The Spies

Description

A frustrated publisher receives a mysterious angst-ridden manuscript: 'a friend' must send it in installments; its contents would put the author in danger. As he pieces together the story, he learns that the author is the wife of one of the two Martelli brothers - gangsters who dominate a small town in the Brazilian interior. Surely her dark outpourings are a cry for help? One by one, he dispatches his motley collection of friends to Frondosa - a town totally obsessed with five-a-side football - to investigate and to bring her to safety.

Luis Fernando Verissimo is a satirist, cartoonist, translator, television writer, saxophonist, playwright and novelist. With over sixty published titles, he is one of the most popular of contemporary Brazilian writers.

'An unsual elegance and lightness of touch, as well as a lingering underlying melancholy. It's nicely written too - the translation is as smooth as silk' Andrew Taylor, Spectator. * Spectator * 'At barely 200 pages, and with a note-perfect translation from the Portuguese by Margaret Jull Costa, The Spies shares with a cryptic crossword the virtue of succinctness, not a word or scene wasted' Hannah Rosefield, Observer. * Observer *