After trying his hand at spy fiction in The Company of Strangers, Robert Wilson returns to his detective-thriller roots with The Blind Man of Seville, a grimly bewitching and character-driven yarn about people confronting their most hidden horrors.

"It was only right that there should be at least one murder in Holy Week," muses Inspector Jefe Javier Falcón as he's called out during Spain's Semana Santa festivities to probe the death of a prosperous Seville restaurateur, Raúl Jiménez. The deceased was found strapped to a chair with his eyelids removed, facing a television on which had been showing a video of him entertaining prostitutes. Jiménez's heart had failed as he struggled to escape. This murder is "more extraordinary than any I have seen in my career," Falcón tells the businessman's widow, as he embarks on an investigation that will lead to the slayings of a hooker and an art dealer, and force the homicide cop into a game of wits against a killer obsessed with the contradictions between illusion and reality. Meanwhile, Falcón is himself obsessed with the long-secreted journals kept by his late father, a famous painter, whose brutal acts during the Spanish Civil War and subsequent hedonism in North Africa shaped Javier's life... and will make him the killer's next target.

Wilson's plot turns rather creakily on the coincidence of Falcón discovering a photograph of his father among Jiménez's things. And lengthy excerpts from the elder Falcón's diaries, while they reveal links between the book's secondary players, and are interesting for their portrayal of wartime Europe and postwar Tangier, nonetheless hobble this story's pace and distract from the modern crimes at its center. Still, there's a poetic edge to this author's prose that makes even his most gruesome or tragic scenes worthy of rereading, and in Javier Falcón--a lonely outsider who shadows his ex-wife and has a perplexing aversion to milk--he creates a police protagonist as satisfyingly and humanly flawed as any since Zé Coelho, from Wilson's outstanding A Small Death in Lisbon. --J. Kingston Pierce


From Publishers Weekly
Proving that even the most talented authors can have an off day, Wilson (A Small Death in Lisbon, etc.) has come up with a long, dense, often brilliantly written but finally off-putting and depressing story, which starts with the grisly murder of a Seville restaurant tycoon. Parts of the novel work wonderfully: an interview between Javier Falc¢n, the chief of Seville's homicide squad, and the victim's young widow, crackles with wit and electricity as she gets more out of him than he does out of her. And Falc¢n (whose late father, a famous painter, had links to the dead tycoon going back to their days in the Foreign Legion in Tangiers during the Spanish Civil War) is often a fascinating figure-when he's not imploding with the weight of his discoveries about his father's past or the stress of his job and a recently failed marriage. Descriptions of a ranch where fighting bulls are bred and of a bullfight are worthy of Hemingway, as are scenes from life in Seville during Holy Week. But in the end, there's too much blood, too many old journals, too much torture and depravity to absorb and process into art and/or entertainment.Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
Trust the author of A Small Death in Lisbon to come up with another quirky thriller. Even as he investigates a bizarre serial killer who divests victims of their eyelids, Detective Inspector Javier Falc"n rediscovers his father through his journals. Of course, the killer and the journals end up connecting. Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From AudioFile
Be forewarned of the unrelieved bleakness of this novel about how the sins of the past haunt the present. In Seville, Homicide Detective Javier Falcon investigates a series of ghastly murders in which the killer removes the eyelids of his victims to force them to see that which is beyond bearing. As the case proceeds, it becomes apparent to Falcon that it is entwined somehow with the life of his late father, a renowned artist, whom Falcon learns, to his increasing horror, had much to hide. The book is dense and grim, and Sean Barrett's monotonous reading does little to keep the listener focused and engaged. It's a serious and challenging work, but expect no help from the narrator. M.O. © AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine


From Booklist
At the center of this absorbing procedural/thriller is a crime so grotesque that it almost sends Wilson's seventh novel into the realm of horror fiction. Detective Inspector Javier Falcon, a detective with the Grupo de Homicidios de Sevilla, is called to a large, expensive apartment in the Edificio del Presidente towers. A man has been murdered in a peculiarly cruel way there. It is evident that part of his torture was being forced to watch videotaped scenes of his own and his wife's infidelities. The crime scene upends Detective Falcon's life when he discovers a photo of his late artist father there. Falcon conducts a double investigation, into the murder and those that follow, and into his father's past, which holds the key to the brutal slayings. Wilson, awarded Britain's Gold Dagger Award for his A Small Death in Lisbon (2000), is able to hold reader interest at an almost unbearable pitch of excitement throughout this shocker with exquisite plot pacing and intriguing character revelations. Connie Fletcher
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


Book Description
Called to a gruesome crime scene, Inspector Javier Falcón is shocked and sickened by what he finds. Littered like flower petals on the victim's shirt are the man's own eyelids, evidence of a heinous crime with no obvious motive. When the investigation leads him to read his late father's journals, he discovers a disturbing and sordid past. Meanwhile, more victims are falling. While Falcón struggles to solve the case, he finds the missing section of his father's journal-and becomes the murderer's next intended victim.
Combining suspenseful storytelling with a thoughtful exploration of the human psyche, The Blind Man of Seville confirms bestselling and award-winning author Robert Wilson as one of the greatest literary mystery writers working today.



From the Inside Flap
It's Semana Santa in Seville, the Easter week of passion and processions. A leading restaurateur is found bound, gagged and grotesquely murdered in front of his TV. Self-inflicted wounds tell of the man's struggle to avoid the unendurable images he's been forced to watch. At this horrific scene the normally dispassionate homicide detective Javier Falcón is inexplicably afraid. What could be so terrible?

The investigation into the victim's turbulent life sends Falcón trawling through his own past and the ferociously candid journals of his late father, a world-famous artist. Painful revelations churn up Falcón's unreliable memory and more killings push him to the edge of terrifying truth. And Falcón realizes that this is not just a hunt for the all-seeing killer who knows his victims' secret lives but also the search for his own missing heart.

From the Gold Dagger award-winning author of A Small Death in Lisbon, a novel that combines the tension of a psychological thriller with the emotional intensity of a literary tour de force.








Back Cover Copy
Robert Wilson is recognized as a master mystery and thriller writer

“Wilson has a preacher’s gift for the language of pain and great compassion for people caught up in the crucible of war.”
-New York Times Book Review

“Wilson demonstrates, as Graham Greene did long ago, that thrillers are the liveliest, most gripping, most thought-provoking literary enterprises going today. The most readable too, when penned by a master spinner like Wilson.”
-LA Times Book Review

“The British seem to breed terrific mystery and thriller writers with astonishing ease—think of everyone from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, to Agatha Christie, to John Le Carré and P.D. James. The latest import about to catch fire in the U.S.? Robert Wilson.”
-NY Post

"A highly evocative writer whose sense of place is nearly as acute as his talent for characterization."
- The Raleigh News and Observer


“Le Carré’s equal when it comes to plotting, piling surprise upon surprise and keeping the reader guessing until the bittersweet ending.”
-Denver Post



About the Author
Robert Wilson is the author of seven novels, including A Small Death in Lisbon, which won the Gold Dagger Award for Best Crime Novel of 1999 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 and West Africa. He lives in Portugal and Oxford, England.

FROM OUR EDITORS

An old Moroccan photograph at a murder scene in Seville sets Detective Inspector Javier Falcón on a very personal mission. He begins to read a series of journals written by his beloved late father. As he immerses himself in his parent's recollections, he moves no closer to the solution to the homicides that seem to fall like petals all around him, but he does snatch scattered glimmers into a past that haunts him more each day. This captivating literary mystery will please readers of Wilson's A Small Death in Lisbon and fans of John le Carr￯﾿ﾽ.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

"It's Semana Santa in Seville, the Easter week of passion and processions. A leading restaurateur is found bound, gagged, and grotesquely murdered in front of his TV. Self-inflicted wounds tell of the man's struggle to avoid the unendurable images he's been forced to watch. At this horrific scene the normally dispassionate homicide detective Javier Falcon is inexplicably afraid. What could be so terrible?" The investigation into the victim's turbulent life sends Falcon trawling through his own past and the ferociously candid journals of his late father, a world-famous artist. Painful revelations churn up Falcon's unreliable memory and more killings push him to the edge of terrifying truth. And Falcon realizes that this is not just a hunt for the all-seeing killer who knows his victims' secret lives but also the search for his own missing heart.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

Proving that even the most talented authors can have an off day, Wilson (A Small Death in Lisbon, etc.) has come up with a long, dense, often brilliantly written but finally off-putting and depressing story, which starts with the grisly murder of a Seville restaurant tycoon. Parts of the novel work wonderfully: an interview between Javier Falc"n, the chief of Seville's homicide squad, and the victim's young widow, crackles with wit and electricity as she gets more out of him than he does out of her. And Falc"n (whose late father, a famous painter, had links to the dead tycoon going back to their days in the Foreign Legion in Tangiers during the Spanish Civil War) is often a fascinating figure-when he's not imploding with the weight of his discoveries about his father's past or the stress of his job and a recently failed marriage. Descriptions of a ranch where fighting bulls are bred and of a bullfight are worthy of Hemingway, as are scenes from life in Seville during Holy Week. But in the end, there's too much blood, too many old journals, too much torture and depravity to absorb and process into art and/or entertainment. (Feb. 3) FYI: A Small Death in Lisbon won a CWA Gold Dagger Award for Fiction. Copyright 2003 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

Alternately a melodrama and a travelog through the streets of Seville, Wilson's latest (after The Company of Strangers) shares several features that made his first novel, A Small Death in Lisbon, an award winner. The best parts are the journals of the protagonist's father-a fascinating re-creation of the Spanish Civil War, World War II on the Russian front, and the postwar years in Tangier. Javier Falcon, chief homicide detective in Seville, has a ghastly murder to solve, one that inexplicably strikes into the depths of his being. When two similar murders follow, Falcon finds himself facing a midlife crisis as he penetrates his own past to find connections between the victims and his recently deceased father, a famous painter who lived a life of hidden depravity. The complex story that follows is skillfully developed, and the work as a whole becomes a tour de force of psychological probing, marred only by a sometimes baroque style in which the intensity of the language surpasses the drama of the narrated events. Highly recommended for most public libraries. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 9/1/02.]-Ronnie H. Terpening, Univ. of Arizona, Tucson

AudioFile

Be forewarned of the unrelieved bleakness of this novel about how the sins of the past haunt the present. In Seville, Homicide Detective Javier Falcon investigates a series of ghastly murders in which the killer removes the eyelids of his victims to force them to see that which is beyond bearing. As the case proceeds, it becomes apparent to Falcon that it is entwined somehow with the life of his late father, a renowned artist, whom Falcon learns, to his increasing horror, had much to hide. The book is dense and grim, and Sean Barrett's monotonous reading does little to keep the listener focused and engaged. It's a serious and challenging work, but expect no help from the narrator. M.O. © AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine

Kirkus Reviews