Comando Verde in short for our English speaking friends.

SUMMARY

A few days before the invasion by Federal and Rio de Janeiro state government forces to the shantytown complexes of Penha and Alemão, Brazilian Army Lieutenant Mauricio Gavião discovers that his best friend, a journalist that was investigating the origin of recent attacks by the Comando Vermelho (Red Command) gang in the city, had been kidnapped by local criminals.

Gavião decides to bring together a group of experienced military members to attempt his friend’s rescue. The task has a disastrous effect and the lieutenant barely survives a gunshot. At the same time, something unexpected that will have serious repercussions in his and his colleagues’ lives, takes place during the action. Lieutenant Gavião passionately falls for one of the main trafficking leaders at Penha Complex, a U.S. former non-governmental organization employee who had worked inside the shantytown, but later turned to become a dangerous criminal.

The forbidden attraction between the two hardly acts as an undertone for a story full of parallel plots which unfold through very real and thus far unpublished details that emerge in a simple and direct way that is interesting and provocative at the same time, about the invasion and subsequent occupation of the Penha and Alemão Complexes.

The book is the product of collaboration between a journalist with years of experience in the Brazilian and international security sector and a retired Brazilian Army colonel who was heavily involved in Operation Arcanjo to pacify the most dangerous shantytown complexes in Rio de Janeiro. He practically lived on the favelas during six months in which he collected the information reflected in the plot, one which captures the reader’s attention from beginning to end.

Written like a cinematographic script, Comando Verde will surprise the reader for the daring way in which it introduces social criticism to deeply rooted problems in Brazil’s day to day, yet exposing internal details from one of the Brazilian Army’s most important operations. It is told with humor and filled with intrigue, betrayal and sex.