The Body Snatcher
Patricia Melo
Translated by Clifford E. Landers
The novel is set in the Pantanal,the Brazilian lowlands bordering Bolivia. One bright Sunday on the banks of the Paraguay River, the narrator witnesses the fatal crash of a small ‘plane. He finds a kilo of cocaine in the dead pilot's backpack which he pockets . Thus begins a long slide into corruption. When the crash site is located several days later, the pilot's body is missing. Our hero gets involved in a busted cocaine deal and ends up owing a Bolivian drug gang so much money that blackmailing the wealthy family of the dead pilot seems to be the only way out. The family secretly agrees to pay serious money to recover the body of their son. Our hero doesn't have the pilot's body so someone else's will do. Or so he thinks.