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The Secret Dinner

A Novel

By Raphael Montes
A bloody knife rests on a white plate with the title "The Secret Dinner" by Raphael Montes.
Title: The Secret Dinner
Author: Raphael Montes
ISBN: 9781250442413
ON SALE: 08/18/2026

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ISBN: 9781250442437
ISBN: 9781250446787

The internationally acclaimed #1 bestselling thriller, now in English

Four childhood friends, eager for a taste of city life, swap rural Brazil for an apartment in Copacabana, Rio. But they can have no idea of the fate that awaits them there…

Dante, Leitão, Miguel and Hugo are your average students trying to make ends meet with part-time jobs, excited about the bright future at their fingertips. So when their rent skyrockets, they struggle to keep their new life and big dreams afloat. They need to make money however they can. In order to keep their apartment, the friends adopt an unorthodox plan, and are soon sucked into a dark world of secret dinner parties catering to the twisted fantasies of Rio’s elite.

But what starts as a joke quickly spirals out of their control. As the four friends fall deeper into this dark new world and earn more money, the stakes get higher and the consequences deadlier, revealing the twisted depths that lurk within each of them, and threatening not only their friendship, but their lives.

Smiling person with glasses and a beard wearing a blue shirt, standing against a pink background.
RAPHAEL MONTES is the biggest thriller writer in Brazil. His eight novels have sold more than a million copies and have been published in more than twenty-five countries. Also a screenwriter, Montes is the showrunner of Scars of Beauty—the most-watched original show on HBO Max in Latin America—and Netflix’s award-winning series Good Morning, Verônica. He splits his time between Rio and New York and has a strong presence on social media, where he shares his creative process with his readers.

Praise for Raphael Montes

“The Secret Dinner is a potent combination of gallows humor, Hitchcockian suspense, and trenchant social commentary. Bold and bloody, it’s a thriller with real bite.”

Riley Sager
New York Times bestselling author of The Only One Left

“It’s easy to see why THE SECRET DINNER was a phenomenon in Brazil […] Part satire, part shaggy-dog story, part body-horror gore-fest, the story evokes the musical “Sweeney Todd” with its musings about what sort of person makes for the best meat, as well as Jonathan Swift’s 1729 essay, “A Modest Proposal.”

The New York Times

“Fair warning; it’s dark. So yes, there’s plenty of gore here, but beneath the blood and black humor is a sharp examination of greed, class, and just how far a really bad idea can go. Twisted, funny, and fast-paced, but very much not for the squeamish among us.”


“Themes of cannibalism abound in this dark comedy about friendship and ambition. Safe to say you might want to be vegetarian for a while after reading this one.”

Nod Magazine

“Tightly paced and provocatively drawn […] a propulsive blend of literary thriller and outright horror.”

Bookreporter

“On the first page of this hugely popular Brazilian thriller, which involves four broke friends who get involved in the dark underworld scheme involving dinner parties for the wealthy of Rio de Janeiro, a man in a blood-soaked tuxedo enters a police station to confess to an as-yet unexplained crime. How can you not read on?”

Southern California News Group