{"product_id":"blood-of-the-wicked-isbn-9781616951801","title":"Blood of the Wicked","description":"\u003cb\u003eThe first book in Leighton Gage’s critically acclaimed police procedural series set in Brazil, now available in paperback at the special introductory price of $9.99\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Chief Inspector Mario Silva of Brazil’s Federal Police is a good cop in a bad system—Brazil's justice system is rife with corruption, and constantly a beat behind criminal elements. But Silva and his team of colorful sidekicks—baby-faced Gonçalves, who is irresistible to lady witnesses; chubby, crass Nuñes; Mara Carta, the chief of intelligence with a soft spot for Mario—crack their difficult and sometimes ugly cases with pizazz.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e In the interior of Brazil, landless workers battle the owners of vast \u003ci\u003efazendas\u003c\/i\u003e. When a visiting archbishop is assassinated, Mario Silva is called upon to investigate. Then a newspaper owner, a TV journalist, a landowner's son, and a priest are brutally killed. In a country where dead street kids are known as \"hams,\" justice is scarce.\u003cu\u003e\u003cb\u003ePraise for \u003ci\u003eBlood of the Wicked\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/u\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"A Brazilian Federal cop in a country where there is no FBI or Secret Service, Silva and his men must do it all. Leighton Gage’s crime novels transport you to São Paulo, Manuas, and Brasilia.\"\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e—Yahoo! Travel, from \"5 Must-Read Books that Define Brazil\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"\u003ci\u003eBlood of the Wicked\u003c\/i\u003e manages to pack a huge amount into a spare  three hundred pages; power politics, petty violence, sexual scandal,  saintly courage, staggering poverty and obscene wealth. A book that  makes you care about its large cast of characters, even when you know  that they are going to die—frequently horribly. This is a novel as rich  and complex as Brazil itself, with villains who make you want to spit,  and heroes whose goodness is heartbreaking.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Rebecca Pawel, Edgar  Award-winning author of \u003ci\u003eDeath of a Nationalist\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\"Gage creates a contemporary tapestry of Brazil . . . Gage’s debut builds a compelling foundation for future Silva cases.\"\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eKirkus Reviews\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cu\u003e\u003cb\u003ePraise for Leighton Gage's Mario Silva series\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/u\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e \"Top notch . . . controversial and entirely absorbing.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eThe New York Times Book Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e \"A dark, violent book with characters that seethe on the page . . . compelling writing. Readers will smell the steam and stench of the Amazon and recoil from the torture and depredation from which Gage averts his lens, barely in\u003cbr\u003e time.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eBoston Globe\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLeighton Gage is the author of five novels in the Mario Silva series: \u003ci\u003eBlood of the Wicked, Buried Strangers, Dying Gasp, Every Bitter Thing, \u003c\/i\u003eand\u003ci\u003e A Vine in the Blood\u003c\/i\u003e. He spends part of each year in Santana do Parnaiba, Brazil, and divides the rest of the year between Florida and the Netherlands. He is married with four daughters.\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eChapter One\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e SOMETHING TOOK THE HELICOPTER and shook it like\u003cbr\u003e a jackal worrying a carcass. The bishop gripped the aluminum\u003cbr\u003e supports on either side of his seat and hung on for dear life.\u003cbr\u003e   “Clear air turbulence,” the pilot observed laconically, and\u003cbr\u003e resumed chewing his gum.\u003cbr\u003e   “\u003ci\u003eMerda!\u003c\/i\u003e” the bishop muttered. He regretted the vulgarity\u003cbr\u003e as soon as he’d said it.\u003cbr\u003e   “What’s that, Your Excellency?”\u003cbr\u003e   The bishop’s eyes darted to his right. In his fear and discomfort,\u003cbr\u003e he’d forgotten the microphones, forgotten the\u003cbr\u003e headphones, forgotten that the man could hear every word\u003cbr\u003e he said.\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e   And what if he had? Was it not true? Was the helicopter not a\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003emerda, a great stinking, steaming merda? And who was the pilot,\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eanyway? What had \u003c\/i\u003ehe \u003ci\u003eever done in his blessed life other than to\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003elearn how to fly the merda? How dare he criticize a man who might,\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eGod willing, be a future prince of the Church?\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e   The pilot, whose name was Julio, and who wasn’t criticizing\u003cbr\u003e anyone, had been distracted by a flock of vultures wheeling\u003cbr\u003e in graceful curves over the approaching river. He honestly\u003cbr\u003e hadn’t heard what the bishop had said. He opened his mouth\u003cbr\u003e to repeat the question, then shut it again when he saw the\u003cbr\u003e cleric’s mouth set into a thin line.\u003cbr\u003e   Julio had a paunch, sweat stains under the arms of his\u003cbr\u003e khaki shirt, and a habit of chewing gum with his mouth open,\u003cbr\u003e all of which Dom Felipe Antunes, the Bishop of Presidente\u003cbr\u003e Vargas, found distasteful. But it was nothing in comparison\u003cbr\u003e to Dom Felipe’s distaste for the helicopter.\u003cbr\u003e   The bishop glanced at his watch, wiped his sweaty palms\u003cbr\u003e on his silk cassock, and resumed a death grip on the aluminum\u003cbr\u003e supports.\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e   Forty-seven blessed minutes in the air. Forty-seven minutes.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e   “It won’t be long now, Your Excellency.”\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e   Was that amusement in the man’s voice? Was he enjoying himself?\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e   Did he think fear was funny?\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e   On the floor beneath Dom Felipe’s feet there was a thin (he\u003cbr\u003e was sure it was thin) window of Plexiglas. He tried to avoid\u003cbr\u003e looking down, but some perverse instinct kept drawing his\u003cbr\u003e eyes back to that dreadful hole in the floor. They were over the\u003cbr\u003e river now, sand bars protruding through chocolate-colored\u003cbr\u003e foam. The sand looked as hard as the rock-strewn banks.\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e   Do helicopters float?\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e   A rowboat drifted in mid-river, two fishermen aboard, a\u003cbr\u003e huge net piled high between them. They looked up at him,\u003cbr\u003e shielding their eyes against the morning sun. One waved.\u003cbr\u003e Reflexively, Dom Felipe waved back. Then a flash, like\u003cbr\u003e the strobe on a camera, caused him to snap his head upward\u003cbr\u003e and seek the source of the light.\u003cbr\u003e   Far ahead of him, beyond the bug-flecked windshield, the\u003cbr\u003e flash came again. He squinted and . . . yes, there it was.\u003cbr\u003e Sunlight of an almost blinding intensity reflected off an\u003cbr\u003e expanse of glass. It couldn’t be anything other than the\u003cbr\u003e Great Window. And that meant that the brand-new church\u003cbr\u003e of Nossa Senhora dos Milagres was in sight.\u003cbr\u003e   The window was almost five meters in diameter and had\u003cbr\u003e come all the way from the Venetian island of Murano at a\u003cbr\u003e cost of almost 200,000 reais, not including the shipping,\u003cbr\u003e which, together with the insurance, had amounted to\u003cbr\u003e R$30,000 more. When the sun hit it just right—as it was\u003cbr\u003e doing now—the window would cast rays of glorious blue\u003cbr\u003e light all along the nave of the new church.\u003cbr\u003e   Dom Felipe made a conscious effort to hold that image,\u003cbr\u003e focusing on the blue light, as if it were a meditation. But\u003cbr\u003e then the pitch of the engine changed, dragging him back\u003cbr\u003e into his dreadful reality.\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e   The Lord is my shepherd. . . .\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e   A landing spot had been marked out: a Christian cross in\u003cbr\u003e stones the size of golf balls, and just as white. A rectangle of\u003cbr\u003e sere grass surrounded it, hemmed by dusty palm trees. Yellow\u003cbr\u003e plastic tape ran from tree to tree, holding back the crowd.\u003cbr\u003e   Men in the gray uniforms of the State Police were stationed\u003cbr\u003e at intervals along the length of the tape, their backs to the\u003cbr\u003e cross, keeping the landing area clear.\u003cbr\u003e   The crowd started moving like a living thing. Signs of\u003cbr\u003e welcome were raised. Others, already aloft, were turned to\u003cbr\u003e face the approaching helicopter. White and brown faces\u003cbr\u003e looked upward. And there were banners, too.\u003cbr\u003e   Dom Felipe bit his lip in vexation. The banners were red,\u003cbr\u003e blood red, the unmistakable standards of the Landless Workers’\u003cbr\u003e League. The league seldom missed an opportunity—no matter\u003cbr\u003e how inappropriate—to turn a gathering into a political\u003cbr\u003e event. The bishop knew that. Still, he’d been hopeful that,\u003cbr\u003e in this case, the consecration of the new church . . .\u003cbr\u003e There was the slightest of jolts as the helicopter’s skids\u003cbr\u003e met the grass.\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e   It’s over! Hail Mary, full of grace. . . . Never again.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e   Julio pulled a lever and threw a switch. The engine died.\u003cbr\u003e Above the swish of air from the still-spinning rotor blades\u003cbr\u003e Dom Felipe could hear, for the first time, the cheers of the\u003cbr\u003e crowd. He took off his headset, handed it to the pilot, and\u003cbr\u003e raised his right hand in benediction.\u003cbr\u003e   Insolently, the red banners waved back at him.\u003cbr\u003e   Dom Felipe suppressed an uncharitable thought and bent\u003cbr\u003e over to retrieve his miter, untangling the lappets before placing\u003cbr\u003e it on his head. Then he composed his features into a\u003cbr\u003e beatific smile and waited for the pilot to open his door.\u003cbr\u003e   Julio, unaccustomed to ferrying bishops, finally seemed to\u003cbr\u003e realize what was expected of him. He removed his headset,\u003cbr\u003e skirted the nose of the aircraft, and reached Dom Felipe’s\u003cbr\u003e side just as the bishop opened the door himself.\u003cbr\u003e   Dom Felipe waved off the pilot’s offered hand, put his feet\u003cbr\u003e on solid ground, and started searching the crowd for the face\u003cbr\u003e of his secretary, Father Francisco, the man who’d hatched\u003cbr\u003e the helicopter plot.\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e   If Francisco thinks I’m going back to Presidente Vargas the\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003esame way he got me here, he’s got another think coming. I’ll\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003ereturn by car, he’ll have to find one, and it had better be one with\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eair-conditioning.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e   Francisco was nowhere in sight, but Gaspar Farias was.\u003cbr\u003e Dom Felipe could clearly see his corpulent body, wrapped in\u003cbr\u003e a black cassock, standing in the shadow of the vestibule.\u003cbr\u003e   Involuntarily, the bishop scowled.\u003cbr\u003e   A choir of adolescents dressed in identical cotton robes\u003cbr\u003e was standing against the tape, a rectangle of blue in the multicolored\u003cbr\u003e collage that made up the crowd. The children were\u003cbr\u003e close enough to read the bishop’s scowl and seemed to be\u003cbr\u003e puzzled by it.\u003cbr\u003e   With the skill born of practice, Dom Felipe forced a smile\u003cbr\u003e onto his lips. The youngsters’ puzzlement vanished, replaced\u003cbr\u003e by beams of welcome. A woman in an identical robe, her back\u003cbr\u003e to the bishop, her face toward her charges, started to wave her\u003cbr\u003e arms and the children broke into song, their young voices\u003cbr\u003e murdering the English words, “Why do the nations . . .”\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e   Handel? A Protestant? Who in the world chose that?\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e   Dom Felipe raised his hand in another benediction and\u003cbr\u003e silently mouthed words of thanks, conserving his voice for\u003cbr\u003e the sermon and for the all-important interviews that were\u003cbr\u003e sure to follow.\u003cbr\u003e   It was the dry season and, to make it worse, a great deal of\u003cbr\u003e construction was going on. From the air, the city of Cascatas\u003cbr\u003e do Pontal had seemed to be covered by a dome of red dust.\u003cbr\u003e He could feel some of that dust right now, abrading his neck\u003cbr\u003e where it met his collar, coating his lips, working its way into\u003cbr\u003e his throat. He’d need a carafe of water on the pulpit.\u003cbr\u003e   Francisco could take care of that. Not Gaspar. Dom Felipe\u003cbr\u003e didn’t want anything from Gaspar, didn’t even want to talk\u003cbr\u003e to him.\u003cbr\u003e   The bishop shifted his body to face another sector of the\u003cbr\u003e crowd and raised his arm. His silk sleeve slid downward, just\u003cbr\u003e enough to expose his watch. A practiced flick of his eyes\u003cbr\u003e confirmed that he wasn’t early. He was a stylish seven minutes\u003cbr\u003e late.\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e   So where is the blessed reception committee?\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e   He didn’t want to stand there looking like a fool, so he\u003cbr\u003e folded his hands under his chin, bowed his head, and offered\u003cbr\u003e a prayer.\u003cbr\u003e   In recognizance of the solemn moment, the singing faded,\u003cbr\u003e and then stopped. The cheering abated. Dom Felipe kept his\u003cbr\u003e head down, and his eyes closed, until he heard the rustle of\u003cbr\u003e people working their way through the crowd. Then he lifted\u003cbr\u003e his head and unclasped his hands. Immediately the cheers\u003cbr\u003e erupted anew, and the singing started all over again, right\u003cbr\u003e from the beginning of the piece.\u003cbr\u003e   One of the policemen grasped a segment of the yellow\u003cbr\u003e crowd tape and held it shoulder high. One by one, the members\u003cbr\u003e of the reception party slipped under it, seven men in all,\u003cbr\u003e and started crossing the empty space toward him.\u003cbr\u003e   Cascatas do Pontal was an agricultural town, an informal\u003cbr\u003e place. The jackets and ties the men were wearing all looked\u003cbr\u003e new. Despite the welcoming smiles they’d plastered on their\u003cbr\u003e faces, the local dignitaries looked uncomfortable. All seven\u003cbr\u003e of them were red-faced and sweating in the heat.\u003cbr\u003e   The bishop took an impulsive step toward them, and then\u003cbr\u003e stopped.\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e   They’ll think it more dignified if I let them come to me\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003cbr\u003e   It was the last decision of Dom Felipe’s life.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWALTER ABENDTHALER snapped off another shot with\u003cbr\u003e the Pentax, advanced the film and reached for the motordriven\u003cbr\u003e Nikon. Some of his contemporaries liked the digital\u003cbr\u003e gear, and all of the kids used it, but not Walter. Walter preferred\u003cbr\u003e film. He was an old-fashioned kind of guy.\u003cbr\u003e   Maybe \u003ci\u003etoo \u003c\/i\u003eold-fashioned; at least that’s what the agency\u003cbr\u003e art directors were telling him these days. A few lines on your\u003cbr\u003e face, a little gray in your hair, and they all thought you were\u003cbr\u003e over the hill.\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e   Scheisse! \u003c\/i\u003eWhy didn’t they concentrate on his portfolio\u003cbr\u003e instead? His pictures clearly demonstrated that he had a better\u003cbr\u003e eye for angles than most of the young punks now getting\u003cbr\u003e into the business. \u003ci\u003eBut did they appreciate that? No, they didn’t.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Instead of focusing on his pictures, art directors had a tendency\u003cbr\u003e to focus on his gray hair.\u003cbr\u003e   Walter would have been willing to bet good money—\u003cbr\u003e something he happened to be short of at the moment, or he\u003cbr\u003e wouldn’t have been in Cascatas at all—that not one of\u003cbr\u003e those overestimated punk kids, not even that \u003ci\u003eScheisskerl\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Chico Ramos, would have had the foresight to do what he’d\u003cbr\u003e done.\u003cbr\u003e   He was on the church steps, almost in the vestibule, just\u003cbr\u003e below Gaspar Farias, the crow that ran the parish. (The\u003cbr\u003e black soutanes priests wore always reminded Walter of crows\u003cbr\u003e so that’s what he called them.) That put Walter seventy-five\u003cbr\u003e meters from the helicopter, maybe even a little more, but\u003cbr\u003e that was the beauty of it, the action of a man who knew his\u003cbr\u003e business. The punk kids always tried to get in close, instead\u003cbr\u003e of letting the lens do it for them. And now, while they were\u003cbr\u003e all down there in the crush elbowing each other out of the\u003cbr\u003e way, Walter had a spot all to himself, high above the heads\u003cbr\u003e of the crowd. There was nothing, nothing at all, between\u003cbr\u003e him and the Chief Crow. He had an unimpeded view.\u003cbr\u003e Exactly as he’d forseen, Walter’s medium-length telephoto,\u003cbr\u003e the 300mm, was the perfect lens for the job. His frame ran\u003cbr\u003e from slightly below the knees to the tip of the bishop’s miter.\u003cbr\u003e   Walter hit and released the shutter button. The Nikon\u003cbr\u003e clicked and whirred.\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e   Ha! Gotcha sneaking a peek at your watch.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e   He’d save that one, maybe blow it up and put it in his portfolio.\u003cbr\u003e   They’d never print it. Then it got boring: His Crowness\u003cbr\u003e bowed his head, concealing his face under his funny hat, and\u003cbr\u003e stood there for a long time doing absolutely nothing.\u003cbr\u003e   Walter didn’t bother to waste any film.\u003cbr\u003e   At last the head came up and the kids started singing again,\u003cbr\u003e their high voices carrying well over the murmur of the crowd.\u003cbr\u003e   Walter knew the music, a passage from the \u003ci\u003eMessiah\u003c\/i\u003e, and\u003cbr\u003e he hummed along, pleased with himself.\u003cbr\u003e   The bishop took a few steps forward and stopped.\u003cbr\u003e   Just to the cleric’s left, Walter had the logotype, the whole\u003cbr\u003e logotype, solidly in the shot. The telephoto altered the perspective,\u003cbr\u003e brought the background closer, made the logo look\u003cbr\u003e even bigger than it was. The client would love it.\u003cbr\u003e   Love it, because Walter’s assignment wasn’t to register the\u003cbr\u003e arrival of the bishop. It was to register the \u003ci\u003elink \u003c\/i\u003ebetween the\u003cbr\u003e Church and Fertilbras, Brazil’s largest manufacturer of fertilizer.\u003cbr\u003e Providing this day’s transportation was a publicrelations\u003cbr\u003e ploy for the company. Running the chopper cost\u003cbr\u003e them 1,800 reais an hour, and they intended to get their\u003cbr\u003e money’s worth by making sure that Walter’s photos, the\u003cbr\u003e ultimate selection of which would be made by Fertilbras’s\u003cbr\u003e chairman himself, appeared in every newspaper in the\u003cbr\u003e state of São Paulo. Or at least in those newspapers where\u003cbr\u003e Fertilbras’s advertising budget gave them leverage with the\u003cbr\u003e editorial staff.\u003cbr\u003e   In one of his sarcastic moments, of which there were\u003cbr\u003e many, Walter, no Catholic, had commented to his wife,\u003cbr\u003e Magda, that there was a similarity between what the\u003cbr\u003e Catholic Church and his client offered to the public. Magda\u003cbr\u003e hadn’t laughed, so he’d had to explain: “The Church peddles\u003cbr\u003e bullshit, another form of fertilizer. Get it?” She still hadn’t\u003cbr\u003e laughed. Magda was from Zurich and had the same sense of\u003cbr\u003e humor as her parents: none at all.\u003cbr\u003e   The Chief Crow had turned out to be as handsome in the\u003cbr\u003e flesh as he was in the photos Walter had seen. Dom Felipe\u003cbr\u003e was still young, well under sixty, but his abundant, carefully\u003cbr\u003e coifed hair was already a snowy white.\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e   Colored, for sure. His eyebrows are still dark.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e   Unfortunately, the 300mm didn’t bring Dom Felipe close\u003cbr\u003e enough to display the blue eyes that women were prone to\u003cbr\u003e gush about. Walter hoped for better luck when the bishop\u003cbr\u003e got his act together and moved toward him.\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e   The guy’s got charisma, I’ll give him that. Looks like he has a\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003epoker up his ass. Stands more like a soldier than a priest.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e   Walter momentarily took the viewfinder away from his\u003cbr\u003e eye and glanced at the film counter.\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e   Six. Thirty shots left on the roll.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e   He switched off the automatic focus and made a minor\u003cbr\u003e adjustment.\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e   Uh-oh.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e   A cloud slipped between Walter’s subjects and the sun.\u003cbr\u003e He had to open up. One, no, two stops. \u003ci\u003eTwo whole stops!\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eScheisse! \u003c\/i\u003eIt was playing hell with his depth of field. If the\u003cbr\u003e bishop moved any further away from the background,\u003cbr\u003e Walter was going to have to choose between staying sharp\u003cbr\u003e on either the man or the logotype. And that was, as the\u003cbr\u003e English put it, Hobson’s choice: no goddamned choice at\u003cbr\u003e all. Unless the sun came back from behind that fucking\u003cbr\u003e cloud, the link he was supposed to capture would be gone,\u003cbr\u003e and he’d have one unhappy client.\u003cbr\u003e   Walter saw blurry movement on the bottom left of his\u003cbr\u003e frame. He lowered the camera to check it out, and then\u003cbr\u003e clapped the viewfinder back to his eye.\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e   The reception committee.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e   He left the focus where it was. The group was getting\u003cbr\u003e sharper and sharper as it approached the bishop. Then one\u003cbr\u003e of them stepped right between Walter and the logotype.\u003cbr\u003e   In a spasm of anger, Walter pressed the shutter.\u003cbr\u003e   A fraction of a second later, a hole appeared in the front\u003cbr\u003e of Dom Felipe’s cassock.\u003cbr\u003e   The shutter stayed open long enough to register both the\u003cbr\u003e entry wound and the red mist that spurted into the air\u003cbr\u003e behind the bishop’s back.\u003cbr\u003e   A less-experienced man, one of those young punks, might\u003cbr\u003e have started looking around to see where the shot had come\u003cbr\u003e from. But not Walter Abendthaler.\u003cbr\u003e   Walter, old pro that he was, kept his finger on the shutter\u003cbr\u003e button. The motor drive kept advancing. The shutter opened\u003cbr\u003e and closed, opened and closed, capturing shot after shot.\u003cbr\u003e In successive frames, the bishop took a step backward,\u003cbr\u003e looked down at his chest, sunk to his knees, and pitched forward\u003cbr\u003e onto the ground. And then, in the very last exposure\u003cbr\u003e before the film ran out, the top of his head seemed to explode.\u003cbr\u003e   The crowd was horrified.\u003cbr\u003e   Walter Abendthaler was ecstatic. He was damned near positive\u003cbr\u003e he’d captured the very moment of the bullet’s impact.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Soho Crime","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46304389202149,"sku":"NP9781616951801","price":9.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781616951801.jpg?v=1767722794","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/blood-of-the-wicked-isbn-9781616951801","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}