South America

Buenos Aires, 1970s. Kaddish Poznan chips the names off gravestones for a living, removing traces of disreputable ancestors for their more respectable kin. His wife Lillian works in insurance, earning money when people live longer than they fear. When the government is overthrown in a military coup, their son Pato is arrested by the police and becomes one of the disappeared. Desperate to find him, Kaddish and Lillian turn to the Ministry of Special Cases, a bureaucracy of anguish and false promises, and they discover just how far they are willing to go to save their son...

Crime fiction. São Paolo. Mario Leme is a low-ranking detective in the São Paulo civil police. Every day on the way to work he sets off early and drives through the favela known as Paraisopolis - Paradise City. It's a pilgrimage: his wife Renata was gunned down at an intersection here a year ago, the victim of a stray bullet in a conflict between drug dealers. One morning, parked near the place where Renata died, he sees an SUV careen out of control and flip over. The driver Leo is killed, but before his body is removed, Leme is sure he sees bullet wounds. Leo's death wasn't an accident, he was murdered. Soon, his girlfriend turns up dead too. And if they were killed deliberately, perhaps Renata was too . . .Leme finds himself immersed further and further in the dark underbelly of Brazilian society, as corruption seeps from the highest to the lowest echelons, and the devastating truth about Renata begins to emerge.

Contemporary fiction. Manaus. There were people on the banks of the river. Among the tangled waterways and giant anacondas of the Brazilian Rio Negro, an enigmatic scientist is developing a drug that could alter the lives of women for ever. Dr Annick Swenson's work is shrouded in mystery; she refuses to report on her progress, especially to her investors, whose patience is fast running out. Anders Eckman, a mild-mannered lab researcher, is sent to investigate.  A curt letter reporting his untimely death is all that returns. Now Marina Singh, Anders' colleague and once a student of the mighty Dr Swenson, is their last hope. Compelled by the pleas of Anders's wife, Marina leaves the snowy plains of Minnesota and retraces her friend's steps into the heart of the South American darkness, determined to track down Dr. Swenson and uncover the secrets being jealously guarded among the remotest tribes of the rainforest. What Marina does not yet know is that, in this ancient corner of the jungle, she will face challenges beyond her wildest imagination.

The story of Colonel Percy Harrison Fawcett, one of the last of a legendary breed of British explorers. For years he explored the Amazon and came to believe that its jungle concealed a large, complex civilization, like El Dorado. Obsessed with its discovery, he christened it the City of Z. In 1925, Fawcett headed into the wilderness with his son Jack, vowing to make history. They vanished without a trace. For the next eighty years, hordes of explorers plunged into the jungle, trying to find evidence of Fawcett's party or Z. Some died from disease and starvation; others simply disappeared. In this true tale of obsession, the author retraces the footsteps of Fawcett and his followers as he unravels one of the greatest mysteries of exploration.

From the moment of her birth in 1920, Violeta's hundred-year life is marked by a series of extraordinary events both in her life and in the country she loves. Told in a letter, to someone she loves fiercely, this the story of passionate affairs and heartbreak, poverty and wealth, terrible loss and immense joy.

True Story. Uruguay/Chile. Lost. 1972. A plane has crashed in the Andes mountains. The passengers are hopelessly lost in one of the most isolated places on earth. Abandoned. Almost three months later, two of the survivors, emaciated and frozen, reach the authorities and lead a rescue team to the remaining fourteen passengers. Alive. The rescue team are shocked when they reach the crash-site. Food supplies have long gone, and the remains of the dead lie scattered among the fuselage.  It is only too clear how these passengers have managed to stay alive ...