RUSSIAN ROULETTE

Raphael Montes

430 pages January 2012 Original publisher: Companhia das LetrasThriller

With more than 100,000 copies sold, Russian Roulette is the stunning debut of the leading name in Brazil’s crime and thriller scene. 

Before the “Blue Whale Challenge” of 2016 which manipulated young people into self-harm and worse, before the release of the television series “Thirteen Reasons Why,” a twenty-two-year-old Raphael Montes was already tackling the topic of teenage suicide—with the same boldness that has since become his trademark.

We follow Alê and eight of his classmates, all young members of Rio’s elite, who are found dead in the basement of one of their farmhouses. The circumstances are shocking and mysterious,  suggesting a fateful game of Russian roulette.

Those who remain are left to discover what could have driven these seemingly carefree and enormously privileged teenagers to take their own lives.