Pretenders and ghosts

In his new novel, Antonio Carlos Olivieri gives voice to a ghostwriter and raises the ethical debate surrounding the use of this artifice in the publishing market. "Ghosts and Fraudsters" explores the realm of authorship, money-making publishers, and authors who don't write their own books. The rainy atmosphere of São Paulo sets the mysterious tone for this detective novel, which features all-too-human characters. Dr. Paul Mahda, a narcissistic psychoanalyst incapable of writing his own book, hires the services of a ghostwriter. A beautiful intellectual, Lucila Napolitano, who has just completed her research, seeks a money-making publisher to publish it. An editor, Pavão-Lobo, eager for business opportunities, wants to capitalize on the mysterious murder of one of his authors to quickly launch a title. Between ghostwriters and haunted readers, between therapists with inflated egos and egomaniacal patients, questions multiply: is it ethical to sign a text written by someone else? Is it ethical for a therapist to have sex with his patients? Is it ethical to publish a book by someone who has just been murdered?