Júlio Santana as seen through the eyes of acclaimed investigative reporter Klester Cavalcanti is not a monster: he is a loyal son, a family man, a devout Christian who is tormented by his conscience with every shot. But in a cruel and lawless area of Brazil, where every life has its price, respect for life is a luxury that he can’t afford. Trained by his uncle, an assassin, and initiated in murder at seventeen years of age, Santana proved to be a natural. Without moralizing about mass murder, The Name of Death attempts to show how such a career can be not so very different from other ordinary working lives.
The portrait that emerges in this riveting narrative based on seven years of phone conversations between Cavalcanti and Santana is not only that of a man but also that of a country. Describing in detail only a handful of the almost five hundred murders Santana carried out, Cavalcanti reveals just how lawless much of the interior of Brazil has been for the past fifty years. The state, the police, and the security forces play almost no part in establishing the rule of law—except when suppressing the guerilla threat of the early 1970s. Cavalcanti shows just how easy it is for a boy like Júlio to take the law into his own hands, and what a wild place Brazil has been and, in many ways, continues to be.
Klester Cavalcanti, born in 1969, is considered one of the greatest Brazilian investigative journalists. He worked for many years with the leading news magazine in Brazil, Veja. His books, Viuvas da terra, The Name of Death, and Days of Hell in Syria, have each won him the Brazil’s prestigious Prêmio Jabuti. They explore and denounce problems in contemporary Brazil, from condemnation of the deforestation of the Amazon to a biography of a Brazilian woman who has devoted her life to freeing thousands of Brazilians from modern-day slavery. His other awards include Best Environmental Report from South America, the Natali Prize in Human Rights Journalism, and the Vladimir Herzog Human Rights Award. Cavalcanti became best known in Brazil in 2012 when he was taken prisoner in Homs, Syria, despite having permission from the Assad government to travel there, and was only released thanks to pressure from the Brazilian government.
Jonathan Davis has been inducted into the Audible Narrator Hall of Fame. A three-time recipient and fourteen-time nominee of the Audie Award, he has earned accolades for his narration from the New York Times, Publishers Weekly, the American Library Association, Booklist, the Audio Publishers Association, AudioFile magazine, and USA Today. He has narrated a variety of bestsellers and award-winners for top publishing houses. He also narrated over forty titles of the Star Wars franchise for Lucasfilm Ltd./PRH Audio, including several iconic movie tie-ins, has participated with Star Wars Celebration, and has built a significant fan base. His work as a narrator includes films and programming for National Geographic Television, NOVA, PBS, VH1, and Francis Ford Coppola. He grew up in Puerto Rico and speaks Spanish, Portuguese, and Hebrew.
Overview
Júlio Santana as seen through the eyes of acclaimed investigative reporter Klester Cavalcanti is not a monster: he is a loyal son, a family man, a devout Christian who is tormented by his conscience with every shot. But in a cruel and lawless area of Brazil, where every life has its price, respect for life is a luxury that he can’t afford. Trained by his uncle, an assassin, and initiated in murder at seventeen years of age, Santana proved to be a natural. Without moralizing about mass murder, The Name of Death attempts to show how such a career can be not so very different from other ordinary working lives.
The portrait that emerges in this riveting narrative based on seven years of phone conversations between Cavalcanti and Santana is not only that of a man but also that of a country. Describing in detail only a handful of the almost five hundred murders Santana carried out, Cavalcanti reveals just how lawless much of the interior of Brazil has been for the past fifty years. The state, the police, and the security forces play almost no part in establishing the rule of law—except when suppressing the guerilla threat of the early 1970s. Cavalcanti shows just how easy it is for a boy like Júlio to take the law into his own hands, and what a wild place Brazil has been and, in many ways, continues to be.
