Customer Reviews

Blood Is Dirt (Bruce Medway Mysteries, No. 3)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

My first taste of Wilson's writing was A Small Death in Lisbon! WOW!! Powerful but brutal. Since then, I've been reading everything I can get my hands on by this author.

Wilson draws on Africa for this tale and it is tautly written with complex characters. I can never see around the next corner, I am constantly amazed as Wilson pulls rabbit after rabbit out of the hat.

What I like about Wilson is that even when he's being brutal, he never forgets to be funny as well. Some of the better one liners I've read have come from his novels.

Always brutal, his characters flawed as we would expect, plots in keeping with today's drama, Wilson's novels are way ahead of the formulaic mystery writers in America. Though I ususally pass my books on to others, Wilson is one author I hate to part with.

Looking forward to the next novel.

If Raymond Chandler was an acerbic Brit living in Benin, well, okay, he wouldn't be Raymond Chandler, but Robert Wilson is a latter day Chandler, who describes the complexities of African corruption, gives us the flavor of heat and violence, and presents an expat private eye (Bruce Medway) who is smart, funny and about the only dry thing in West Africa.

This novel is interesting, smart about Africa, especially Nigeria, Benin, corporate fraud and political corruption. It's also funny and moves along at a good clip. Wilson is deft with characterization and complexity, and the writing is so evocative you'll feel by turns drunk, hot or terrified as you read.

A great example of what detective fiction should be: smart, original, funny and interesting.

Like Robinson's, The Sapphire Sea, this well written novel takes us into the steamy alleys of Africa through the eyes of an outsider who knows the inside track. You may not like what you see, but you can't stop turning the pages. Good stuff.

Blood is Dirt is Robert Wilson's third installment in the Brude Medway series, thrillers set in West Africa.

The Medway series works for two reasons: Bruce Medway is an interesting anti-hero and Wilson is very good at physical description, and he makes the cities and countryside of this region come alive.

About Bruce Medway. The idea of a lone hero battling his (or her) own demons while simultaneously trying to achieve justice for his clients is a standard trope for fleshing out PIs. The usual way this gets played out is that the hero has some terrible unresolved loss in his past that impels him toward life as a loner, and perhaps as a lone avenger. Medway is a different spin: his troubles are not in the past, but are right there in this story. His partnership with Bagado is all but defunct, the partners are almost out of work, and clearly desperate for a paying client. Nor is all set with Medway's personal life, his on-and-off relationship with his German girlfried appears at risk once again.

When he describes the stultifying and oppressive heat, for example, and how it affects his characters, I get clammy myself. And it's not just the heat that he describes, it's the look, the feel, even the smell of these places, and the contrast between the mostly-European operated hotels and fancy restaurants and the varying degrees of misery that the vast majority of the population lives in.

So when Napier Briggs comes to Medway's office with a sketchy story about having been scammed out of nearly $2 million, and having been referred by a bureaucrat in the Lagos office of the Britsh Foreign Office, but then refuses to give Medway and Bagado enough detail to allow them to assist him, its clear that Briggs is Trouble, and the partners initially turn him away.

Even so, out of his desperation, Medway trails Briggs to his hotel, in hopes of turning Briggs into a paying client. At that point, Briggs then offers Medway a large fee to chaperone him at a meeting at which Briggs is supposed to be paid a small fortune. Medway agrees to accompany Briggs, but when he takes his eyes off of Briggs for just a moment, Briggs disappears, and soon thereafter turns up dead. I won't spoil more of the plot, but needless to say, the point then becomes to determine who killed Napier Briggs and why.

Wilson's European-based novels are, without exception, excellent. But his Medway/African books, of which this is one, are lackluster. Granted, they paint a fascinating picture of life in Benin and Nigeria, but they lack coherence and compulsion, in my estimation. Of the books in this series, I have completed only one. The others, I just lost interest about half-way through the book. I'm not sure why. Probably because the plot seems to keep going around in circles, rarely moving forward. And there are so many characters and other names that I had to keep paging back to refresh my frame of reference. There are better books out there -- some written by Wilson. So, I'll just move on to those, and put the African works behind me.

When Bruce Medway, now headquartered in Benin, is approached by a client about a Nigerian scam, he is initially skeptical. When that client turns up murdered, Medway begins his quest for the killer, particularly after the victim's daughter comes to Benin looking for revenge. Medway's hunt for the killer leads him into neighboring Nigeria and its corrupt system, and a plot to sting a presidential candidate.

"Blood is Dirt" is the third book in Robert Wilson's Bruce Medway series, and the second I've read. Both have the same pluses. "Blood is Dirt" features some excellent dialogue, real suspense, and a wonderfully drawn setting. Despite being written in 1997, it is also quite timely, given that Nigeria is a continuing trouble spot for the world. As on character notes, Nigeria shouldn't be dysfunctional, and yet it is, because certain people within and without are profiting from its failure as a state.

However, I was frustrated to find many of the same minuses as his previous book. Medway is a more grounded and likable character now that his girlfriend, Heike, has returned to him. But he remains a little more distant than he ought to be for the reader to fully appreciate. He's descent enough, but the reader never quite connects with him, which is a bad thing for a mystery/suspense novel.

Moreover, the plot is far more convoluted than it needs to be, as Medway pursuit a scam artist leads to the Italian Mafia, expatriate businessmen, and corrupt Nigerian politicos. Consequently, a lot of incidents occur that rarely seem relevant at the time, and even then, only half really matter. While a good mystery is layered, Wilson frequently spackles on plot-lines like dense concrete, some of which serve no purpose other than to obfuscate. The end result is to leave the reader rather indifferent to as to who the killer is and what their motives are. Indeed, it's quite possible you'll forget everything as soon as you close the book.

The saving grace of this series for me has been its terrific and unusual setting. I have the last volume of the series, and I will read it. But I am happy I bought these books from the bargain shelf.

Private Investigator Bruce Medway's new client runs into an obstacle getting to the office: the neighbors are gutting a sheep in front of the building, a gruesome enough sight to almost run Napier Briggs off, but that's life on the coast of West Africa, at least in Medway's world. The prospective client makes it to the office Medway shares with his partner, the sage Bagado, a familiar character from previous books.

West Africa, especially where Medway does his business, is the Wild West fast-forwarded to a futurescape scraped raw by poverty and advancing ecological disaster. There's money to be made on every illegitimate enterprise known to mankind, but on the average, life is worthless. But all this is familiar to Medway in his line of work. This time he muddles through toxic waste disposal, black market nuclear weapons, money scams, Mafia killings, bribery of government officials and assorted thugs who delight in a little obscene torture before murder.

On the one hand, Medway and Bagado are investigating the existence of a toxic waste dump in Nigeria. At the same time, the intrepid PI is tentatively researching the gruesome death of his almost-client, Napier Briggs, for the man's surviving daughter. As luck would have it, the two issues are intertwined and it is in the unraveling that Medway skates along the edge of danger.

This is the third in Wilson's West Africa/Medway detective series and each book offers up enough villains, creeps and criminals to intimidate all but the faint of heart. While Medway works his way through the clues, the reader learns about the criminal-ridden coast of Africa, the spoilers and exploiters who live to plunder the unwary. The contrast between the elite, the ultra-rich power brokers and the people who struggle to survive day to day in Africa is stunning, an enormous division between the classes and implied corruptibility in the pursuit of power.

There is no shortage of stories or schemes on the African continent and Wilson proves, once again, that his witty hero loves this place in spite of the pitfalls, always ready for a new adventure and eager to make a buck. Wilson seduces with a plunge into the dark heart of violence, where conscience has no purchase; yet the often naive Medway, dodges through shadows, avoiding the lurking face of the Grim Reaper. Never a disappointment, Wilson has created a new mystery genre: African noir. Luan Gaines/2004.

This is the second book I have read by Robert Wilson. The first one was A Small Death in Lisbon and it was really good. The african background is too hard and unattractive. Bruce Medway, the main character, is sort of likable. The plot is hard to follow and lacklustre.

The book is pretty average. There are better reads around.

Blood Is Dirt (1998)
Robert Wilson
Awards: none
Genre: mystery - modern detective
Date Read: August 6, 2003 - August 12, 2003
Setting: West Africa - Cotonou, Porto-Novo (Benin), Lagos (Nigeria)
Comments: another well written book from Wilson; great characters and story development; interesting setting; easy read; as long as you don't pay more than the cost of a mass market paperback version you will not be disappointed
Advice: recommended

The back cover compares the author to Raymond Chandler. This is true only to a degree. The narrative is first person and the writer attempts to imitate Chandler, but the plot is confusing and the ultimate solution is somewhat simplistic and obvious. The author writes well, but the reader is always flipping to prior chapters to try to figure out who a character is and where the character entered the story. In sum, this book is good, but not great.