Last Mother’s Day in Complexo do Alemão: a mom recounts the tragic loss of her son

You might think this blogger’s long silence is due to so much bad news — economic recession, political impasse, widening corruption scandals. It’s true, there’s not much to say –beyond dismay — except to express the belief that socioeconomic change of the last decade will have lasting positive effects, that, despite leaps and lags, democracy is deepening. But the real reason for the silence is focused work on a book about greater Rio.

The focus includes reading books, and the silence must be broken to recommend (in addition to Juliana Barbassa’s Dancing with the Devil in the City of God ) Nemesis: One Man and the Battle for Rio, currently available only in the UK. There is also, for those who read Portuguese, Luiz Eduardo Soares’ Rio de Janeiro: Histórias de Vida e Morte, a striking collection of dark…