The “Colecção Vampiro”, published  from 1947 by Editora Livros do Brasil, in Lisbon, was one of the very fist series of Crime Fiction paperbacks in Portuguese. It  was certainly the most popular. The “Masters of detective fiction”  published  there showed  a large emphasis on English and American authors.   The notoriety of the authors seemed of rather  more importance than a clear definition of the sub-genre of crime Fiction the books pertained to. Agatha Christie  and Dorothy Sayers  appeared alongside Hammett and Chandler; Wallace with Simenon; Van Dine with Ellery Queen.  The latter, and the likes of Erle Stanley Gardner were the most represented.  While a close contemporary of Gallimard’s “Série Noire” (created in 1945) Vampiro was editorially much closer to Le Masque (Librarie des Champs Elysées, 1927). Vampiro favoured novels of deduction and investigation over hardboiled noir. Continue reading →