Blood Is Dirt [Hardcover]

Robert Wilson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 2004

Bruce Medway, fixer and debt collector for anyone in a deeper hole than himself, has to face the gruesome and brutal death of a client. The sexy Selina Aguia, daughter of Medway's client, wants revenge and it looks as if she'll get it.

--This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In Wilson's third fine mystery (after 2003's The Big Killing) to feature Bruce Medway, the British expat/private investigator in West Africa, Medway is as fully realized as Chandler's Philip Marlowe or Ross MacDonald's Lew Archer—deeply human, aware of his limitations, a reluctant antihero. Equally well drawn are the many supporting roles, including Medway's African partner Bagado, his German girlfriend Heike and even the bad guys. Wilson also provides a palpable sense of place, here the dusty, impoverished port city of Cotonou in Benin. Alas, the labyrinthine plot sometimes veers close to incomprehensibility. A new client, another British expat, Napier Briggs, comes to Medway for help in recovering nearly $2 million stolen from him in an African confidence scheme, but that night he's brutally murdered, and the police express little interest in the case. His daughter, commodities broker Selina Aguia, comes to Cotonou to retrieve his body and hires Medway to help find his killer. Despite an overly complex plot that also involves a local Mafia Capo and some stolen plutonium, this elegantly written book provides an interesting glimpse into an unfamiliar world, with a compelling mixture of brutal violence and deadpan wit. Medway is far from perfect, but he's a perfect guide to the greed- and power-driven intrigues of a developing country.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

Wilson is particularly good at describing the down-and-dirty motives behind his characters' behaviour and the tangy, ripe prose positively leaps off the page in this tale of a fixer and debt collector in Benin, West Africa. Bruce Medway, the wry protagonist, is told by his client Napier Briggs that $2 million has gone missing and an involvement with Napier's sexy daughter, Selina, a commodities broker, takes him into the dangerous world of money laundering, oil and toxic waste frauds and, inevitably, violent death. The heat-ridden locales are described with the kind of memorable precision that Graham Greene brought to his stories of dispossessed heroes, but the narrative here is much tougher and very much of the present day. (Kirkus UK) --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Hardcover
• Publisher: San Val (July 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1417706279
• ISBN-13: 978-1417706273
• Shipping Information: View shipping rates and policies
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)

More About the Author

ROBERT WILSON is the author of nine previous novels, including A Small Death in Lisbon and The Company of Strangers. A graduate of Oxford University, he has worked in shipping, advertising, and trading in Africa, and has lived in Greece and West Africa.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Why did it take me so long to discover Robert WIlson?, September 24, 2006

By 

D. West "Bones" (Boise, Idaho United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Blood Is Dirt (Bruce Medway Mysteries, No. 3) (Paperback)

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.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars If Chandler Lived in West Africa, July 6, 2004

By 

Otto Zappatore "Finderman" (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Blood Is Dirt (Bruce Medway Mysteries, No. 3) (Paperback)

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.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars africa!, February 20, 2005

By 

Lacy Hazard "Thrill seeker" (San Francisco) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Blood Is Dirt (Bruce Medway Mysteries, No. 3) (Paperback)

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.