The Alley

In his fourth book, The Alley, the author João Calazans Filho tells humorous story, flavored with local habits. It’s about a serial killer from the South of Bahia, Brazil, and of the bohemian, player and womanizer Police chief officer, who makes his mission to capture him.

At the beginning of the Military Dictatorship and in the midst of the violent reality of cacao cultivation and of the Brazilian coronelism, where killing is just another tool of work, and fear is the best way to lead, the Police Chief Officer João tries to put a stop, no matter how hard it takes, to the action of a serial killer, because the officer wants to maintain the impression of peace in the city, so that he can do what he likes: get into debt by organizing carnival blocks, drinking, playing and surrounding women and friends in his casino in the legendary Beco do Pinga.

Beco do Pinga, by the way, figures almost like a character in this thriller. While the landowners live on their farms in the city, away from their workers and having European customs (and spending). At Beco do Pinga, inside Camacan, these same workers spend their little and hard-earned money on the pleasures of addiction, and try not to mess with the wrong woman, at the risk of waking up 'full of lead'. The Alley is the soul, albeit a little poorly washed, of this small town.

With remarkable and charming characters and an engaging storyline, The Alley carries us through an adventure in the "Brazilian Western" where the law that preponderates is the one of the ‘strongest’ whereas the moral is relative, until this quiet Sodom is interrupted by murders different from usual ones, without reason nor apparent objective.