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Robert Wilson lives in England, Spain and Portugal. He works in the shipping trade between London and West Africa. His suspense novels have been successfully published in England and Europe for a number of years. Last year his book, A SMALL DEATH IN LISBON, won the CWA Gold Dagger award, which resulted in well-deserved and long-overdue publication in the United States. THE BLIND MAN OF SEVILLE is his current book, out in February 2003 from Harcourt.
Wilson is an author who is not afraid to demand a lot of his readers and he gives much in return, not only in the style of his writing but also in the subject matter. A high standard was set for American readers by A SMALL DEATH IN LISBON --- and A BLIND MAN OF SEVILLE follows without exception. Along with keen psychological insights, the book presents unflinching, relentless violence --- and its author does not want us, the readers, to be blind to it. The word "blind" in the title is there by design. In a prologue that signals both the theme to come and the intensity that characterizes the balance of the story, we are duly warned that, if we get through the prologue, which is about torture from the point of view of the victim, we will most likely want to read to the end of the book. It is not an easy read but a rewarding one.
Javier Falcon is Inspector Jefe del Grupo de Homicidios de Sevilla, informally called Inspector Jefe, though little is informal about this fascinatingly withdrawn and solitary man. During Semana Santo, the week immediately preceding Easter in the year 2001, Inspector Jefe Falcon is called to the home of Raul Jimenez, a successful and politically influential man in his 70s --- he had been tortured until he died of heart failure. "His heart exploded," the coroner says. The brutality of the crime scene suggests that Jimenez would have been tortured until he died --- no matter how long it took --- and there are signs that the victim deliberately acted in such a way as to hasten his own death. Not the least of his injuries, but the most telling, is the removal of his eyelids, both upper and lower. Whatever Jimenez was forced to see upset him so much that he further injured himself in a vain effort to avoid the sight.
It is clear from the condition of the apartment, which was nearly devoid of furniture, that Jimenez was in the process of moving to a new location. But nothing else is clear, especially to Inspector Jefe Falcon, who reacts to the crime scene in ways he himself does not understand and successfully conceals from his fellow officers.
The primary suspect at the outset is the widow, Dona Consuelo Jimenez. Neither Falcon nor anyone else is quite sure how seriously to consider Consuelo as the murderer --- she is an enigma with icy blue eyes (references to eyes, vision, sight, seeing etc., come up repeatedly and are handled skillfully by the author). But the widow is certainly not the only suspect, because Raul Jimenez was a man who cultivated friends among the powerful and such men also make enemies of equal power. Perhaps the murderer came out of Raul's distant past, a time when he did not run with the rich and powerful crowd. What could Jimenez have done that even a twisted mind would devise such a fate for him? And why does this murder, more than any other crime he has observed, strike such fear into the heart of the chief inspector?
The book is as much a study in the character of the investigator, Javier Falcon, as it is the story of a horrific crime. An attractive character with a certain nobility, Falcon is the son and heir of a famous Sevillano artist. After his father's death, he went to live in his father's large, historic house --- grand, haunting, possibly haunted. But this is no ghost story, nothing as simple as that. The haunting is all in Javier's head. Or is it? The tension is as relentless as the consequences; should he handle the case unwisely, there will be terrible consequences for Falcon. As in a classical tragedy, the man can all too easily be responsible for his own downfall --- as we are uneasily and increasingly aware.
Robert Wilson is best at producing and sustaining tension to the point where it is almost unbearable. He is, perhaps unfortunately, less good at moving his own story along. I say "perhaps" because very few writers on either side of The Pond are quite so good at putting together words that flow splendidly, sentence-by-sentence, through the pages. But I am an American reader and I want the action to move forward in my thrillers. When I'm reading a book that includes a hefty dose of words and phrases in a language other than English, I would appreciate a glossary at the back of the book, if not a translation right on the page. If I have to read Edificio del Presidente instead of the president's house, it takes my eyes and brain a while to adjust before I'm no longer slowed down by the Spanish --- and, in a thriller, every word that slows me is hard not to resent. Whether this is a flaw in us American readers, or a small flaw in the author's otherwise excellent work, is debatable.
This one quibble aside, THE BLIND MAN OF SEVILLE is very much worth the time it takes to read.
--- Reviewed by Ava Dianne Day
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