Hotel Brasil: The Mystery of the Severed Heads

Set in a dilapidated Rio de Janeiro hotel, Betto’s first novel reads like a satire of an English country house mystery, as interpreted by Pedro Almódovar. When the head of one of the hotel residents, an aging gemstone trader, turns up in a hallway with both eyes removed, the police summon bookish Cândido, who devotes much of his spare time to helping Rio’s orphaned street kids, for interrogation. Other suspects at the hotel include Diamante Negro, a flamboyant, cross-dressing transformista; Madame Larência, a retired prostitute turned pimp; and Rosaura dos Santos, who dreams of becoming a telenovela star. Betto, a liberation theologian and former political prisoner, provides the backstories for each of these characters and more, at times at the expense of narrative pace. Of course, the crime solving matters less than the book’s revealing look at the marginalized underbelly of Brazilian society. (Mar.)