Established in the late 1990s, the Primeiro Comando da Capital (First Capital Command, PCC) is a powerful and complex criminal organisation created by inmates from the Taubaté Prison (São Paulo state, Brazil) aimed at two objectives: to control daily affairs in the prison (like cooking and cleaning); and to demand respect of prisoners’ human rights in the overcrowded São Paulo state prisons. Thirteen years after its establishment, the PCC became well known after performing impressive attacks against state officers and institutions in São Paulo. During May 2006, under orders from PCC leaders discontented with the transfer of its members to high-security prisons, around 50 prisons rebelled and 251 attacks erupted. In less than four weeks, Brazil experienced a new kind of social violence that resulted in 90 buses being torched, 453 dead and 53 wounded, among them police officers, suspects, civilians and criminals.

The social dynamics of the PCC within the prisons controlled by the group have been extensively analysed by anthropologists, political scientists and journalists like Karina Biondi, Marcos Ferreira, Josmar Jozino, Allan de Abreu and Claudio Tognolli. However, in particular, two recently published books contribute a comprehensive analysis of the PCC's history: A Guerra: A Ascensão do PCC e o Mundo do Crime no Brasil, by Bruno Paes Manso and Camila Nunes Dias; and Irmãos: Uma história do PCC, by Gabriel Feltran.

In A Guerra, Manso and Dias provide a remarkable narrative about the growth of the PCC. The study is the result of more than 15 years’ experience each in the study of criminality in Brazil. The combination of a journalist and a sociologist makes the book at once an easy-to-read work without it losing depth. Moreover, their field research offers an unprecedented portrait of the PCC, especially when explaining the conflict between this criminal organisation and the Comando Vermelho (Red Command, CV) – an organisation created in the 1980s that violently challenges the PCC for control of illicit business in Rio de Janeiro and other Brazilian states.

One of the main contributions of this book's nine chapters is the comprehensive account of the PCC's expansion. Chapter 3, for example, explains how the organisation has sought to control the flow of drugs from Paraguay, especially after the murder in 2016 of the powerful drug dealer Jorge Rafaat Toumani in a war operation that involved the use of 50 weapons and a contingent of 100 men. Chapter 6 also provides a thorough analysis of the PCC's advance in areas formerly controlled by the CV, as well as the impacts of this expansion on the cocaine market in Latin America and worldwide.

Manso and Dias’ access to the secret notes exchanged between PCC members provides unique data that allows understanding of the extension of the group in the suburban areas under its control. Finally, the section ‘Radiography of the PCC’ present diagrams, charts and maps that help the reader understand the complexity of the group, as well as how the criminal organisation is structured in Brazil and São Paulo state in particular.

Discussing the evolution of the same criminal organisation, the book written by sociologist Feltran offers a different perspective. Based on an extensive ethnography of São Paulo's poor communities as well as interviews conducted in countries related to routes for cocaine business (like Argentina, France, the United Kingdom and Lebanon), Feltran compares the PCC to a secret organisation like Masonry. The book makes clear its interpretative analysis in Chapter 1 when it affirms that ‘as in every fraternity, in the PCC there is mutual support among the brothers. No one goes through the business or challenges the honour of the other brother, they all help each other and so everyone thrives […] In the view of its members, the goal of society is the progress of the brothers.’ (p. 35, book review author's translation)

Although he could further explore the impacts of direct and structural violence conducted by the PCC (as seen in the ‘trials’ for dissenting members as well as the targeted killings of enemies), throughout the book Feltran criticises a view that compares the PCC to other criminal organisations, gangs and mafias. As explained in the first part of the book, an example of how mistaken these comparisons are is the diversity of organisation charts in the literature dedicated to studying the criminal organisation. The author understands that these variations elucidating the PCC's structure occur because the group is horizontal, dynamic and without rigid hierarchies. Each element that the criminal organisation covers (such as drug trafficking, prison governance and cigarette smuggling) has its own unique organisation.

In the second part, this book presents the expansion of the PCC beyond the prison system. On this subject, the data presented by Feltran complements Manso and Dias’ explanations. Therefore, for researchers on the subject, it is essential to read the two works to understand how the PCC has expanded internationally to neighbouring countries and how it has organised and evolved since the attacks it orchestrated in 2006, becoming a present-day concern for not only Brazil but also Paraguay, Peru and Bolivia.

Taken together, the two books provide two excellent overviews of the PCC's history and illicit business expansion throughout South America and beyond. Both works demonstrate how Brazil's mismanagement of the prison system generated the unprecedented expansion of a criminal organisation with power to control social spaces, make million-dollar profits from illicit activities, and corrupt authorities. Thus, A Guerra and Irmãos are an essential starting point for understanding this non-state actor that, unfortunately, will continue to affect the lives of thousands of people in Brazil and neighbouring countries.