The Publisher’s blurb reads: ‘When the son of Venezuela’s Foreign Minister is found dead in his apartment in Brasilia, Mario Silva is called to investigate due to the political nature of the crime. He soon discovers that a chain of killings have occurred throughout Brazil, all with the same “modus operandi”: victims are shot first in the stomach, then beaten up to death, and even more puzzling, they were all passengers on TAB flight 8101 from Miami to Sao Paulo.’
Every Bitter Thing is the fourth book in Chief Inspector Mario Silva series by Leighton Gage. I have read before Blood of the Wicked, the first in the series, you can read my blog post HERE. This is what Leighton Gage has to say about his main character:
‘Mario (Silva) is a federal cop. In Brazil, there’s no DEA, no ATF, no Secret Service, no Customs and Immigration Service, no Department of Homeland Security. And most police departments don’t have internal affairs departments. All of those functions, and more, are within the purview of the Brazilian Federal Police. And their mandate is national. So Silva and his colleagues get to travel all over the country and deal with every conceivable kind of crime. That gives me an opportunity to make each one of the books very different. Example: “Blood of the Wicked”, the first in the series, deals with issues like liberation theology, and the land wars, the battles between the haves and have-nots. “Dying Gasp”, the third, deals with the sexual exploitation of minors in Brazil’s northeast, while book four,”A Vine in the Blood”, involves a serial killer and is a more conventional mystery.’ (Taken from a A Visit with Leighton Gage at Mysterious Writers).
I have thoroughly enjoyed this book and I highly recommend it for various reasons. It is very well written and keeps the reader’s attention all along its pages. There is a nice plot twist at the very end when the solution of the case seems to be at a dead end. It is also rich in interesting dialogues which are dotted with small doses of humour and full of criticism. The action is set in different sites of Brazil and it has a great sense of place with abundant information about some peculiar locations. The main character is endearing, all the characters are believable, and the bizarre story is plausible. Last but not least it has some thought-provoking topics. I’m sure I’ll read the rest of the books in the series and although this one in particular can be read independently as far as I know it is better to read in order the previous two, Buried Strangers and Dying Gasp, due to the evolution of some common characters. All in all a very satisfying reading.
I received an ARC copy of this book from the author.
Search inside this book at Amazon.com
The Chief Inspector Mario Silva series: Blood of the Wicked (2008), Buried Strangers (2009), Dying Gasp (2010), Every Bitter Thing (2010), A Vine in the Blood (2011).
Every Bitter Thing has been reviewed by Murder by Type, Reviewing the Evidence, The Drowning Machine, The Big Thrill, International Noir Fiction, Crime Scraps, DJ’S Krimiblog, Lesa’s Books Critiques, Mostly Fiction Book Reviews, amongst others.
9mm: An interview with Leighton Gage
This Week’s Guest Blogger: Author Leighton Gage
Leighton Gage, together with other international writers, blogs at Murder is Everywhere, his blog posts about Brazil are very interesting and educational.
Author: Leighton Gage
Title: Every Bitter Thing
Soho crime, 2010
pages: 282
ISBN: 978-1-56947-845-5
A Crime is Afoot 
>José Ignacio – An excellent review. I like it, too, very much, when the author is able to create an interesting and compelling story, and still bring up larger themes and address them, and you are right; Gage does this well.
>Hi José Ignacio,Thank you, once again, for taking the time and trouble to review one of my books. I'm most appreciative.Might I take this opportunity to mention that I've just put up the first two books in the series on the Kindle store in Western Europe and in most of the rest of the world?They've always been available in North America, but now Amazon, together with its new Kindle store in the UK, is offering authors the opportunity to put up their own books, in those countries where the rights have not already been sold to a publisher – and at a price they stipulate.Readers, in Spain, for example, can now get "Blood of the Wicked" and "Buried Strangers" in their Kindle editions for considerably less than North American readers can.The covers look different (I had to do that for copyright reasons) but what is between the covers is the same. And I will be adding books #3 and #4 in the series at the beginning of January and February respectively.Folks who haven't got a Kindle can convert Kindle files to any other e-book format by using Calibre, a software available for free download on the internet.Or. if they have no e-reader at all they can simply download one of the free Kindle Apps offered on the Amazon pages and read the book on their computers or Iphones.
>good review. I started Blood of the Wicked last night. Good stuff, so far.
>I'm reading Dying Gasp now, then I'll have to wait for the further cases of Chief Inspector Silva.
>A fine review of a good book.