Rating: 
Summary: highly recommended for a general readership
Review: It's unusual for a light novel such as this to succeed on so many counts. The humour is less compressed and explosive than Dave Barry's but with something of the same glee in odd combinations; extended over episodes or even chapters, the effect reminds me of Stephen Leacock's gentler cleverness. The drama is well-timed, keeping one off guard. Just as "Four Weddings and a Funeral" took viewers by surprise-we were all expecting the funeral to come at the end-so the sequence of murders here is paced to avoid predictability. In the one or two scenes were action is called for, Soares is up to the task, with lighting and other atmospheric effects bringing out a suitably evocative, even lurid, tableau. By and large, though, this is not a "thriller", rather a witty period piece that challenges the reader with a murder mystery. The descriptions of Brazil at the end of the empire (the story takes place in Rio in 1886) are finely done and, apparently, based on extensive research. It actually helps, though, for the reader not to know too much about the period, since if one recognises a character as being historical one can rule him or her out as a suspect; ignorance of Brazil's rich literary history is, in this case, an advantage. Those who know Brazil, however, will enjoy Soares' entertaining references to cultural standbys such as capoeira, the caipirinha and so on, yet the effect will not be lost on those "outside the loop"; for example, Holmes' first exposure to Brazilian food is hilarious even if you haven't actually tasted dishes cooked with dendê. The translation (by Clifford Landers) is probably the best I've ever met of a Brazilian novel in English, fluent and energetic with never a foot wrong. Yes, I did guess the murderer's identity about two thirds of the way through the book-but then I couldn't be sure I'd got it right, and I was kept reading closely until the very end by plot developments which it would be unfair to divulge. This is a splendid book, and I only hope that Landers will soon translate Soares' next novel. In the meantime, "A Samba for Sherlock" is highly recommended for a general readership.
Rating: 
Summary: Bizarre
Review: A very strange read for a Holmes fan. This might have worked better as a straight novel and featuring a new detective type character instead of simply using Holmes.Authors shouldn't use Holmes just to improve their chances of selling an otherwise average product.
Rating:
Summary: Not for Sherlockians
Review: As a Sherlockian, this book disgusted and repulsed me. If it was meant to be a joke, I certainly did not get it. Almost as inexcusable as the rape of Doyle's characters was the blatent rip-off of Hannibal Lector. This book must have lost A LOT in translation and Soares should think twice about introducing any more of his novels to America. It may have worked in Brazil, but it didn't go over well with many Americans.
Rating:
Summary: Humorous and Thrilling
Review: As I was born in Brazil, I have the duty to say this book was one of the most wonderful I've read in my whole life. However, I do not recommend it to American readers or to people who do not have their IQ high enough (I am not saying Americans do not have high IQs, I am saying that it might be hard to understand some of the jokes). The jokes are intelligent, and you have to be clever to get them. For Brazilian people, it is by far easier, but for American, it may be not. Jo Soares is intelligent, funny, popular, and "A Samba for Sherlock" (the original title was "O Xangô de Baker Street", which means "The 'Xango' from Baker Street" - Xango is some sort of African spirit), as far as I know, was his first book ever. His expectations, I think, did not reach foreign customers, and as Holmes is not popular in Brazil, I highly doubt Soares's intentions were catching the readers' attention by using the name of Conan Doyle's character... the original title, as I said before, does not even have Sherlock Holmes's name. He is only a character, like every other. The book is not an "attempt to make Brazil known" either. As I said before, if it was, Jo Soares would not even have made up an untranslatable title as 'O Xango de Baker Street' is.
The American translator decided naming it "A Samba for Sherlock" as the French translator decided to name it after Sarah Bernhardt.
If you are so close minded that you cannot see your beloved Sherlock Holmes in a satire, this book is not for you. But if you do want to read something totally different from everything else you have read in your whole life, this is the book.
The only problem is that you will not have as much fun as a Brazilian would.
Rating: 
Summary: A Stadivarius and a serial killer
Review: Brazilian author Jô Soares does what many authors do: brings the Great Detective to their home location. Sarah Bernhardt is on tour in Brazil, when a Stradivarius is stolen from a friend of the Emperor. The Divine One suggests that her friend, Sherlock Holmes, would be useful in recovering it. Dom Pedro telegraphs Holmes, but in the meantime a prostitute is killed and a flap of skin is removed. But the killer leaves a violin string curled in her pubic hair. Mr. Soares is a fairly good and amusing writer, although I did get a little tired of the truth behind Holmes' deductive feats (that he is wrong, and no one has the heart to tell him). An interesting book, and one worth reading you prefer your Sherlock Holmes a little distant from the standard portrayal of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. And the ending is quite interesting, too.
Rating: 
Summary: Something diferent
Review: Do you remember how you always asked yourself "What if bad guys get away and they are not caught at the end?" well you've got it, this is a diferent story, a funny but solid story, really an interesting book, a unique one! Jo soares is probably one of the most inteligent persons over earth and he took his whole talent to write this amazing story he is gonna take you so much into it that you are gonna finish the book in some hours without even notice it!
Rating:
Summary: A Joke.
Review: Don't read this book if you are a Holmes fan. This book is a joke and gives a bad rep to Sherlock Holmes, who in this book is portrayed as a perverse, lovesick puppy with no attention to the murders whatsoever. I've read a Ripper story involving Holmes where it ended up that Holmes was the Ripper and Watson was a drug addict. That book had no right to be written. A Samba for Sherlock ranks the same to me.
Rating:
Summary: A funny, scary Holmesian pastiche set in colorful 1886 Rio
Review: First, in interests of full disclosure, I am not totally impartial: I translated the book. Having said that, I can affirm that of the more than a dozen Brazilian novels that I have translated, A Samba for Sherlock was far and away the most fun. When Sherlock Holmes and his stalwart colleague Dr. Watson are summoned to Rio de Janeiro by Brazil's Emperor Dom Pedro II, it's with the understanding that Holmes will help locate a Stradivarius violin stolen from a beautiful baroness, one of the emperor's numerous paramours. But before the Englishmen arrive, a series of horrifying murders breaks out to disrupt this placid tropical paradise. A maniac is killing and mutilating young women, most of them prostitutes, and secreting on the body of each victim a string from a violin... Sherlock coins the term "serial killer" (now we know where it originated) to describe the assassin, and there begins a hunt that takes the reader on an rollercoaster of emotions ranging from guffaws to sheer terror and back again. Jo Soares has seamlessly blended historical figures (Sarah Bernhardt, then on her triumphant first South American tour, is a major character) with those borrowed from Conan Doyle and others created from his own fertile, original mind. The result is a page-turner that once started is impossible to put down. The novel is currently being made into the most expensive movie ever in Brazil. --Reviewed by Clifford E. Landers
Rating:
Summary: Jô Soares Vs. Dom Pedro II & History!
Review: For the ones who studied the life of the Emperor of Brazil, Pedro II, this book is a mere joke. Not only it is a sickening story of a perverted mind, but it distorts the History of Brazil. Pedro II was respected by people like Pasteur, Victor Hugo, Graham Bell, Eça de Queiróz; spoke and wrote fluently in seven languages. He wrote a book in Hebrew and composed poetry in Provençal (French dialect). He exchanged ideas with mullahs in their language, and discussed the Torah with Rabbis in Hebrew. He was respected by medical doctors for his immense knowledge. He was known as a man of few words, who read every night, until 2 in the morning, and woke up at 6am to work. To think that this man would go alone to the Theater São Pedro to watch Sarah Bernhardt WITHOUT the Empress is out of the question. To imagine he would have confabulated with Sarah Bernhardt about an alleged personal matter, is absolutely ridiculous and shows very little knowledge of the matter. Pedro II did not consider women very highly so the probability he would have accepted Mme. Bernhardt's advice is non-existant.
I lived in Brazil until 8 years ago and I know Jô Soares from TV --his book's biography does not mention that Mr. Soares' "hugely successful career in television" is in the field of comedy... He seems to be part of a group that takes pleasure in throwing mud at the lives of the figures of our past. Perhaps this makes him fell better, but it is still a shame.
I wish I could give this book ZERO stars!
Rating:
Summary: Truly Awful.
Review: From all the books I've read in the past five years, this has got to be the worst one. It's simply awful. I've almost had to have my hands tied behind my back to resist the urge of tossing it into a flame. It's that bad. I've read the book in its native tongue, and I don't know how the translation came up, but the book was bad enough by then. Try it only if you really need to.
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