Leighton Gage came to Brazil in 1973, left a few years later for Australia and the Middle East, but could not stay away.
When he came back two years later, he “ran smack dab into all of the bad things that I’d pushed into the back of my mind: the crime; the obscene wealth; the staggering poverty. I couldn’t take it. I went to live in Miami for a time. And found myself missing Brazil all over again. Now, a quarter of a century on, I’ve come to the conclusion that I don’t have to live here all the time, but I do have to live here some of the time. I get homesick when I’m away for too long.”
Gage’s first novel, Blood of the Wicked, published by Soho Crime, was one result of his exposure to the uglier side of the country. In Part I of a two-part interview, he talks to Detectives Beyond Borders about that book, its follow-up, and the vast, beautiful and violent land that inspired them. Part One. Part Two.