Killer     by Patricia Melo, Translated by Clifford E. Landers Original title: O Matador Original language: Portuguese Published by HarperCollins Publishers Pub. Date: 1999 Format: Paperback, 217 pages Dimensions: (in inches): 0.68 x 7.95 x 5.10 ISBN: 0880016086 List Price: $14.00 Not available for ordering Published by Ecco Pub. Date: October 1997 Format: Hardcover, 217 pages Dimensions: 0.75 x 8.75 x 6.00 in. ISBN: 0880015748 List Price: $23.00 Not available for ordering Published by Ecco P Pub. Date: 1997 Format: 217 pages Not available for ordering

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If you have ever wondered whether a terrible toothache could take you as far as murder than Patricia Melo’s novel The Killer will confirm your deepest fears. Set in contemporary São Paulo, The Killer is Brazil’s answer to Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs in its depiction of ice cold, detached killers and in its graphic description of random violence. The novel introduces us to Maiquel, a second hand car sales man, who is drawn into a world of spiralling violence after his first visit to the dentist Dr Carvalho. Maiquel initially scoffs at Carvalho’suggestion to kill in return for free dental treatment but gradually finds that killing comes quite easily to him. In fact, it’s a hell of a lot easier than selling used cars. His first victim is Suel, a local crook. Much to his surprise Maiquel finds that he is treated like a hero when news of Suel’s murder travel around the neighbourhood. And to top it all, Suel’s girlfriend, Erica, decides to move in with Maiquel. So, Maiquel decides that all in all murder is not such a bad business. Soon he sets up a contract killer agency together with the bent cop Santana. Things are going very well until Maiquel makes one fatal mistake...

The Killer paints a harsh picture of contemporary urban life in Brazil as submerged in corruption, hopelessness and violence. It is the middle classes, as represented by smooth Dr Carvalho, who are the instigators of crime. Poor Maiquel, whose increasing wealth leads him to believe that he is now part of the much aspired to middle-class ‘club’, doesn’t understand that he is merely the readily dispensable instrument of Carvalho’s machinations. The latter sees himself as the legislator of local justice by eliminating any possible threat to his comfortable life style. This lynch mob attitude is endorsed by a corrupt police force which applauds the removal of any unwanted criminal element in the neighbourhood. Human lives, as long as they belong to working-class people, are cheap. This is the bitter lesson learned by Maiquel when he kills a young boy who turns out to be the son of a pediatrician. While nobody had previously batted an eyelid, the murder of a middle-class child now provokes a national outcry.

The fact that Patricia Melo works as a screenwriter as well as a novelist comes as no surprise, considering her elliptic sentence structure and her brief, sketchy evocations of location and character. With the detached eye of a camera lens Melo records events without direct commentary, letting the violence speak for itself.

I knew that Robinson had died by mistake. Selective killings. Messages, like in Bolivia. Colombia. Venezuela. I was the target. They wanted to kill me because I killed Suel. The wager. My blond hair. Suel turned his back on me and jived off down the street, holding hands with his girl. Go ahead and shoot, he said, kill me from behind. I shot the first round. Suel hit the ground, he must have died instantly. Now they want to kill me. They’re going to kill me, I killed Ezequiel. I’m going to tell you something, son. You have lousy teeth. I’m a dentist. I have a problem and you have lousy teeth. We can help one another. You help me, I’ll help you. I’ll fix your teeth for free and you’ll do something for me. Agreed? Ezequiel turned around and saw me. I pulled out the gun, took aim, and bang. I missed with the first shot. Bang. I missed a second time. The third one caught him in the thigh, the fourth one in the chest. He fell, I missed with two more shots, Ezequiel was still alive, I yanked a piece of wood from a fence around a tree and threw myself on him. I hit him in the head, hammered at him, hammered, put out his eyes. I rammed the wooden spike into the rapists’ heart, I’d seen this on television, Ezequiel vomited blood and died. I killed Suel. 93