Book Review: If I Close my Eyes Now by Edney Silvestre

 

If I Close My Eyes Now

by

Edney Silvestre

 

This book was given to me by Waterstones to read and review on their website www.waterstones.com so a big thank you to them for letting me do this.

 

Brazil, April 1961. Two 12 year old boys are playing by a lake and discover a murdered women's body. It's the dentist's wife and the dentist has confessed to the murder. The two boys along with an man from an elderly home find this confession very odd and start to investigate by themselves. Along the way they come across lies, corruption and dark secrets. Who really did kill the dentist's wife?

 

This is Edney Silvestre debut novel and was originally written in Portuguese. I found this book fun to read. Once I got used to the fact that it was a murder mystery being solved by two 12 year old boys and an elderly man. Someone asked me what it was like after I had read a 1/4 of this book. I tried to think of a best way to describe it and came up with "it's a cross between Miss Marple & Jessica Fletcher but set in the sixties in Brazil" The look I got was very strange but I tried to convince them that this is a good thing.

 

The story had a slow beginning in my opinion but after a while it started to pick up. The way it was written was clever and after each chapter you stopped to have a think. Could it be him? Could it be her? What is he hiding? just a few questions I kept asking myself.

 

The characters were very believable and gave you a good insight to what life was like in Brazil 1961. Maybe some of Edney Silvestre real life experiences were written in the characters. Ubiratan (Miss Marple) the elderly man was one of my favourites. A man hiding a lot of dark secrets himself leads the boys on a hunt for the real killer, sometimes putting his own life on the line. Other characters included a factory owner, a Madame and of course a corrupt mayor.

 

As the story started to come to an end, the twists and turns became more frequent and kept you on the edge of your seat. It was one of those stories that you just had to finish. The ending was really cool in a mysterious kind of way.

 

I scored this book a 4 out of 5. I was really pleased that this book was chosen for me by Waterstones as I would probably have not read this otherwise. Would I read another Edney Silvestre novel? Yes I would. Like I said earlier this was a fun book to read and it was nice to read a book set in a different location to either the UK, mainstream Europe or the USA.

 

I would like to know what other people think about this book if you have read this? Do you agree with me or not? Let me know.

 

Speak Soon

 

CBailey31