de Janeiro. On his way to work, Police Captain Joaquim Dornelas is taken by surprise by an unusual commotion on the street. In front of Santa Teresa Church and the Old Jailhouse, in the Historical Center, a multitude observes the body of a man stuck in the dry mud of the canal. Nobody knows how the body wound up there. There are no signs of anything having been dragged, no boat tracks, no violence, no injuries, nothing. Only a band-aid on the internal fold of the left arm. Abandoned by his wife and separated from his children, Captain Dornelas, a warm man and great appreciator of cachaça and Farinha Lactea porridge, throws himself heart and soul into the case in search of his own salvation. Out of the blue, the dead mans sister and a powerful councilman appear offering important information about what would become a case of dimensions much greater than Dornelas could ever have imagined. A complex net is revealed involving politics, drug trafficking, prostitution and a community of local fishermen. His sharp intuition, learning and knowledge of the forces that move human nature enable Captain Joaquim Dornelas to move deftly through the tangle of facts and versions the plot presents. What begins as merely another investigation in his career turns into a journey of personal transformation.
Theres a new Brazilian Detective in Town... It started out just like any other morning in Palmyra, a small historic city on the coast of Rio de Janeiro. On his way to work, Police Captain Joaquim Dornelas is taken by surprise by an unusual commotion on the street. In front of Santa Teresa Church and the Old Jailhouse, in the Historical Center, a multitude observes the body of a man stuck in the dry mud of the canal. Nobody knows how the body wound up there. There are no signs of anything having been dragged, no boat tracks, no violence, no injuries, nothing. Only a band-aid on the internal fold of the left arm. Abandoned by his wife and separated from his children, Captain Dornelas, a warm man and great appreciator of cachaça and Farinha Lactea porridge, throws himself heart and soul into the case in search of his own salvation. Out of the blue, the dead mans sister and a powerful councilman appear offering important information about what would become a case of dimensions much greater than Dornelas could ever have imagined. A complex net is revealed involving politics, drug trafficking, prostitution and a community of local fishermen. His sharp intuition, learning and knowledge of the forces that move human nature enable Captain Joaquim Dornelas to move deftly through the tangle of facts and versions the plot presents. What begins as merely another investigation in his career turns into a journey of personal transformation.