The Simple Art of Killing a Woman

Author: Melo, Patricia

Crime & mystery

Published on 6 March 2025 by The Indigo Press in the United Kingdom.

From bestselling novelist Patrícia Melo comes a masterful thriller set in the far west of Brazil that is by turns poetic, inspiring, humorous and harrowing.

To escape an overprotective family and an abusive partner, a young lawyer accepts an assignment in the Amazonian border town of Cruzeiro do Sul. There, she meets Carla, a local prosecutor, and Marcos, the son of an indigenous woman, and learns about an epidemic of violence against women that seems beyond comprehension.

What she finds in the jungle is not only relentless oppression, but a deep longing for answers to an unsolved crime from her past. Through the ritual use of ayahuasca, she meets a chorus of warrior women on a path of revenge and recovers the painful details of her mother’s death. The Simple Art of Killing a Woman is a psychological trip with a twist. It’s about the strength of individuals in the face of overwhelming violence, the problem of femicide in Brazil, and the haunting of a cold case.