Rating: 
Summary: Double thread, but difficult to follow
Review: This is an intriguing story about smuggling of tungsten and gold across the Portugal-Spanis border. The action mostly takes place in Portugal, with some sidebars (the 'double thread') taking place in Berlin and other German locales.
The story is one of two sets of players and their various adventures, finally meeting up in Lisbon resulting in the death of an otherwise innocent young girl (innocent only in that she found herself unknowing at the nexus of the two threads). The story was somewhat difficult to follow. The author writes as if the reader knows, or remembers, just a little bit more than this reader did!
He also threw in several twists that seemed to have little to do with furthering or fleshing out the story line.
The story, by the way, began with the German need to secure a supply of "wolfram". The story never did explain what it is or why it was important. A dictionary search reveals that wolfram is a German word meaning tungsten. Further study shows that tungsten is an important ingredient in making high-strength steel. But the book never explained that.
At least one outcome of the book for this reviewer is the desire to read more about the trade in 'wolfram' during World War II, and how it was smuggled across the porous Portugese border. The real story is probably every bit as interesting, and more understandable than this novel. In fact, such a study would probably be useful *before* reading this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Absorbing!!! Twisted!!!
Review: As an avid reader of Nazi-related fiction and nonfiction, I found this book totally captivating. Little did I know about how far the Nazi regime reached into other countries, cultures, etc. The writing is so compelling that I had to remind myself that I was reading a fiction crime novel and not a true story.The double track (1941 vs 1990s)storyline is compelling and accomplished seamlessly. The characters are developed in such a manner that you will despise them, ache for them, or want to kill them yourself. I can't see how anyone could finish this novel without generating deep feelings towards the characters and their activities. Tautly written, but violent and steamy. May be too much for the weak of stomach to imagine that human to human interaction can be so heartless and cruel. For those who cling to historical or personal revenge, grip tight for an engrossing, intellectually wrought rendering that will leave you squirming and reading late into the night. By far, this was one of the better books I've read this summer. If you don't mind tension and edgy flawed characters, and how the sins of the past haunt the present, then you'll want to pick up a copy of this gem. Staring human nature in the face can be a terrifying experience, even from a distance, but Wilson has managed to pull it off. I'll be looking for more of Robert Wilson in the future. I highly recommend this book.
Rating: 
Summary: A sordid family saga that argues for birth control
Review: A SMALL DEATH IN LISBON by Robert Wilson is a meticulously crafted whodunit that's set in a place perhaps dismissed by insular Americans as one where not much seems to happen - Portugal. That fact in itself makes the book worth picking up. The storyline meanders back and forth between two time lines. In the earliest, it's World War Two and German factory owner Klaus Felsen is recruited into the SS for a crucial mission to Portugal. His orders are to buy or steal all of that country's wolfram (tungsten) he can lay his hands on. A handy substance, wolfram is used in making the "hardened munitions" that destroy tanks. In the latest, it's 1998 and Lisbon homicide detective Ze Coelho is investigating the sodomization and murder of sixteen year old Catarina Oliveira whose body was dumped on a local beach. The world-weary Coelho is, as you might suspect, the plot's hero. He's rendered even more of a sympathetic character by the recent death of his beloved wife, by the rebelliousness of an otherwise loving teenage daughter, and by his professional partnership with a young detective with an attitude, Carlos, who climbs on more than just Coelho's nerves. On the other hand, Felsen isn't content with just being the Bad Guy. He's one of the more despicable villains around because he has no apparent scruples whatsoever. And he breeds uncontrollably, a fact that builds the congenital bridge to Coelho's case. At 451 paperbacked pages, A SMALL DEATH IN LISBON verged on being too long. It wasn't until the last hundred or so pages when Coelho began to tease the riddle apart and the plot twists were revealed that I began to consider awarding more than three stars. Perhaps it's also that Ze is about the only likeable character in the book, and I wish he'd been given more text space than the detestable Klaus. Also on the plus side is the ending which is, like real life, somewhat untidy. I find that refreshing.
Rating:
Summary: Superb
Review: As I perpared for a trip to Europe, I picked up this book only because of its setting in Portugal. What a piece of good fortune! Wilson has produced one of the most engaging reads I have encountered in many a book.
Of special significance is his use of parallel plotting in two distinct time periods, one in the present and one during the rise and fall of Nazi Germany. As a result the reader moves back and forth between stories, never tiring of either and yearning to know how and when the stories will merge.
As an author fascinated by the this technique, I used it in writing the novel KEEPERS OF THE RIVER, with some success I hope.
Rating:
Summary: A first-rate thriller
Review: This is the novel I always wanted to write: Portugal in World War II, German-English intrigue, and gold. But even if I had the time, I could not have assembled as well-executed a thriller as "A Small Death in Lisbon." Several things stand out in Robert Wilson's novel of crime and suspense. One is the richness of the contrasting portrayals of warring Germany, opportunistic Lisbon, and impoverished, backward rural Portugal during World War II, all of them ably juxtaposed in turn against the technocratic, Europe-oriented Lisbon of 1998. I was in the Portuguese capital in 1997 and 1998, and Wilson's portrayal of it rings true. Another is the quality of the writing. Wilson has a vast vocabulary and uses language expertly, but he's able to fend off any risk of pretentiousness with the robust, Raymond-Chandleresque imagery and sardonic turns of phrase that mark many good mystery novels. Like Philip Marlowe visiting General Sternwood's mansion in "The Big Sleep," Inspector José Afonso (Zé) Coelho goes to the manor of a prominent Lisbon lawyer and observes: "The art on the walls was the sort that demanded comment unless you happened to be a police inspector from Lisbon in which case your opinion didn't matter." (P. 74.) Wilson marks a pregnant pause during an interview in that house this way: "The ormolu clock nearly missed a tick." (P. 66.) My favorite line in the whole book appears earlier: "An SS mess waiter in a white monkey jacket and black trousers put a tea tray down in front of the civilian, who didn't look up from the newspaper he wasn't reading." (P. 20.) Brilliant. Better yet, Wilson generally reserves his Chandleresque tone for modern Lisbon, deftly switching to a suitably more serious tone in the novel's anterior plot as he depicts various horrors in Nazi Germany and in Portugal under the oppressive regime of António de Oliveira Salazar. There is a noteworthy typographical error on page 237 of the American paperback edition. The date should be April 15, 1955, not 1995. If you think it's 1995 you'll become confused, wondering if Wilson has suddenly embarked on a parallel history in which Generalísimo Francisco Franco and the aforementioned Salazar continue to rule Spain and Portugal as right-wing centenarians, and in which Mozambique apparently does not become independent and its capital, Lourenço Marques, is not renamed Maputo in 1976. "A Small Death in Lisbon" is carefully researched and Wilson had its Portuguese phraseology checked. Unfortunately (perhaps because of typesetting errors), in the American paperback edition some words are missing diacritical marks that should have them, others are adorned with them that shouldn't, and still others are misspelled. Thus, instances of what should be Direcção, simpático, Voluntários, and Notícias appear as Direcçõ, simpatico, Voluntarios, and Notíçias. That's a minor flaw in the production of a novel that is substantively excellent in all respects.
Rating:
Summary: A well constructed mystery/thriller
Review: It must be extremely difficult to write a novel with two seemingly unconnected story lines, and keep them consistent until they merge later in the work. That's what this author has done: there are two distinctly unique plots (a murder in today's Lisbon, and a tale of Nazi involvement in Portugal during WW II), and reading the book initially you try to understand their relationship to each other. It takes quite a while, but eventually, to the surprise and shock of the reader, these stories come together and produce the unusual conclusion. This book is extremely well crafted, and keeps you on the edge of your seat, continuously turning the pages to find the next clue in what's happening in both plots. Along the way you receive some little dollops of Portuguese history, a tour of parts of the country, a lesson in machismo, and some sprinkling of the usual emotions of betrayal, hatred, and revenge. This is a dark tale, with present day actions the direct result of things that happened many, many years in the past. It's different, and I highly recommend it to the discerning reader.
Rating:
Summary: Surprisingly good mixture
Review: Wilson's "A Small Death in Lisbon" is among the better paperbacks you'll find lining the walls of a typical airport bookshop. Its greatest weakness, in fact, comes from that distinction. It attempts to be both high-adrenaline thriller and literary piece, both an enigmatic mystery and sweeping action-filled Clancyite epic. The dilution entails failure at all such goals. But "Small Death" deserves praise for the very fact Wilson has managed to introduce into the normally soggy action market a genuine piece of worthwhile literature. The novel begins on seemingly opposite poles- a death on a beach in a Lisbon suburb in 1998 and a German industrialist summoned before the SS in 1941. Wilson manages a clever repartee of intrinsic coherence as he interweaves the two stories, the connections of which aren't apparent until the last few pages. When the characters of our modern mystery novel finally realize the connection to a plot involving stolen Nazi gold, it is disappointingly relayed to them in full. Resultingly, Wilson's suspenseful novel of detectives and discovery is laid rather ultimately flat. A few plot twists at the finale come up disappointingly empty, and, yet again, they are explained in another sit-down interview with the protagonist, Inspector Jose Coelho. Where the novel departs from the standard clash-banging warhawk novels is in its descriptive verse. When we follow Coelho through his private life, the description is ultimately rich and copious. The ruminations on the meaning of Portuguese culture are well appreciated in a novel set in a rather exotic location. Ultimately, the life of Mr. Coelho and the spirit of Portugal are well-conveyed, especially as Wilson draws the histories of multiple tales together to describe the Revolution of 1974, an epochal event in the history of Portugal. One should not read this novel in pursuit of an excellent mystery, an exhilarating thriller or a Nobel-winning masterpiece. Rather, one should seek a pleasant combination of description, enigma, and intense anticipation.
Rating:
Summary: top-notch
Review: Compelling, fascinating -- makes the reader feel that he [she] is accompanying the narrator through the Lisbon environs, following the participants as they confront the complexities of their lives.
Rating:
Summary: Strongly recommend this well-written crime novel
Review: Hungry for something which one can call literature at $... or so? I don't discover it often but A Small Death in Lisbon is a find. Very well-written, which is rare these days. Intricate plot. Unusual setting in Lisbon. Hard to put down. The two plots are both so interesting that I had an internal debate as to which one I hoped would be on the next page.
I do recommend strongly. However, this book may not be for everyone. Sex, gore and the two combined. But I'm pretty skittish and I was not put off.
Rating: 
Summary: Overrated
Review: Robert Wilson creates two separate and disparate story lines that take too long to get to the point. It is not until the last fifty or so pages that everything start to make a form of sense. The novel begins with the discovery of the dead body of Caterina Oliveira. Ze Coelho will investigate the case with the assistance of another police officer named Carlos Pinto. Coelho is a respected lawman and he will do everything in his power to find out who killed this teenage girl. During his investigation he discovers that Caterina lived a double life. Could this be a factor to her death? The second story line takes place sixty years in the past during the beginnings of World War Two. Klaus Felsen has just been recruited by the SS to go to Portugal and try to acquire wolfram (tungsten) from the Portuguese mines to ship to the Third Reich. The Nazis will use this metal to reinforce their armored tanks and to make bullets. The plot takes several decades to relate and it flips back and forth to the story line. One has to be fully determined to read the entire novel in order to see the relevance but by then one does not really care. The conclusion is disappointing when one has great expectations for this work. The author concentrates too much on visual imagery that he forgets the story. Several of the scenes were redundant and the characters have no real depth. They will be portrayed one way at the beginning of the novel only to have them do a complete one-eighty on their personalities. The best example of this is the way Coelho's daughter is portrayed ' from an innocent teenage girl to a rebellious child. Where did that come from? The author should concentrate on writing one story and sticking to it instead of making it up as the story goes. The book is a big continuity problem with no end in sight.
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