Invisible Country - Paperback

by Annamaria Alfieri (Author)

Paraguay, 1868
A war against Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay has devastated Paraguay. Ninety percent of the males between the ages of eight and eighty have died. Food is scarce. In the small village of Santa Caterina, Padre Gregorio advises the women of his congregation to abandon the laws of the church and get pregnant by what men are available. As he leaves the pulpit, he discovers the murdered body of Ricardo Yotté, one of the most powerful men in the country, at the bottom of the belfry. Suspects abound; Eliza Lynch, a former Parisian courtesan, now the consort of the brutal dictator Francisco Solano López. Comandante Luis Menenez, local representative of the dictator, who competed with Yotté for López's favor. And a Brazilian soldier who has secretly taken up with a village girl. To avoid having an innocent person being dragged off to torture and death, a band of villagers undertakes to solve the crime, but each carries a secret they seek to protect from the others, complicating their quest for the truth.
Lyrical, complex, and meticulously researched, Annamaria Alfieri's Invisible Country is an ingenious cross between Isabel Allende and Agatha Christie.