A Small Death in Lisbon

Rating:
Summary: Solid characters make good mystery / suspense
Review: Small Death in Lisbon was a great story--actually two stories intertwined. One of them takes place in modern-day Lisbon and follows the investigation of a murdered teenager. The other story starts in Germany during WWII. The stories finally converge around page 400, but by this time I had already become bored with the WWII story, and found myself skimming the chapters, wanting to get back to the modern story. But, by the time the stories did converge, I loved the outcome. I thought it was a great mystery/suspense novel.

I am looking forward to other books by Wilson. I really liked the characters in the book. Coehlo's first person narrative was so strong, you could really feel his struggles and frustations.

Rating:
Summary: Remarkable portrait of an unknown history
Review: There is scarcely a false note in this novel of the unknown history of modern Portugal. Anyone familiar with that country will enjoy the remarkably accurate generalizations of the Portuguese--they are in fact supremely fixated on their children (and Sporting and Benefica), they don't hate but rather enjoy foreigners, they do sometimes seem to still long for the age of the "discoveries"...But the best insight of all is the description of the lingering and ambiguous tension that still exists in the country from the Salazar dictatorship, gone for only barely more than a generation. In a European capital city where Marxist murals from 1974 demanding revolution survive unscathed on the drive to the glitzy waterfront bars on the River Tagus, the past, to paraphrase Faulkner, isn't even the past. Wilson is brilliant in conveying that reality.

Rating:
Summary: Love, Death, and Politics
Review: A dead blonde, a lonely gumshoe, and a rich man with a past, left to the devices of a Robert B. Parker, a Patricia Cornwell, a P.D. James, or any other ordinary crime novelist, would make for genre parody and little more. But Robert Wilson, author of "A Small Death in Lisbon," is no ordinary crime novelist.

Wilson has an eye for European politics, and he is a skilled political novelist. When his gumshoe, Lisbon police detective Zé Coelho, follows the money, it winds from the collapse of Nazi Germany through Portuguese dictator Antonio Salazar's central bank; it is laundered through a front established by former SS officers and converted into political power and social prestige in post-revolutionary Portugal. Wilson's characters are political creatures, moved and shaped by the great and violent struggle, in 20th-century Europe, between totalitarianism and social democracy. If they are themselves violent, circumspect, or sad, it is partly because they have taken sides in that great struggle and lost.

Wilson's political themes give his novel heft. His social themes give it subtlety. To be sure, there are thugs in this novel who amply exemplify five or six of the seven cardinal sins, but in the main Wilson's characters grapple with moral dilemmas with which all can identify. A brothel owner sacrifices personal intimacy and security in an effort to advance human rights. A conservative publisher demands one more source before running a story that will invite the hostility of the rich and powerful. A father agonizes over the sexual emancipation of his teen-aged daughter in a society in which women are not fully emancipated. A lawyer's intellectualization of the truth excludes any possibility he cannot forgive. Whether the reader is with them or against them, these are full-bodied characters whose choices and motivations are not always so clear.

Finally, Wilson is an excellent writer. His prose is spare and descriptive. His dialogue is quick-paced, insightful, true-to-life. He knows Portugal and gives us an insider's picture of Lisbon. His plotting is intricate, elegant, fully believable, and easy enough to follow. If there are any loose ends in this book, they are inconsequential to the resolution. Enjoy the ride. Robert E. Olsen

Rating:
Summary: more coincidences than a dickens...
Review: The bad thing about reading a bunch of stellar reviews is that I expect so much and i'm bound to be a little disappointed. I really wanted to give this book 3 and an half stars, but halves are not an option. There's so much I liked about this book and so very little I disliked. So why not 4 stars like I would give most any Alan Furst book? Whereas I think Furst sets out his goals and reaches them, Robert Wilson does not. I also thought there were some slips in the characterizations: moments when I thought, "This is not the Ze Coelho I've known so far." And my biggest qualm: too many coincidences. The same people turning up again and again over a fifty year period. The killer, though hiding in plain sight, sort of came out of left field too.
The book has two plots one starting in the early 1940's and the other in late 1990's. The best thing going for this book is watching as the two plots converge on the death of a promiscuous girl. I particularly enjoyed the chapters involving Nazi Germany and Portugal during the war years. I think I might have liked a bit more time spent during the revolt in Portugal (perhaps a future book for Wilson). Overall, I enjoyed the book and look forward to reading more of Wilson's books.

Rating:
Summary: A *very* plesant suprise
Review: I picked this book up one day on a whim expecting something forgetable and shallow that could hold me over for awhile, and I was plesently suprised to find one of the best books I had come across in at least a year. Wilson's writing is incredibly vivid and very engrossing. If you pick this up, you won't be disappointed.

Rating:
Summary: An Epic Novel
Review: Rare does the murder mystery come around that can provide such sweeping narrative, such an international span. A Small Death in Lisbon was heralded, quite rightly, as one of the best modern crime thrillers, a proud recipient of the Golden Dagger award. I feel it deserved the award because it almost transcends the narrow category it has been forced into. In this ?mystery?, you will find politics, international business, espionage, and the often-ignored politics of Portugal, a nation few are familiar with. Wilson manages to take all of these intriguing themes and spin a web of deceit and mystery that makes it hard to put this book down.

The first story, in terms of chronological order that is (Wilson switches back and forth), concerns the young German industrialist, Klaus Felsen. Felsen is extremely wealthy, and a notorious playboy. This leisurely wartime existence is destroyed once the SS taps Felsen to represent the Reich?s mining interests in Portugal, where the extremely important ore known as wolfram is carved out of the mountainsides. Felsen is fluent in Portuguese, aiding him in his campaign to expand his own influence at the expense of Allied interests. The descriptions of the isolated Portuguese mining region and its people make it evident that Wilson really knows what he is talking about (Wilson does live there). Against this backdrop, the disturbing descent of Felsen into psychopathic violence begins, and it is fascinating reading. Felsen begins to feel the absolute power inherent in his black uniform, and he goes to extreme lengths to preserve his own fortunes. His lust for wealth and power makes for some great reading.

In 1999, Harris introduces an even more fascinating character, Portuguese detective Ze Coehlo. Tasked with investigating the murder of the daughter of a prominent and well-connected lawyer, Coehlo quickly discovers this is no ordinary case. Someone is trying to hamper the investigation, or at least to misguide it. Along the way, we read of Coehlo?s interesting personal life, and also his and others experiences of the 1974 revolution, a little known event. I think it would be a good idea for readers of this book to gain a little knowledge concerning the revolution, as it helps one understand Coehlo better. The Coehlo segments are top-notch police procedurals that really keep you guessing. I found that the best part of this book was the eventual union of the two storylines, as I found myself constantly guessing at the outcome. The ending is fairly surprising, and caps off a long and amazing literary experience.

Congratulations to Mr. Wilson, for his well deserved reward. Here?s hoping he wins some more, for we all benefit if he does.

Rating:
Summary: Superb and Mysterious Whirlwind of Events
Review: Mr. Wilson has done an excellent job of creating and developing characters whose lives interconnect over 50+ years. He demonstrates the rare ability to take the reader back and forth developing his plot from World War II to the present and showing us how war, greed, hate and mistrust can take many years and generations before traveling full circle to an exciting and page turning conclusion. This book is fiction but parallels events which have actually taken place, while personalizing the storyline with intimate depictions of his characters. Well deserving of the Gold Dagger Award

Rating:
Summary: Nostromo (slightly lite)
Review: It would be impertinent to call this novel 'Nostromo lite' because it is much more than that. Basically this is an account of the effects of war upon a continent and the manner in which smaller murders link with larger ones. It recalls Conrad's masterpiece, 'Nostromo' in the breadth of its canvas, the mixing of its time levels and the deft matching of historical sweep with personal detail. With the exception of a few howler purple passages, the writing is effective (though not at Conrad's level) and the period detail, geography, and plot architectonics are very impressive. This is a serious and significant piece of crime fiction. And with Nazis! If it is not quite up to the level of a master like Conrad it still manages to transcend genre in important ways. At the same time it is faithful to genre in lovely ways, from the delineation of a lonely, tenacious protagonist to the depiction of a nearly-hollow universe. Also a must read for anyone interested in Portugal and post-war history.

Rating:
Summary: It needed a Bit of Editing
Review: Sometimes a fundamental mistake can mar an otherwise good read. In this book, one of the plot fundamentals is that a father knows his supposed daughter is not his because both he and his wife are brown-eyed and the daughter is blue-eyed. Somehow, everyone important in this book accepts that. However a little knowledge of fundamental genetics on the part of the characters and the author would have changed everything. The gene for blue eyes is recessive. Each person has two genes for eye-color, one coming from each parent. If one gene is for blue eyes and one is for brown, the child will be brown-eyed. If both genes are for blue eyes the child will have blue eyes. Thus it is entirely possible that two brown eyed parents will each have a recessive gene for blue eyes, and each will pass that recessive gene on to a child. With two blue-eye genes the child will have blue eyes even though both parents are brown-eyed. The chance of that happening is one in four. So, the father could have been mistaken. Yet, no one points this out in the book. There are other mistakes: At times the year "1998" is headed "199-". Another time the year 1955 is given as 1995.

However, the mistake about the blue-eyed child, which is a major plot point, mars an otherwise well written book.

Rating:
Summary: Great historical novel, intense mystery
Review: I don't even like mysteries, but I loved this book. The plot is superbly woven and provides a unique chance to learn something interesting about a little-known niche of Hitler's war. The book is literally a page-turner in both the sense of its tense drama but also because it drove me to want to learn more and more about what was going on in Portugal during WW2. The character development was deep and honest and the dialogue was very rich and realistic. I thought Wilson did an excellent job balancing the 2 stories and bringing them together, which was not likely an easy thing to do.

I can't believe some people thought the plot was too complex or hard to follow. If your idea of endulging in a complex mystery is watching "Matlock" reruns, then you will probably be stumped by this book. But if you like to learn and think while you have fun reading, then run out and get this book.