“I am fulfilling a promise I made to myself. This is an attempt to write a detective novel. It will not be typical. A book where characters should have affection, conflicts, and contradictions,” wrote Zambujal.
A “disoriented detective” to celebrate his 90th birthday, which he will reach on March 5, writes the author, hoping to rely on “the benevolence of longstanding readers.”
Rodrigo Mendes, a retired police inspector, is the protagonist of this detective novel. The former police inspector uses a cane after being shot in the knee while on duty and is married to Lídia. The narrative action begins when the couple learns about the murder of businessman Pascoal Bilro, owner of a restaurant, an inn, a mansion, and a building in the center of the village where they reside.
The combination of several factors piques the curiosity of the ex-inspector and Lídia, a former partner of Pascoal Bilro and a friend of Rodrigo, who embark on an unofficial investigation.
“The Last to Leave” includes the story “Final Story, Paragraph” and the manuscript facsimile, which contains the author’s erasures and notes, revealing the creative approach of the writer and former journalist.
“Final Story, Paragraph” narrates a love affair with a happy ending between Grizalina, “daughter of a Finnish father and a mother from Cartaxo,” who “impressed with her green eyes, dark complexion, and honey-colored hair” and spoke five languages, and Gustavo Romão, who had a fan club consisting of his ex-girlfriends from adolescence.
The romance unfolds amid rivalries between two neighboring districts, Quatro Moinhos, where Grizalina and Gustavo live, and S. Julião das Lebres Tontas, who decides to declare war on Quatro Moinhos and invade it.
Quatro Moinhos boasts “an undercover agent on enemy ground, veterinarian Hermínia Paiva,” who “is against the idea of annexing Quatro Moinhos.” Lebres Tontas is a neighborhood “much larger, both in size and population,” than Quatro Moinhos.
Mário Zambujal made his literary debut with “Chronicle of the Good Scoundrels” in 1980, which became a success, when he was a well-known anchor of RTP1’s “Domingo Desportivo.”
The novel “Chronicle of the Good Scoundrels,” centered around a band of inept individuals planning the theft of a René Lalique piece from the Gulbenkian Museum, inspired a homonymous film by Fernando Lopes, shot in 1984. The work also led to a series directed by Jorge Paixão da Costa in 2021 and a musical in 2011, directed by Francisco Santos in collaboration with the author.
In journalism, he started with the newspaper A Bola as a correspondent, worked for the weekly O Jornal, Record, and Tal & Qual. He directed Jornal Sénior, published between 2013 and 2014, and was a columnist for the daily 24 Horas.
In 2020, the literary festival Escritaria, in Penafiel, honored him and his work.
Mário Zambujal was awarded the rank of Officer of the Order of Infante D. Henrique in 1984. In 2016, he received the Cultural Merit Medal from the Lisbon City Council and, in 2022, the Parish Council of S. Domingos de Benfica in the capital honored him with a mural by Mariana Duarte Santos on the Estrada de Benfica.
This year, the Journalists’ Club recognized his “long journalism career” with the Gazeta de Mérito award.
