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.
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Présentation de l'éditeur
The third powerful and evocative novel in Robert Wilson’s acclaimed West African-set Bruce Medway series.
Bruce Medway, fixer and debt collector for anyone in a deeper hole than himself, has heard a few stories in his time. The one that Napier Briggs tells him is patchy, but it doesn’t exclude the vital fact that two million of his dollars have gone missing. Bruce is used to imperfect information – people get embarrassed at their own stupidity and criminality. But for the first time it leads to the gruesome and brutal death of a client.
It would all have ended there but for Napier’s daughter, the sexy, sassy and sussed Selina Aguia, a canny commodities broker. She brings money to the game and launches Bruce into a savage world where a power-hungry Nigerian presidential candidate, a rich blow-loving American and a mafia capo are fighting a silent war in which pawns are badly needed. Worse for Bruce, Selina wants revenge, and with the scam she invents she looks as if she’ll get it. This is a world where blood is dirt – nobody really cares. Not even if they love you.
