The Blind Man of Seville
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Amazon.co.uk Review
The very title The Blind Man of Seville raises some of the most interesting questions in this original thriller, which breaks the mould of the police procedural far more than seems likely in its seemingly conventional early pages.
A series of men and women are killed by torture and their eye-lids or eyes taken from them in the process--but they die if anything of an excess of sight, of being forced to watch the unendurable. As Inspector Falcon does the legwork of the case, and gets more and more teasing messages about sight and light from the ingenious and vicious killer, we find ourselves wondering whether he himself is the blind man, if there is something he is refusing to see.
At the same time, he is clearing the studio of his dead painter father, and reading journals containing a horribly plausible version of the man he thought he knew--a bisexual gangster who fought for Fascism and the Nazis in Spain and Russia. And around him Seville is having its intense and bizarre Holy Week celebrations, with bullfights and with vast puppets of sacred figures looming around the streets.
This is a book of surreal intensity which plays by all the rules of the detective novel and yet gives the reader so much disturbingly more. --Roz Kaveney
Review
Praise for the Blind Man of Seville:
‘Crime writing at its very best, but it is also something more. It observes no limits, it begs no one’s pardon. It excites, it surprises and it satisfies.This is a fine important novel’ Philip Oakes, Literary Review
‘Admirably paced and enthrallingly elaborate’ Sunday Times
‘To call Robert Wilson's The Blind Man of Seville a thriller is to do a grave injustice to an utterly stunning achievement.The central narrative of the detective on the verge of a nervous breakdown is a psychological thriller of real profundity. Wonderful!’ Paul Preston, author of Franco
'The Blind Man of Seville is an ingenious and compelling thriller.’ Toby Clements, Daily Telegraph
'As an evocation of the emotional labyrinth of postwar Tangiers and as a tale of artistic drift, it's rather brilliant – a detective story Paul Bowles never wrote' Chris Petit, Guardian
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First Sentence
It had started the moment he'd walked into that room and had seen that face. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
It had started the moment he'd walked into that room and had seen that face. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
19 of 21 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This novel by the award-winning author of A Small Death in Lisbon, appears to have much going for it. The first draw is its rather curious title, the second is its exotic setting, Seville, Spain. Plus, the plot itself sounds rather fascinating…
Thursday 12th of April, and a leading restaurateur is found slain in his home. Tied to a chair in front his TV, he has been forced to view horrifically unendurable images. The horror of these scenes is evidenced by the self-inflicted wounds caused by Raul Jimenez’s desperate struggle not to watch. On top of that, his eyelids have been removed. The normally dispassionate detective Javier Falcon is shocked deeply, and becomes inexplicably frightened by this killer who seems to know, intimately, every single detail of his victim’s life. Never in his career has he confronted a scene so barbaric.
But, for Javier Falcon, the worst is yet to come. Because, in investigating the victim’s complex past, he discovers that it is inextricably connected with that of his own father, world-famous artist Francisco Falcon. The case eventually becomes not just a hunt for a killer clearly prepared to strike again, but a voyage of discovery for Falcon as he, through Francisco’s previously hidden journals, learns much about his father’s past and the dark secrets it hides…
This story, told through the dual narratives of fascinating diary extracts and standard third-person narration, is told expertly. Even though the first hundred pages or so grow slightly dull at times, and it takes a while to settle all the numerous characters in your mind, the pace soon picks up as we learn that the case has as much to do with the past as it does the present. The setting is described wonderfully, and the city of Seville is really brought to life, shimmering with vitality. I might even recommend this book for the setting alone.
The Blind Man of Seville contains the most beautifully realised, brilliantly sustained psychological portrait I have read in years. The lead character, Javier Falcon, is unendingly fascinating and gloriously chilly. The reader cannot help but care and get a little worried as his mental health gently seems to decline as he desperately tries to hold everything together in the face of affecting revelations concerning his present and past. When those revelations finally fully come to light near the finish, it is with a great sense of shock on the reader’s part. Indeed, the final hundred pages are absolutely wonderful, when everything falls into place and the reader realises the scale of what is being revealed.
This book is a brilliant, gritty thriller, and I’d recommend it highly. The writing quality is very good, but the prose itself doesn’t exactly sing. Instead, it has a rather detached coolness that fits surprisingly well. Part tense, exotic thriller, part examination of the effects of the past on the present, and part novel of ideas and of the natural of true art, I’d give this one a big thumbs up. A warning, though: if you don’t like brutality, this may not be for you.
(This book was well-and-truly ROBBED of the CWA Gold Dagger last year, an award it deserved without reservationg.)
17 of 19 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This is the first Robert Wilson novel I have read - and I am so impressed with the talent of this author.
What on the surface appears to be a run of the mill detective-hunts-psycho-killer novel , becomes something different, evocative, compelling, beautiful.
The book begins with a particularly savage murder, which homicide detective Javier Falcon is brought in to investigate. He finds that the murder ignites something within him, when he discovers that the murdered man was in Tangiers during the 40s & 50s when his own father (a respected painter) was in the city too.
What unravels is a deep tortuous look at his own family and past, where discomforting truths are revealed and Falcon has to re-assess who he really is....
This book will haunt you long after you finish it - yes the murder is brutal and there are scenes and perversions that may be upsetting to some - but it really makes you use that little bundle of grey cells you have. What do we base our lives upon? If everything that we come to believe in turns out to be false, where does that leave us? Do we truly know our own parents? or do we just accept the facet of their lives that they choose to show to us?
This wonderful introspection, complete with the evocative descriptions of life in Seville - makes this a cut above ordinary crime thrillers and a gem of a book just waiting to be found - if, of course, you dare enter.....
What on the surface appears to be a run of the mill detective-hunts-psycho-killer novel , becomes something different, evocative, compelling, beautiful.
The book begins with a particularly savage murder, which homicide detective Javier Falcon is brought in to investigate. He finds that the murder ignites something within him, when he discovers that the murdered man was in Tangiers during the 40s & 50s when his own father (a respected painter) was in the city too.
What unravels is a deep tortuous look at his own family and past, where discomforting truths are revealed and Falcon has to re-assess who he really is....
This book will haunt you long after you finish it - yes the murder is brutal and there are scenes and perversions that may be upsetting to some - but it really makes you use that little bundle of grey cells you have. What do we base our lives upon? If everything that we come to believe in turns out to be false, where does that leave us? Do we truly know our own parents? or do we just accept the facet of their lives that they choose to show to us?
This wonderful introspection, complete with the evocative descriptions of life in Seville - makes this a cut above ordinary crime thrillers and a gem of a book just waiting to be found - if, of course, you dare enter.....
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is an unusual thriller. It's set in an evocative, painstakingly drawn Spanish milieu (barely a Brit or American in sight). The plot is complex - pleasingly so, to my mind, with some outstanding twists. Many of the incidental characters are excellently developed. Set against this, the first 400 pages are slow, at times maddeningly so; and the climax, when it comes, is rather a damp squib. I also found the central character just a bit too stereotypically angst-ridden, even for a homicide detective. All in all, it's just about enough to make me try another Robert Wilson, but I'd look for one with a stronger central story.
Upside: intriguing setting, well-written. Downside: feels rather long.
Upside: intriguing setting, well-written. Downside: feels rather long.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Names and surnames in Spain
Absence of maiden names
In Spain, upon marrying, the woman does not change her surnames to adopt her husband's because Spanish naming customs do not include the maiden name... Read more
In Spain, upon marrying, the woman does not change her surnames to adopt her husband's because Spanish naming customs do not include the maiden name... Read more
Published 1 month ago by Amparo1505
Yet another work of fiction that...
...makes me want to visit the locations. I guess it's not helped by Rick Stein's latest television offering featuring Seville (but is it the most beautiful Spanish city? Read more
Published 9 months ago by G. D. Busby
Hardly good as a crime novel, but very nice story of a tortured family
Robert Wilson is a british writer, reconsigned for his work in the crime genre, which includes this novel. Read more
Published 10 months ago by ManInsideTheHelm
Javier Falcon is highly addictive, engrossing and you learn so much...
The Amazon review tells the plot; it also informs you by the reviews quoted, and the quality of the reviewers, that all in the series are exceedingly good books. Read more
Published 13 months ago by J. Quirk
None so blind as....
This is a fascinting psychological thriller. I have to admit that, having read one of the earlier Javier Falcon stories, I was expecting a typical crime thriller. Read more
Published on 31 July 2009 by Michael Watson
Not a gripping read
I generally take the view that if I am not gripped within the first 100 pages of a crime novel it is not worth proceeding, especially when it extends to 567 pages. Read more
Published on 19 April 2009 by John Bath
A very good read.
I came across this book by chance and enjoyed it a lot - that is, as far as formatted thrillers go. The story is composed of a few threads that will, as everyone knows, all bind... Read more
Published on 6 Aug 2008 by HS
Hard Work
The author obviously can write very well. However,I must say that the book was very disappointing. It really was hard work to pick up the book and finish the story. Read more
Published on 30 May 2008 by Crime Buff
There are None so Blind
The novel begins during Easter Week celebrations in Seville. Seville is one of the most beautiful and sophisticated cities in Spain, and it's here that Raul Jimenez, a well-known... Read more
Published on 27 Dec 2007 by Tracy Oshima
Stunningly original, thoughtful, evocative, literate
What more can I say? Robert Wilson is one of the most literate, if not the most literate, of modern crime writers. Read more
Published on 13 Sep 2007 by Manda Scott
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