Lawyer and writer Raphael Montes was born in 1990, in Rio de Janeiro. His short stories have been published in several mystery anthologies, as well as magazines. At the age of 20, he impressed critics and public alike with Roulette (Editora Benvirá), an action-packed crime novel that was a finalist in the 2010 Benvirá Literature Prize, the Brazilian National Library’s 2012 Machado de Assis Prize and the prestigious 2013 São Paulo Literature Prize, and has sold over 15 thousand copies. At 24, he published his second novel, Perfect Days (Companhia das Letras), which has been phenomenally successful: translation rights have been sold to 13 territories (USA, Canada, England, France, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Germany, Turkey, Holland, Macau, Hong Kong and Taiwan) and it occupied bestseller lists for many weeks.