Roberto Ampuero Books In Order

Publication Order of Cayetano Brulé Books

Roberto Ampuero is a reputed Chilean columnist and author of mystery, crime fiction, thriller, and suspense stories. He is also an ex-Foreign Affairs Minister of Chile. Ampuero held this position between March 2018 and June 2019.

As a writer, Ampuero is famous for creating the chief protagonist Cayetano Brule in the role of a private eye. His books are originally written and published in the Spanish language and are later translated for the English audience.

The first Cayetano Brule novel, Who Killed Cristian Kustermann, came out in 1993 and won the El Mercurio Revista del Libro award. After that, Ampuero featured Cayetano Brule in six more titles until 2013. Additionally, Ampuero has penned several single novels in his career, including an autobiographical book based on the years he spent in Cuba.

Ampuero’s publishers mostly publish his books in Spain and Latin America, and are then translated for the foreign audience in Croatian, German, Portuguese, Swedish, English, Chinese, and Greek. In Chile, Ampuero’s works have sold over forty editions. Currently, the author lives in Iowa and is employed as a professor in the Department of Portuguese & Spanish of Iowa University.

For a brief period, Ampuero has worked as a columnist, a job that he has enjoyed a lot. First, he started by working for New York Times and La Tercera and then moved on to write columns for El Mercurio. Ampuero has served as a Culture Minister in Sebastian Pinera’s government from 2013 to 2014.

Author Ampuero was born in Valparaiso, Chile on February 20, 1953. He was brought up in a middle class that had political leanings from the beginning. Ampuero has French ancestry from his grandmother’s side. His early studies were carried out in the David T.P. School and DSV German school as his parents felt that it was a perfect institution considering the aspects of the discipline, language programs, demanding curriculum, and education.

It was at this school that Ampuero learned German and believed that it played an important role in helping him meet his wife in Germany. In addition to helping him become disciplined, sincere, and focused, Ampuero thanks DSV for allowing him to get closer to noteworthy writers like Brecht, Mann, Schiller, and Goethe.

After spending 17 years of his life in Valparaiso, Ampuero decided to relocate to Santiago in 1972. There, he joined Chile University and studied Latin American Literature and Social Anthropology. It was around the same time that he became a member of Chile’s Communist Youth party.

Ampuero claims that his decision to join the Communist Youth was based on the belief that socialism was economically prosperous, just, and democratic. Following the 1973 coup d’etat, he relocated to East Germany. After arriving in Germany, Ampuero came across Margarita Flores, who was the daughter of Cuban Revolution’s attorney general Fernando Flores Ibarra.

Margarita and Ampuero moved to Cuba together in 1974 and got married soon after. Their marriage lasted only three years. In the years that followed, Ampuero kept changing base between East Germany, Cuba, and West Germany.

In 1987, Ampuero met Guatemala’s ambassador’s daughter named Ana Lucrecia R. Schwarz and married her. Finally, he returned to his home country Chile in 1993 and began working towards establishing his writing career. While still finding time to write novels, Ampuero tried his hand at different employment opportunities such as real estate and column writing.

In 1997, Ampuero started living with a Swedish family in Stockholm. A couple of years later, he finished writing a book that he intended not to publish and leave as a testimony for his sons and grandsons.

However, Ampuero could not prevent his urge to add the touch of reality/fiction and release the book eventually. In 2009, Ampuero entered into a contract with Roos Films to make a movie on that book. Luis Ponce was chosen as the scriptwriter, while Ignacio Eyzaguirre was selected to sit on the director’s chair.

Apart from his various achievements, Ampuero is credited to have created Brigade Escorpian’s characters, scenes, and histories. This series was the first political TV series produced in his country. In 2000, Ampuero and his wife shifted to Iowa City, where the author sought employment in Iowa University’s Spanish & Portuguese Department. The Sebastian Pinera government had selected Ampuero as the country’s ambassador in 2011 to Mexico.

A popular book written by author Roberto Ampuero is entitled ‘Who Killed Cristian Kustermann’. It was released by the Planeta publication in 1993. This novel features the primary characters in the form of Carlos Kustermann, Cayetano Brule, and Cristian Kustermann. It is also the first book in Ampuero’s successful Cayetano Brule series.

Initially, Carlos Kustermann is introduced as a wealthy man. He approaches the office of Cayetano Brule, a private detective, to find out the truth about the death of his son, Cristian Kustermann. Cayetano’s investigation takes him to various locations in Cuba and Germany in search of evidence.

As the story moves forward, readers come to know about the life of Cristian. The clues keep adding up to reveal the murderer in the end as well as his motive. In between, Ampuero has also explained the likes and tastes of Cayetano Brule.

The private eye likes delicious food and coffee and lives with a pet dog. Cayetano has an Asian assistant, who works part-time with him. Ampuero has given precise descriptions and humorous sequences that tend to make the story more engaging.

Another lovely book penned by the author is known as ‘Stockholm Lovers’. It was also published by Planeta in 2004. This book shows the story of the lead characters named Cristobal Pasos, Marcela Pasos, Markis Eliasson, and a few others. The novel opens by mentioning that Cristobal Pasos is a crime novelist living with his lovely wife Marcela in Stockholm.

When he finds erotic lingerie in Marcela’s drawer, Cristobal becomes furious and jealous. She had never used that lingerie with him and the shocking discovery makes him believe that she is having an affair behind his back. So, he starts following Marcela and keeps finding proof of deception.

Later, Cristobal’s neighbor, Markus Eliasson, claims that his wife has committed suicide. But, their common housemaid tells Cristobal that Markus killed his wife and intends to run away to Cuba with his lover.

Cristobal shows no interest in Markus’ story as he is more concerned about finding the truth of his wife’s deception. Shortly after, the housemaid is found murdered and the mystery is behind all the events is unraveled in the form of a huge shock. Cristobal cannot believe his life spiraling down in such a way and his wife deceiving him with her lover.