The Silent and the Damned - Softcover

Wilson, Robert

3.96

1,281 ratings by Goodreads

9780007117840: The Silent and the Damned

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0007117841 ISBN 13: 9780007117840

Publisher: HarperCollins, 2004

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The new psychological thriller featuring Javier Falcon, the tortured detective from The Blind Man of Seville

Mario Vega is seven years old and his life is about to change forever. Across the street in an exclusive suburb of Seville his father lies dead on the kitchen floor and his mother has been suffocated under her own pillow. It appears to be a suicide pact, but Inspector Jefe Javier Falc�n has his doubts when he finds an enigmatic note crushed in the dead man's hand.

In the brutal summer heat Falc�n starts to dismantle the obscure life of Rafael Vega only to receive threats from the Russian mafia who have begun operating in the city. His investigation into Vega's neighbours uncovers a creative American couple with a destructive past and the misery of a famous actor whose only son is in prison for an appalling crime.

Within days two further suicides follow – one of them a senior policeman – and a forest fire rages through the hills above Seville obliterating all in its path. Falc�n must now sweat out the truth, which will reveal that everything is connected and there is one more secret in the black heart of Vega's life.

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Review:

Praise for The Blind Man of Seville:

'Robert Wilson's fiction grows darker, deeper, more adamantly original. His seventh novel – nominally a thriller – turns the format inside out, extending its reach, tuning up the language, reinventing its anatomy. It is crime writing at its very best, but it is also something more. It observes no limits, it begs no pardon. It excites, it surprises and it satisfies. High praise but Wilson really is this good.' Philip Oakes, Literary Review

'The Blind Man of Seville is an ingenious and compelling thriller. It covers some unusual ground: the nature of artistic genius, for example, and the price of happiness. But while the investigation is convincing enough, it is Falc�n Sr's diaries that are the real gem. They are full of drama and confession – like Alan Clark's, but with paintbrushes, firearms and catamites' 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

'It is a book that exists on multiple levels, kicking off as an off-key detective story and ending up as (among other things) a tense psychological thriller and a literary investigation into perception and family loyalties. A wonderful, if dark and disturbing, literary detective novel.' Martin Radcliffe, Time Out

'The momentum never flags as the clues mount up and Falc�n begins to realize where they are leading. It's an intriguing story and Mr Wilson handles its complexities superbly' Susanna Yager, Sunday Times

'This is powerful evocative stuff' Peter Guttridge, Observer

Daily Telegraph:

First rate�Wilson at his best, a taut, gripping narrative and a sensitive study of the tormented detective.

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