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Summary: Outstanding mystery, also a remarkable WW2 thriller
Review: This novel is one of the best I read in the genre. It starts off with the death of a 16 year old girl in Lisbon, and it follows the detective who's assigned to the case. Then it flips back and forth between the story of the detective in the 1990s to the story of a German called Klaus Felsen in WW2. Felsen was a businessman who got "inducted" into the SS; his assignment is to go to Portugal and export as much wolfram as possible for the German military. The novel works just as well as a WW2 espionage thriller as it does a mystery. The scope is broad as we follow Felsen and his fellow conspirators throughout the decades, as they try to preserve their fortune in Nazi gold. Eventually the two parallel stories come together in a startling climax. It's a literate, intelligent novel, well researched with rich, complex characters.
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Summary: A Worthy Successor to Ambler and Greene
Review: I was very excited by "A Small Death in Lisbon," because I believe it really does herald the arrival of a worthy successor to Eric Ambler and Graham Greene. Like his distinguished predecessors, Wilson has created a thriller of ideas, peopled by characters of uncertain reliability acting out their dramas in obscure places. Alan Furst and Phillip Kerr have mined the same terrain with some success, but Robert Wilson has really pulled it off. The plot involves the efforts of a group of SS officers to secure their future through smuggling and theft during World War II, and the seemingly unrelated murder of a young girl in Lisbon in the 1990s. Bringing these events together is a nigthmarish tangle of murder, deception, betrayal, revenge and fiendish plot twists. Read on and enjoy!!
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Summary: Obsessive Weekend read
Review: Enough plot giveaways in the other reviews. My opinion: 1. WRITING: Lush and unique enough to keep me too interested to skip to the end of the book. Great descriptions of food, weather, scenery and social structure in Portugal made me yearn to return to the Iberian peninsula. 2. VIOLENCE: Not as graphic as some readers would have you believe. Not at all as graphic as many movies. For instance, the main torture scene is left out, only the lead up and the aftermath are in the book. 3. CHARACTERS: Yes, I disliked almost all of them and wanted them to get what they deserved. But half of them were SS members, for pete's sake -- they are not in any way supposed to be nice people. This was a book about bad people, and about the occasional good person caught up in events with bad people, and about the basically good detective with human impulses who has to unravel events. 4. ENDING: My main criticism was that I thought the way the two plot lines tied together was a teensy bit farfetched. The last 40 pages weren't as good as the rest of the book and stretched my credulity a little. But then, Portugal is a small country and Lisbon itself even smaller, so maybe it could have happened like that. But still a little too clever. OVERALL: Absolutely recommend it. Especially if you're going to or have been to the Iberian peninsula. You will want to drink strong espresso and rich red wine, eat fresh vinegar marinated sardines and jamon from acorn fed pigs (oh I yearn for it so) right along with the characters. The writer clearly loves his food.
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Summary: A rare treat
Review: If a mystery is relatively entertaining then I find it was worth buying. However, every once in a while a work of art is created in a mystery format. A Small Death in Lisbon is a wonderful treat. It is a well written novel, with great characters, great plot, excellent pacing, and right up there with le Carre. If you enjoy good writing and a great story, this is for you.
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Summary: COMPLEX AND DISTURBING MURDER MYSTERY
Review: The two arms of this plot work forwards from WW2 and backwards from the present day. As we trace the growth of a business empire built on Nazi plunder, we are constantly flashed forward to the efforts of a dedicated detective to unravel the sadistic murder of a young girl with immaculate parentage - a murder which proves to be the final act of betrayal in a story spanning generations.The historical and political detail is exemplary, both in terms of the Nazi black-marketeering and the scars left on the Portuguese psyche by the fascist Salazar regime (a lesser known counterpart of the Franco regime in Spain). The characters develop real life as the story proceeds. Moreover, the author does a much better job of weaving the strands together than some reviewers on this site have claimed, and the ending is both plausible and satisfying. My criticisms of the book are on a different tack. Violence and sexual depravity are detailed with a degree of lewd explicitness that verges on pornographic. That sort of voyeurism is unnecessary in a novel of this quality - the book would stand up better without it. Secondly, I dislike the author's prose - others have liked it but I find his attempts to be a sharp and acerbic wordsmith are never quite pulled off and ultimately count as a distraction. In balance however, the excellent plot, historical detail and character development lift this book out of the ordinary, and triumph over its areas of weakness
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Summary: A clandestine Casino
Review: When reading this book, I could not get the comparisons to Casino out of my head. I am not saying they shared plot lines, or characters, or anything else for that matter; I just kept feeling like I was reading a remake of the film, only set in WW2 Germany and present day Lisbon. The book has a sweeping epic type of timeline. The main characters eventually give way to their adult children, who then become the focus of the book, save for the Detective trying to solve the initial murder in the present. A Small Death in Lisbon serves up a couple of great plot twists, along with one not-so-great revelation. It was fun to read, and kept me guessing for the most part. I suggest you read it, and see if you get my Casino reference. I am probably just nuts though. Read it.
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Summary: Extremely Well Done
Review: The Golden Dagger Award first introduced me to the work of Michael Dibdin and his, "Aurelio Zen" series. For the second time this award has brought about another new Author who writes a phenomenal tale. "A Small Death In Lisbon", by Robert Wilson is not his first work, but unfortunately is the only writing of his available in the US at present. This book should change that status. This work does not just shift between 2 points in time; rather it brings forward one storyline from decades ago to mesh perfectly with the second storyline, which is contemporary. The initial flare is that there is no hint as to how these two stories and their characters will ever mesh much less come together in a beautifully crafted and simple penultimate end. The final series of pages reveal an incredibly complex ending that is as true and clever as it is intricate. Both storylines contain extreme examples of human behavior that might be too graphic for some. I would compare it to the series centering on Hannibal Lechter, the circumstances are at times extreme and very unpleasant, but they are not gratuitous. The book unfolds from Nazi Germany and wartime Lisbon, all the way to Lisbon, as it exists in a contemporary time. The political upheavals and the groups that cause and enforce them are at times brutal, but it is as it took place when Historical Events are included. This is a very good tale whether mysteries are normally your choice or not. The book is very well written, extremely complex while never contrived or cliché, and the Author does not show his last card until almost the last few paragraphs. Unconditionally Recommended!
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Summary: Up with the best of them
Review: Robert Wilson is as good as the best modern mystery writers. A sophisticated plot, well-written and excellently revealed to the reader. I have to read his other books.
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Summary: Fascinating, but ultimately frustrating, mystery.
Review: Two different settings and time frames--Germany and Portugal in the waning days of the Third Reich, and contemporary Portugal, with some of the same characters--allow the author to overlap both a complex historical thriller with a traditional murder mystery in unique and fascinating ways. Klaus Felsen, forced to work for the Nazi SS near the end of World War II, is sent to Portugal to buy as much wolfram (tungsten) as he can get, to be used in the manufacture of armor-piercing weapons. He is also responsible for privately smuggling out a great deal of German gold and some stolen art when it appears that Germany will lose the war, a job made more palatable when he realizes that he and his partners can profit greatly in the years after the war if they are careful to avoid discovery. All these details come into play when a young Portuguese girl, seemingly unconnected with any of this, is found murdered fifty years later in contemporary Lisbon. Inspector Ze Coelho is assigned to solve the mystery of her death, a death which eventually reverberates throughout Lisbon society, the émigré population, the police department, the federal Justice department, political parties past and present, and even the foundations of the present government. If all this seems like a lot to take on, it is. Although the book is beautifully written with fully developed, imperfect, and quirky characters one grows to like and understand, fine and vivid description, and a fast-paced plot with something happening all the time, ultimately it is difficult to make all the connections required by the fifty year chronology of the plot. Although I worked hard at this, and (mistakenly) thought I had succeeded as I worked my way to the conclusion, the last twenty pages had me scratching my head trying to figure out the final details and the secret motivations of the main characters, all of which are necessary for a successful resolution of this very complex plot.
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Summary: A Small Death In Lisbon
Review: A twisted (in more ways than one) plot, great scenes in Portugal, and an unusual view of history make this a pretty good read. In the genre of World War II Nazi intrigue, Wilson gives us a fresh take on well worn paths, and the book is absorbing. Unfortunately, the characters are nearly all so despicable that I found myself hoping they would all die; unfortunately, only some of them do. Further, I think Wilson has an unfortunate tendancy to over - write. He never uses one adjective when he can use two. Too often, I found myself hoping the character walking quickly down the short, dark, damp hall with a musty aroma to worship at the pearly white, cold porcelin shrine would simply go to the bathroom (hyperbole mine). I hope Wilson will lose his thesaurus, and give us more books of this type.
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