The Killer follows the incandescently gory trial of Maiqeul, a casual hood in a poor part of Sao Paulo as he escalates to the protected glory of full-blooded organised crime. It starts with an innocent hairdying scene, followed by sex and a murder, as chillingly incidental as the opening to Camus' L'Etranger. Melo enters the naive, brutal and oddly sympathetic mind of the killer with a poetic stream of consciousness that grips you till the relentless end. There is a quiet gentleness reminiscent of Banana Yoshimoto, mixed with the coolly horrific imagination of Quentin Tarantino: "I learned to walk once I started using weapons. To crush sidewalks." The long sentences build into a ferocious rhythm of panic, fear and lawlessness. The more Maiquel assassinates, the more he is praised by the community, until he kills the wrong kid. As hatred accumulates, the prose reaches a violent splendour that is a rush to read. Even his love life is tragically flawed as he gets the good girl pregnant and falls for the bad babe, Erica. "I hate you, out, love is a detonator, spitting in the face, out, explosive charges, signed Erica, pain, I was exhausted ..." With clever, deadpan satire, Melo pulls off a fabulous critique of class hatred, legal hypocrisy and anomie. Superb. --Cherry Smyth