If nothing else, a private investigator who has learned his trade from the works of Simenon stands out from the crowd. Cayetano Brulé, the hero of The Neruda Case, sets himself a course of Maigret novels on the advice of his first client, Pablo Neruda. ‘If poetry transports us to the heavens,’ the aged poet remarks, ‘crime novels plunge you into life the way it really is.
Andrew Taylor
Forget Poirot, Holmes or Marlowe: there is nothing urgent or even logical about Chilean detective work
In a review of The Neruda Case by Roberto Ampuero, Cayetano Brulé takes his time digging deep into his client’s past

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