A Small Death in Lisbon [Hardcover]

Robert Wilson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 5, 2000

1941. Klaus Felsen, forced out of his Berlin factory into the SS, arrives in a luminous Lisbon, where Nazis and Allies, refugees and entrepreneurs, dance to the strains of opportunism and despair. Felsen's assignment takes him to the bleak mountains of the north where a devious and brutal battle is being fought for an element vital to Hitler's bliztkrieg. There he meets the man who plants the first seed of greed and revenge that will grow into a thick vine in the landscape of post-war Portugal. Late 1990s. Investigating the murder of a young girl with a disturbing sexual past, Inspector Ze Coelho overturns the dark soil of history and unearths old bones from Portugal's fascist past. This small death in Lisbon is horrific compensation for an even older crime, and Coelho's stubborn pursuit of its truth reveals a tragedy that unites past and present. Robert Wilson's combination of intelligence, suspense, vivid characters, and mesmerizing storytelling richly deserves the international acclaim his novel has received.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Penzler Pick, August 2000: Winner of the prestigious Gold Dagger Award in the U.K. for the best mystery of 1999, this complex literary thriller may be one of the most satisfying suspense novels to come along in some time. Robert Wilson has written several political thrillers, most of which are set in West Africa, but they are, alas, largely unavailable in the U.S.

In A Small Death in Lisbon, the narrative switches back and forth between 1941 and 1999, and Wilson's wide knowledge of history and keen sense of place make the eras equally vibrant. In 1941 Germany, Klaus Felsen, an industrialist, is approached by the SS high command in a none-too-friendly manner and is "persuaded" to go to Lisbon and oversee the sale--or smuggling--of wolfram (also known as tungsten, used in the manufacture of tanks and airplanes). World War II Portugal is neutral where business is concerned, and too much of the precious metal is being sold to Britain when Germany needs it to insure that Hitler's blitzkrieg is successful.

Cut to 1999 Lisbon, where the daughter of a prominent lawyer has been found dead on a beach. Ze Coehlo, a liberal police inspector who is a widower with a daughter of his own, must sift through the life of Catarina Oliviera and discover why she was so brutally murdered. Her father is enigmatic, her mother suicidal; her friends were rock musicians and drug addicts.

The reader is treated to a wonderful portrait of Lisbon in the aftermath of the 1974 revolution that ousted Salazar from power, and the scars from that conflict are still close to the surface for the citizens of Lisbon, including Coehlo and his colleagues. We also see World War II in a slightly different manner from that to which we are accustomed--through the eyes of the Germans and the Portuguese. The pace of the book is leisurely but compelling as the events of 1941 and those in 1999 merge in an extraordinary climax. --Otto Penzler

From Publishers Weekly

The real star of this gripping and beautifully written mysteryDwhich won the British Crime Writers' Golden Dagger Award for Best Crime Novel last yearDis Portugal, whose history and people come to life on every page. Wilson tells two stories: the investigation into the brutal sex murder of a 15-year-girl in 1998, and the tangled, bloody saga of a financial enterprise that begins with the Nazis in 1941. Although the two stories seem unrelated, both are so strong and full of fascinating characters that readers' attentionDand their faith that they will eventually be connectedDshould never waver. The author creates three compelling protagonists: middle-aged detective Jose Coelho, better known as Ze; Ze's late British wife, whom he met while exiled in London with his military officer father during the anti-Salazar political uprisings of the 1970s; and Ze's wise, talented and sexually active 16-year-old daughter. The first part of the WWII story focuses on an ambitious, rough-edged but likeable Swabian businessman, Klaus Felsen, convinced by the Gestapo to go to Portugal and seize the lion's share of that country's supply of tungsten, vital to the Nazi war effort. Later, we meet Manuel Abrantes, a much darker and more dangerous character, who turns out to be the main link between the past and the present. As Ze sifts through the sordid circumstances surrounding the murder of the promiscuous daughter of a powerful, vindictive lawyer, Wilson shines a harsh light on contemporary Portuguese society. Then, in alternating chapters, he shows how and why that society developed. All this and a suspenseful mysteryDwho could ask for more? (Oct.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 448 pages
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; 1st US edition (October 5, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0151006091
• ISBN-13: 978-0151006090
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.5 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (103 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,429,975 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

79 of 82 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Small Death Comes Alive - Stick With It, September 19, 2000

By 

[e-mail] (Manchester) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Small Death in Lisbon (Hardcover)

Nazi gold is at the heart of this thrilling adventure which crosses not only the heart of Europe but also the timespan of 50 years. Powerful writing and memorable characters make "A Small Death in Lisbon" a major triumph for previously little known author Robert Wilson, but he has taken on quite a challenge. Anyone writing a thriller will tell you to simplify matters by constricting the timespan as much as possible (there is even a thriller in real-time - the plot takes as long as it takes you to read it). Robert Wilson has ignored this advice and stretched his narrative over half a century - the result is ultimately successful but he asks a lot of the reader to stay with events in Nazi Germany and modern day Portugal at the same time. The characters are well drawn in the earlier chapters - important for the present day events to make sense - and the messages about good and evil are clearly presented. This not your regular read on the beach thriller, it challenges the reader to choose sides and confront issues. It also helps to have a little knowledge of European history. Don't worry if you don't understand the Portugese political history - few Europeans know anything about the country beyond its golf courses.

If you stick with "A Small Death" you will be rewarded with a memorable read. This is a genre novel which expands its genre and the fact that it has been awarded with a thriller writers award in Great Britain should be further recommendation.

37 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Works as history, mystery, straight fiction, November 9, 2000

By 

Michael Wendt (Vernon Hills, IL USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Small Death in Lisbon (Hardcover)

I found this to be truly outstanding in every way. The murder plot was complicated, with many legitimate suspects and storylines converging on the victim. The other main story, beginning in 1941 and slowly accelerating toward the time of the murder, is interesting in its own right, and involves a lot of history - SS "financing" activities during and after WWII, and the history of Portugal pre- and post-Salazar. The convergence of the two stories is very well done; I kept thinking how controlled and synchronized the pacing was. We are shown how each of the main characters is affected by history's imprint upon their lives, the creeping backstory eventually overtaking and in a sense consuming the main plot. This is the richest, best fictional work I have read in at least a year.

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars COMPLEX AND DISTURBING MURDER MYSTERY, May 22, 2001

By 

J. C. Bailey (East Sussex United Kingdom) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Small Death in Lisbon (Hardcover)

The two arms of this plot work forwards from WW2 and backwards from the present day. As we trace the growth of a business empire built on Nazi plunder, we are constantly flashed forward to the efforts of a dedicated detective to unravel the sadistic murder of a young girl with immaculate parentage - a murder which proves to be the final act of betrayal in a story spanning generations.

The historical and political detail is exemplary, both in terms of the Nazi black-marketeering and the scars left on the Portuguese psyche by the fascist Salazar regime (a lesser known counterpart of the Franco regime in Spain). The characters develop real life as the story proceeds. Moreover, the author does a much better job of weaving the strands together than some reviewers on this site have claimed, and the ending is both plausible and satisfying.

My criticisms of the book are on a different tack. Violence and sexual depravity are detailed with a degree of lewd explicitness that verges on pornographic. That sort of voyeurism is unnecessary in a novel of this quality - the book would stand up better without it. Secondly, I dislike the author's prose - others have liked it but I find his attempts to be a sharp and acerbic wordsmith are never quite pulled off and ultimately count as a distraction.

In balance however, the excellent plot, historical detail and character development lift this book out of the ordinary, and triumph over its areas of weakness