The Big Killing [Paperback]

Edgy and brutal, Wilson's The Big Killing is a wild ride through the lawless territory of West Africa, where greed rules and bodies lie trampled in its wake like so much fertilizer. If possible, the Dark Continent has become even darker, as portrayed by Wilson, while the lush natural bounty and untapped resources are attacked by raptors with the power to plunder and destroy with impunity.

Diamonds are the source of intrigue, theft and murder, providing profit that allows the importation of weapons in an ongoing battle for tribal ascendance. There is a longstanding system of mass murder by one so-called "legitimate" government after another, backed by various interests to assert control over an area too rich to escape notice. The cost in lives hardly matters to these players, because this population is expendable and self-perpetuating. Scores of bodies accrue, a testament of man's inhumanity to man, the numbers so outrageous that they beg believability. Still the violence continues unabated.

Bruce Medway makes his living as a fixer, a man willing to do "bits of business, management, organization, negotiations, transactions and debt collection". He won't involve himself in anything criminal or domestic, finding such things too quickly out of control. When a stranger asks Medway to do a quick job, a drop, it will spell the end of Bruce's financial woes and allow him to pay off his current debt. Either from stubbornness or hubris, Medway agrees to get involved, even though his intuition is screaming a warning against this venture. This one bad decision begets a series of confrontations that are ever more complicated and violent, where one intention obscures another and things grow more dangerous by the hour. The bodies pile up as quickly as the introduction of nefarious characters with hidden agendas, while Medway hops from one brush with death to another, never quite able to catch his breath. His small islands of respite are the nightmare-riddled dreams of alcohol-induced sleep.

Wilson is a master craftsman, a talented storyteller who reads like Robert Stone, combining radical themes, blending a seamless plot that doesn't compromise or disappoint. From the decadent porn purveyors to diamond smugglers, arms merchants to corrupt police officials, Wilson creates a range of characters from thin air, sending them spiraling into the killing fields of a war-torn and criminalized Africa.

Against this dramatic and violent background, Wilson writes with a moral clarity of the intense struggle of a continent made dark by the interminable abuses of exploiters. This is political-mystery/fiction at its most powerful, pointing the reader toward awareness of the brutal reality that is Africa today, the indiscriminate use of power, the pillaging of natural resources and the political ascendancy of particular agendas. Once you start, be prepared to keep reading to the final pages. I did and when I was finished, Wilson gained another enthusiastic fan. Luan Gaines/ 2003.

"The Big Killing" is my first Robert Wilson book. It is the second in his series of mysteries featuring Bruce Medway, British expatriate living in the Ivory Coast. Since it was in the bargain book section, I went ahead and picked up the third and fourth books. However, I'm not so sure if that was a bit of a hasty decision in the end.

When we first meet Medway, he's a bit of a mess. Evidently, the events of the first book, "Instruments of Darkness" (which I have not read) have left him a disillusioned (although I doubt that he was ever "illusioned"), adrift in the Ivory Coast, broke, pining for his lost love, and waiting for his Syrian millionaire patron to give him something to do. In the meantime, the Liberian Civil War is raging, with one of its apparent casualties begin the Liberian VP, found with his innards ripped out by a killer simply dubbed "The Leopard".

Naturally, as is the case in such novels, Medway finds he has three jobs all at once. His Syrian millionaire friend wants him to check on the manager of his sheanut plantation. An old friend from England asks Medway to chaperone a young diamond merchant. And a repugnant pornographer asks Medway to deliver a package. These diverse plot-threads soon converge in a political tangle, as Medway maneuvers his way through the thoroughly corrupt world of West Africa.

The plot is quite brisk, if convoluted. Medway stumbles into ambushes, tangles with corrupt village police, dodges a massive kidnapping plot, all while the bodies pile up around him. Numerous characters enter the stage, although only a few actually seem to have any bearing on the overall novel. Wilson is very good at playing with the reader's perceptions and stereotypes, as some characters who seem as if they're going to be critical to the overall plot wind-up dead within a few pages of their introduction. Other characters who seem as if they are merely in the novel to provide background color actually prove extraordinarily relevant. This talent for misdirection serves Wilson well, as he keeps the reader enticed by the enigma of his novel as we try to figure what's going on with Medway.

It's fortunate that this novel is so plot-driven, because Medway is not a terribly strong character. While drawn from the writings of old school hard-boiled fiction, Medway feels as if he's lacking something. He never quite appears to be the moral White Knight Raymond Chandler's Phillip Marlowe is. Nor is ever the self-righteous tough guy who is willing to bloody his hands for justice like Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer. While he seems an okay guy, Medway seems to simply be going through the motions, playing tough-guy detective, tangling with cops, killers, and dames. While that's part of Wilson's intent early on, he never really gives Medway anything to strive for, beyond simple survival. Medway never really seems to care about the various people dying around him, but he seeks justice for them nonetheless. His code is perhaps too fuzzy to understand, and that might have been Wilson's goal, but Wilson did the character no favors by not letting him grow within the course of the book.

The real draw of this book (and I suspect the whole series) is the setting. West Africa is no paradise, and Wilson shows us this. It's corrupt and violent, with miles of distance between the haves and the have-nots. Despite the fact that it has been decades since the region has been under direct European Imperial rule, one of the central issues, Wilson reminds us, is that the Europeans never left. They come back, fulfill their own interests (be it diamonds, be it political instability), and then leave while West Africa is force to pick up the pieces. Moreover, Wilson also makes it clear that this situation exists because native born African elites benefit by it. But even more basically, Wilson evokes a place that is hot, humid, and depressed. Wilson's efforts to instill a sense of indignation in his reader is a success.

On the whole, I did like "The Big Killing," although not as much as I expected to when I flipped through it. That's a little unfair on my part, I suppose. Hopefully, with more realistic expectations, I can enjoy the rest of the Medway series.

Wilson seems happier with his West African locales than he does with Spain, where his novels get bogged down in scenery and slow paced character development. This novel moves with punch and direction, steering the reader through unusual locations, a post-colonial world of ruthless energy, sinking back into tribalism. well worth reading although it helps to start with the first novel and work up to this one.