Inspector Espinosa, aptly named for the eponymous philosopher and author of Ethics, is chief of the Copacabana precinct in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in a series of eight novels by Luiz Alfred Garcia-Roza, a professor of philosophy and psychology who retired after the success of the first novel. Seven of the novels are available in English. Plots in the series are always complex and convoluted and resolutions often unexpected.
Unlike most of his colleagues, Espinosa is an honest, ethical police officer, He is more a man of thought than of action, wandering the streets of Rio, sometimes aimlessly, lost in thought, daydreaming, or imagining possible scenarios related to a crime—scenarios that are often inaccurate. He lives in the apartment inherited from his parents, the same apartment and neighborhood where he grew up. Somewhere in his past, he has an ex-wife and a child, now living in the United States. His frozen dinners suggest a routine bachelor’s life, but his living bookshelf—books placed vertically, then horizontally, and again vertically to create shelves without shelving—are one indication of his deviation from generic detectives. Epinosa’s investigations invariably delve deep into the psychology of other characters as well as his own, all set amid the “cidade maravilhosa” or marvelous city of Rio de Janeiro.
About the presenterLinda Ledford-Miller
Linda Ledford-Miller has degrees in Luso-Brazilian literature and Comparative Literature from the University of Texas, Austin, specializing in Literature of the Americas. She has published widely on travel writing and women writers. An avid reader of mysteries, she has shifted focus to crime fiction, recently publishing on the American J.D. Robb and the Canadian Louise Penny.