A search for an American’s missing brother draws Da Silva into the jungle
In a blighted stretch of the Amazon, three men have come to blow up a bridge. Just before they complete their mission, one of them turns on the others, gunning one down and burying the other with the force of the explosion. He is stepping into his getaway plane when he notices that the first man’s body is gone. It doesn’t matter, he thinks. An injured man could not last a day in the jungle.
When a daffy young American comes to Rio de Janeiro in search of her missing brother, Captain José Da Silva does his best to stay out of it. But when her search draws her into the mystery of the bridge that went nowhere, Da Silva will have to risk a jungle expedition of his own to save her life.
Robert Lloyd Fish was an American writer of crime fiction. His first novel, The Fugitive, gained him the Mystery Writers of America's Edgar Allan Poe Award for best first novel in 1962, and his short story "Moonlight Gardener" was awarded the Edgar for best short story in 1972. His 1963 novel Mute Witness, written under the pseudonym Robert L. Pike, was filmed in 1968 as Bullitt, starring Steve McQueen.