Small Death in Lisbon Hb [Hardcover]

Robert Wilson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 6, 1999

A complex and totally gripping literary thriller from one of our most exciting young authors. 'A class act...For once a novelist influenced by Raymond Chandler is not shown up by the comparison' -- Sunday Times 1941. Europe's as dark as a coal hole and Lisbon's the furnace mouth. Klaus Felsen, press-ganged into the SS from his Berlin factory, has arrived at the strangest party in history where Nazis and Allies, refugees and entrepreneurs dance in a whirl of opportunism and despair. Felsen's war takes him out of the spy-ridden hotel lounges and into the bleak mountains of the north where a less sophisticaed, more brutal battle is being fought for an element vital to Hitler's blitzkrieg. There he meets the man who will start the first turn of the cycle of greed and revenge which wheels through the next fifty years. Inspector Ze Coelho, an outsider in the insider world of the Policia Judiciaria in modern day Lisbon, is investigating the death of a young girl with a disturbing sexual past. As Ze digs deeper into her insignificant death, he finds he's turning the dark soil of history and unearthing old bones. The Portuguese revolution is hardly a generation old and the injustices of the old fascist regime have never been fully resolved. But there is an older and even greater injustice which this small death in Lisbon has sought, horrifically, to redress, and in Ze's final push for the truth, he must confront a more chilling, powerful and resistant force.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Praise for Robert Wilson: 'Excellent... gripping and grim. A vivid and steamy stumble on the wild side' Val McDermid 'A densely plotted thriller, prickling with excitement... fiercely imagined and not a little frightening' Literary Review

About the Author

Robert Wilson has spent several years in West Africa, and he drew on this experience for his Bruce Medway novels. He and his wife now live in Portugal, the setting for A Small Death in Lisbon.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 439 pages
• Publisher: Harpercollins (April 6, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 000232668X
• ISBN-13: 978-0002326681
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 5.9 x 1.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,450,073 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Intriguing but falls apart at the end, August 29, 2011

By 

CW Anderson - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Small Death in Lisbon (Paperback)

As an American who speaks Portuguese and who had recently visited Lisbon, I was eager to read this book to see how history, culture, and geography would be referenced in an English language book about murder and intrigue in late 1990s Portugal set against an extensive back story involving expatriate Nazis.

It's always a bit hard for me to suspend disbelief in books and especially movies when German and Portuguese characters speak and think in English. That said, author Robert Wilson does a clever and entertaining job of dropping in some Portuguese words and phrases (and of course place names) -- and sometimes English translations of some obviously idiomatic Portuguese phrases -- that a non-Portuguese speaker won't find inaccessible but that a Portuguese-as-a-second-language reader will enjoy. The main character's occasional reflections on the Portuguese culture and mannerisms -- often in the context of memories or discussions about his deceased English wife -- seemed to ring true although were obviously a bit simplified.

I enjoyed the historical and contemporary plot lines and the anticipation of the revelation of their convergence. However, the first revealed murder solution and the surprise twist second solution did not satisfy me; the former was too obvious and the latter too much out of deep left field.

Finally, the sexual violence described in the book was too graphic for my tastes. It wasn't necessary to advance the otherwise intriguing plot.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating, but ultimately frustrating, mystery., September 9, 2005

By 

Mary Whipple (New England) - See all my reviews
(COMMUNITY FORUM 04)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 100 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Small Death in Lisbon (Paperback)

Two different settings and time frames--the waning days of the Third Reich in Germany and Portugal, and contemporary Portugal, with some of the same characters--allow the author to overlap both a complex historical thriller with a traditional murder mystery in unique and fascinating ways. Klaus Felsen, forced to work for the Nazi SS near the end of World War II, is sent to Portugal to buy as much wolfram (tungsten) as he can get, to be used in the manufacture of armor-piercing weapons. He is also responsible for privately smuggling out a great deal of German gold and some stolen art when it appears that Germany will lose the war, a job made more palatable when he realizes that he and his partners can profit greatly in the years after the war if they are careful to avoid discovery.

All these details come into play when a young Portuguese girl, seemingly unconnected with any of this, is found murdered fifty years later in contemporary Lisbon. Inspector Ze Coelho is assigned to solve the mystery of her death, a death which eventually reverberates throughout Lisbon society, the émigré population, the police department, the federal Justice department, political parties past and present, and even the foundations of the present government.

If all this seems like a lot to take on, it is. Although the book is beautifully written with fully developed, imperfect, and quirky characters one grows to like and understand, fine and vivid description, and a fast-paced plot with something happening all the time, ultimately it is difficult to make all the connections required by the fifty year chronology of the plot. Although I worked hard at this, and thought I had succeeded as I approached the conclusion, the last twenty pages had me reviewing and revising everything I had previously observed about the possible motivations of the main characters. Surprising twists are expected in mysteries. This one takes complexity to new levels. Mary Whipple

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing historical thriller, August 24, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Small Death in Lisbon (Paperback)

This book is difficult to put down. Extremely well written with intriguing and taught characters, it weaves together two stories, one taking place in present day in which the murder of a young girl is being investigated and the other about a young businessman who's forced into the SS during WWII. The book follows this man to present day and you begin to see how the two stories, though seemingly not related, are connected. I highly recommend this book. The story is great, the characters are great, the writing is fine -- I could not put it down.