Gregory Mcdonald: The Brave (USA 1991)

From the Publisher:
Known for his best-selling Fletch series, award-winning novelist Gregory Mcdonald takes us on a descent into the dark heart of America -- a world of poverty so severe that staying alive is the challenge.

Rafael's world is a place where armed guards patrol a dump to prevent poor families from foraging through the garbage. With his family, Rafael lives on the edge of the refuse heap in a forgotten corner of America's Southwest.

Desperately poor, he is determined to give his family some respite from their dire poverty, even if it means trading his own life to do it.

Rafael finds a man who says he will pay many thousands of dollars in exchange for his life: and so he agrees to "star" in a snuff film.

Written by one of today's masters of mystery writing, The Brave contains episodes that will shock even the most jaded reader: it is not for the weak at heart.

Gregory Mcdonald is the author of wenty books, including the "Fletch (inspiration for the movie of the same title) and "Flynn" series. He has twice won the Mystery Writers of America's Mystery or the dear Ahe oly my ery author to have been so honored. A for- mer reporter for The Boston Globe, he was elected President of the Mystery Writers of America.

"Reading The Brave was a gut-wrenching experience... It grabbed me and held me. It is powerful. It is touching. It is tragic -- the story of the ultimate situational exploitation of the poor and the powerless.
      The Brave is a metaphor for all the miserliness that is reflected in today's social mirror. And one poor, honest dump-dweller lives by a code of family love and sacrifice that shames those who protect the dump with guns and money." -- John Seigenthaler, Editorial Director, USA Today

Gregory Mcdonald: The Brave. A Novel by the Author of Fletch. Barricade Books, ISBN: 0942637348 (November, 1991), 215 p., $15.95.