The Blind Man of Seville

Rating:
Summary: Precision puzzle
Review: Robert Wilson constructs the plots of his books in the same way as a watchmaker puts together a fine watch. He lays all the parts out in front of himself, and then slowly but surely constructs the finished product, in which all of the disparate wheels and springs and dials fit together precisely. This plot works the same way. Initially, what appears to be a murder investigation develops into something much, much more, and all of the apparantly disconnected bits of information the author strews throughout the book slowly, ever so slowly, come together into a unique creation. All of the questions are answered, and all the threads are tied together, perhaps not always neatly, but when has life ever been neat and tidy? It's thrilling to watch a master plotter at work, and this book fulfills that ideal.

Rating:
Summary: The Blind Man of Seville is a psychological police thriller
Review: Robert Wilson obviously loves Spain and he brings the city of Seville to life. The culture, climate and cuisine all come together in a wonderous mix. The story of Spain's involvement with bull fighting is fascinating.
The protagonist is a police inspector but the drama comes from
the meshing in his work of the personal side with the psychological
implications of involvement. Family history is in the core story. Very entertaining. . Hard to put down but I rationed myself because I didn't want to have the story end too quickly.

Rating:
Summary: Fascinating, but not really suspenseful
Review: Robert Wilson writes some of the most unusual fiction in modern literature. His books are multi-layered, with a deceptively simple mystery plot which usually mutates into a long, complex riff on a variety of subjects. In the present instance, the murder of a Seville restauranteur sets the local homicide inspector on the trail of a killer who seems a bit to clever, and very familiar with the detective.

This is an amazing book, but it's important to emphasize that it's not a suspense novel, really. There's a mystery, here, but the suspense is on the level of The Name of the Rose, say, as opposed to the latest by Robert Crais or Jeffrey Deaver. Instead, the plot wanders through a whole list of issues, dealing with everything from corruption and adultery to homophobia and psychological disorders, with a good deal of Spanish atmosphere thrown in. I would tell you more about the story, but that would only make it less compelling when you read it. I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys serious literature, or mysteries, provided they can handle something that has more than just a puzzle.

Rating:
Summary: A personalized murder inquest
Review: Robert Wilson's "The Blind Man of Seville", no doubt displays the authors creativity but bogs down as connections are made to tie the plot together.

Chief homicide inspector of Seville, Javier Falcon is atypically deeply disturbed by the abhorent murder he is presently investigating. A celebrated and wealthy restauranteer Raul Jimenez is found bound to a chair, facing a TV monitor, in his apartment and gagged with his own socks. The apartment is nearly empty as his family is in the process of moving. Falcon and his team discover that the 70 year old victim had been forced to watch a video, apparently so horrible that he inflicted wounds to himself trying to extricate himself resulting in shock and heart failure. What disturbed Falcon was that the victims eyelids had been incised off to assure that he would being viewing the terrifying video. The homicide team quickly find a video in the apartment of the victim having sex with a youthful looking prostitute. Circumstances point to Jiminez's young and attractive wife as the main suspect.

Falcon, who has recently divorced, is living his deceased father's palatial mansion. Falcon's father, Francisco Falcon was a famous painter celebrated for his exquisite execution of five nudes of Falcon's mother, Pilar, which were considered masterpieces. While Francisco Falcon was fabulously wealthy selling other pieces he was never able to again achieve the perfection of his nudes in other work.

Falcon, reluctant to enter his father's studio, finally does and discovers a will and a diary. The will instructs Falcon to destroy all his work and implores him not to read the diary. Javier's curiousity prompts him to read the diary which reveals many previously unknown facets of his father's life. His father's story leads him from his expulsion from his family at 16 to his long service in the foreign legion through his experiences in WW2 fighting for the Axis. He finally settles in Tangier, Morocco involved in the smuggling business and commencing his career as an artist.

The story become actually two stories that merge into one. Javier continues to investigate the murder which turns into a multiple murder as the prostitute in the video also turns up dead. Meanwhile Wilson narrates the diary of Francisco Falcon, which gradually reveals a connection to the murders being committed. Falcon eventually becomes psychologically distraught as his father's diary has him question his own existence.

Rating:
Summary: NONE SO BLIND...
Review: THE BLIND MAN OF SEVILLE is a tour de force. Robert Wilson melds police procedural with psychological thriller as he leads the reader through the social, geographic, and historic topography of Seville and Tangier. Along the way Wilson offers insights into the vagaries of memory, the discomforts of truth, and the origins of loneliness.

Seville's chief homicide detective Javier Falcon, son of a famous painter, struggles to identify a killer who mutilates his victims while showing them unendurable images from their past. At the same time Falcon is wrestling with ghosts of his own past: his divorce and the contents of his dead father's studio which he's kept locked away for nearly two years. What he learns in these simultaneous investigations brings Falcon to verge of collapse.

This may not be a book for readers who want their mysteries to be simple mind candy. It is dark, violent, and frightening. However, if you admire the dark stories of Ruth Rendel and Nicolas Freeling, you should read THE BLIND MAN OF SEVILLE.

Rating:
Summary: Not a blind read
Review: The Blind Man of Seville is my first Robert Wilson book, but it won't be my last. Written in a manner that is engaging and just a little poetic, The Blind Man of Seville is filled with wonderful characters in a great setting.

Detective Javier Falcon, Chief Inspector of the Seville Homicide Department is called to investigate the murder of a well known restaurateur Raul Jiminez. Falcon not only struggles with the brutality of the murder, but also the meticulous manner in which the killer planned and stalked his prey. Falcon very quickly discovers that he is dealing with a brilliant psychopath. Ultimately, his investigation begins to touch his own past. In some ways, and with obvious differences, The Blind Man of Seville reminds me of Jeffery Deaver's The Bone Collector because of the way the killer plays with the police. However, the treatment of children in this story is disturbing....nuf said.
If there is a weakness to this book, and it is a small one, it would be the referrals to the long lost journal kept by Falcon's father. The constant break in the ebb and flow of the first story is distracting.
I am looking forward to the release of Instruments of Darkness, Wilson's next scheduled book for U. S. readers.
This is a worthy book and deserving of your attention.

Rating:
Summary: There are None so Blind
Review: 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 restaurateur is found bound, gagged and brutally murdered in front of his television, the first of several murders where the victim's eyelids are neatly sliced off, making it impossible for them not to see whatever had been on the screen before they died.

Jimenez had a beautiful young wife who had a distant connection to Falcon's father, a famous painter who has been dead for the last couple of years. The fetching widow, whose lover had been located by the police, is the prime suspect, but when Falcon gets a call from someone using a stolen cell phone, he learns something more sinister is at work, especially since the caller seems to know things about the detective's family life that he shouldn't.

The caller leads him to discover his father's journals which date to 1932. The diaries reveal that Francisco Falcon was a truely evil man, a heartless killer who had been tortured by a sexual hunger.

This isn't easy for Falcon to digest and he finally seeks counseling from a blind analyst as suffers a complete emotional breakdown that takes him off the case. However that doesn't stop him from continuing to wade through his father's journals and to try to connect his discoveries to the bloody murders.

Mr. Wilson has written a brilliant psychological thriller, heightened by his talent for drawing his readers into his character's minds, which makes this novel both an intellectual as well as a frightening, experience and a book you won't soon forget.

Rating:
Summary: Compelling
Review: The telling of the story draws you into the mind of Javier Falcon, police detective. As he is compelled to follow the path of his choice you are drawn along with him. The plot takes many disturbing twists but that is what makes it a must read. Obsession takes many forms in this story - human weaknesses that are nurtured by those with their own flaws for their own benefit.

The book can and will be unsettling, not because it is gory, but it is disturbing where the minds of the characters take you.

This book easily moved into my top 10.

Rating:
Summary: A sense of place, history and an absorbing story
Review: This was my introduction to Robert Wilson. I had just returned from Seville, and a friend gave me his copy and insisted I read it. Quickly, I found myself back in the same streets and beside the Guadalquivir. The story was turgid at first and then absorbing; Wilson gives us murder mystery, Spanish history, the atmosphere of southern Spain and North Africa, and perhaps something of what it means to be a Sevilliano(a). He weaves it all together deftly, entertainingly, and I will now read more of his ouvre.

Rating:
Summary: Great thriller. Great setting. Great characters.
Review: This, the new 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 horrors of these scenes is evidenced by the self-inflicted wounds caused by Raul Jimenez's desperate struggle not to watch them. 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 have 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 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 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 great thriller for the most part, and I'd recommend it quite 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 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 on almost all fronts!