The Blind Man of Seville

Jacket Description/Flap: It's Semana Santa in Seville, the Easter week of passion and processions. A leading restaurateur is found bound, gagged and grotesquely murdered in front of his TV. Self-inflicted wounds tell of the man's struggle to avoid the unendurable images he's been forced to watch. At this horrific scene the normally dispassionate homicide detective Javier Falcon is inexplicably afraid. What could be so terrible? The investigation into the victim's turbulent life sends Falcon trawling through his own past and the ferociously candid journals of his late father, a world-famous artist. Painful revelations churn up Falcon's unreliable memory and more killings push him to the edge of terrifying truth. And Falcon realizes that this is not just a hunt for the all-seeing killer who knows his victims' secret lives but also the search for his own missing heart. From the Gold Dagger award-winning author of A Small Death in Lisbon, a novel that combines the tension of a psychological thriller with the emotional intensity of a literary tour de force. Jacket Description/Back: Robert Wilson is recognized as a master mystery and thriller writer "Wilson has a preacher's gift for the language of pain and great compassion for people caught up in the crucible of war."-New York Times Book Review "Wilson demonstrates, as Graham Greene did long ago, that thrillers are the liveliest, most gripping, most thought-provoking literary enterprises going today. The most readable too, when penned by a master spinner like Wilson."-LA Times Book Review "The British seem to breed terrific mystery and thriller writers with astonishing ease--think of everyone from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, to Agatha Christie, to John Le Carre and P. D. James. The latest import about to catch fire in the U. S.? Robert Wilson."-NY Post "A highly evocative writer whose sense of place is nearly as acute as his talent for characterization."- The Raleigh News and Observer "Le Carre's equal when it comes to plotting, piling surprise upon surprise and keeping the reader guessing until the bittersweet ending." -Denver PostMarc Notes: First published in England by HarperCollinsPublishers.. Brief Description: Detective Inspector Javier FalcOn is transfixed from the moment he sees the blood-streaked face of murder victim, Raul JimEnez, in his Seville apartment. When he finds, littered on the bloody shirt front like exotic tropical petals, the man's eyelids, he imagines the relentless, unflagging horror and it becomes the beginning of his own. But as he sifts the evidence and comes across old photographs of the victim's earlier life in Tangier after the war, he finds that he too is dragged back into the past. FalcOn himself had been brought up in Tangier. His father had become famous there. A Spanish artist of world reknown, Fransisco FalcOn, had died recently leaving a large inheritance and a set of journals which his son starts reading. It is from these diaries that the detective discovers that the father he'd always loved was somebody he didn't know. As the murder case unfolds, FalcOn's mind unravels. He is beset with inexplicable anxieties and his brief moments of sleep are wracked by vivid dreams, as all the old certainties of his organised life are undermined. More victims fall under the killer's unflinching blade. But from the multitude of evidence, from the terrible hidden secrets embedded in the victim's lives, FalcOn, even with his idiosyncratic methods, cannot make the breakthrough until the final missing section of his father's journals comes to light. And until FalcOn himself becomes the killer's next intended victim. With "The Blind Man of Seville," Robert Wilson's unparalleled combination of suspenseful storytelling and for the ambiguities of the human soul confirm his place as one of the best mystery writers in the world today. Review Quotes: PRAISE FOR THE BLIND MAN OF SEVILLE"Splendid ... Wilson has a talent for digging beneath the skin to explore psychological and emotional nuances." --New York Daily News "This splendid . . . novel from Robert Wilson is consistently stunning, intriguing, and arresting."- St. Louis Post-Dispatch Publisher Marketing: Called to a gruesome crime scene, Inspector Javier Falcon is shocked and sickened by what he finds. Littered like flower petals on the victim's shirt are the man's own eyelids, evidence of a heinous crime with no obvious motive. When the investigation leads him to read his late father's journals, he discovers a disturbing and sordid past. Meanwhile, more victims are falling. While Falcon struggles to solve the case, he finds the missing section of his father's journal-and becomes the murderer's next intended victim. Combining suspenseful storytelling with a thoughtful exploration of the human psyche, The Blind Man of Seville confirms bestselling and award-winning author Robert Wilson as one of the greatest literary mystery writers working today.

Contributor Bio:  Wilson, Robert Robert Wilson is the author of seven novels, including A Small Death in Lisbon, which won the Gold Dagger Award for Best Crime Novel of 1999 from Britain's Crime Writers Association. A graduate of Oxford University, he has worked in shipping, advertising, and trading in Africa, and has lived in Greece and West Africa. He currently lives in Portugal and Oxford, England.