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Summary
Summary
Robert Wilson is back with the follow-up to his sensational thriller, The Blind Man of Seville. Javier Falcón has been through therapy and is in the process of breaking free of the psychological damage sustained during his last major investigation. Called to the scene of a suspicious suicide in a wealthy neighborhood on the outskirts of Seville, he begins to investigate a case with no solid evidence when suddenly, in quick succession, two more suicides occur-one of them a fellow police officer in the sex crimes unit. Left to discover what made life so unbearable for these victims, Falcón's task is to find the connection among the suicides. Or were they, in fact, murdered?
Author Notes
ROBERT WILSON is the author of numerous novels, including The Company of Strangers and A Small Death in Lisbon , which won the Gold Dagger Award as Best Crime Novel of the Year from Britain's Crime Writers' Association. A graduate of Oxford University, he has worked in shipping, advertising, and trading in Africa, and has lived in Greece, Portugal, and West Africa.
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
In Wilson's intricate police procedural set in Seville, Spain-the second to feature introspective detective Javier Falcon-a wealthy couple is found dead in their home: Lucia Vega has been suffocated in her own bed; her husband, construction magnate Rafael Vega, is lying on the kitchen floor, poisoned, with a cryptic note in his hand. Is it a murder-suicide-or something more sinister? Falcon's subsequent investigation reveals a vast criminal conspiracy involving the Russian mafia (crime writing's new favorite bad guys) and human trafficking for prostitution and child pornography (crime writing's new favorite transgressions). As usual, Wilson deftly deploys a vast cast of characters, from an ex-pat American couple to a popular Spanish actor, and spins his trademark web of corruption and deceit. But while Falcon is consistently compelling, struggling with his internal demons and with the challenge of ridding Seville of its moral bankruptcy, the plot itself is too complex to really be engaging. In addition, too many references to the first Falcon novel, The Blind Man of Seville, will confuse new readers. The story of one young Russian prostitute-she's promised a job as a waitress in Portugal and ends up working the streets in Spain-is a chilling reminder of the evil that men do, but her frightening tale is lost in the convoluted story. Agent, Anthony Sheil at Gillon Aitken. (Jan. 3) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Booklist Review
Something is rotten in sultry Seville. Sr. Rafael Vega seems to have smothered his wife, ingested drain cleaner, and died clutching a scrap of paper on which is scrawled "the thin air you breathe from 9/11 until the end." Into the resulting miasma wades inspector Javier Falcon, hero of Wilson's The Blind Man of Seville 0 (2003), to tease out the mystery with his keen psychological instincts. A preliminary canvass of the neighbors--including the bombshell wife of an American ex-pat, Marty Krugman, who amuses herself by taking candid snaps of people in their most private moments--uncovers more than enough hidden passion and shame to fuel the plot. Falcon releases the pressure of oblique personal threats, which may come from the Russian Mob, by talking with his blind therapist and by enjoying spicy tapas and sex with the seductive Consuelo. This is an ingeniously complex mystery driven by rich, intelligent dialogue and bathed in a stylish ambience, evoking a world of soulful sophistication that Euro-mystery fans right back to Maigret will savor. --David Wright Copyright 2005 Booklist
Kirkus Review
Suicide is as baleful as homicide in this second case for Seville's Chief Inspector Javier Falcón. Apart from the swiftness and violence of their deaths, there might seem nothing untoward about the demise of Rafael Vega (poisoned with drain cleaner) and his wife Lucía (smothered). From the beginning, however, Falcón is skeptical of the murder/suicide story the scene suggests. The Vegas' neighbors--an American architect and his sexy younger wife, a well-known actor whose son is doing time for kidnapping, and Consuelo JimÉnez, who was abruptly widowed in The Blind Man of Seville (2003)--can give no reason why the wealthy builder would have killed his wife and himself, and forensic evidence suggests that they were both murdered. Though the suspects' privileged enclave seems the perfect setting for a decorous whodunit, readers familiar with Wilson's thrillers (The Big Killing, 2003, etc.) won't be surprised by hints of something bigger and more ambitious, something that yokes a vicious ring of pedophiles, the Russian mafia, an American intelligence agency, a rash of further suicides and a cryptic reference to 9/11. But they're bound to be impressed by the surgical sureness with which Wilson proceeds from a quiet double fatality to lay bare the secrets of every suspect and every public institution. Wilson continues his bold inversion of the classic detective story, in which trifles conceal monstrous evil and every single character really is as guilty as he or she looks. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Library Journal Review
Chief Inspector Javier Falc?n, back after his emotional ordeal in The Blind Man of Seville, and Judge Esteban Calderon, now engaged to Falcon's ex-wife, Ines, launch an investigation when wealthy developer Rafael Vega and his wife are found dead in their well-secured home in the outskirts of Seville. The case, which looks at first like a suicide pact, soon reveals unsettling details. Vega's Ukrainian gardener has disappeared, and the Russian mafia seems to have had ties to Vega's construction projects. His next-door neighbors are also suspects, and actor Pablo Ortega-whose son was sentenced to a lengthy (and perhaps unjust) prison term by Judge Calderon-commits suicide as the case progresses. A pedophile ring, the CIA, police corruption, 9/11, and Chilean torture centers under Pinochet add to the mix. This is a complex, brilliantly constructed mystery, perfectly paced and enormously satisfying. Wilson's characters are so well drawn that they walk off the page and into your mind. Highly recommended. Wilson lives in Portugal and Oxford, England. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 9/1/04.]-Ronnie H. Terpening, Univ. of Arizona, Tucson (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Table of Contents
| ""Wilson builds a many-layered portrait of survivors and perpetrators, each consumed by rage, guilt, or depression."" |
| The Boston Globe In an exclusive suburb of Seville, Rafael |
| Vega lies dead on the kitchen floor and his wife has been suffocated under her own pillow |
| It appears to be a suicide pact, but Inspector Jefe Javier Falcoacute;n has his doubts |
| In the brutal summer heat Falcoacute;n starts to untangle the mystery of Rafael |
| Vega when he receives threats from the Russian mafia who have begun ope |
