This work aims to analyze a case of pseudotranslation in 20th-century Brazil. The term pseudotranslation refers to a verbal or written utterance which is presented to the public as a translation and which circulates as such without arousing suspicion. From June to December 1944, the journalist, writer, communist militant and celebrated member of the literary anthropophagic movement Patrícia Galvão, also known by the nickname Pagu, produced an example of pseudotranslation when she wrote a dozen of detective short stories for the magazine Detetive. The works were presented as translations of a fictitious foreign author named King Shelter. The reasons she resorted to this disguise and the consequences her act generated may be partly explained by the Descriptive- Translation Studies (DTS) paradigm. Descriptive translation researchers attempt to explain the resources and strategies used in a translation, in order to understand the reasons for such choices, as well as to evaluate why a given culture rejects or accepts a certain translated work. Research for this study was based on the ideas of Itamar Even-Zohar, Gideon Toury and Susan Bassnett and focused on the translated short stories written by Pagu, on the main aspects of the detective novel and on the life of Pagu. Throughout history, pseudotranslations have proven to be a cunning device to surpass cultural, political, ideological and even aesthetic barriers. We now know that this resource has been cleverly used in Brazil in order to pave the way for the development of a literary genre in the country in the 1940 s: the detective novel.