The pace of this thriller does not stop. The setting: Seville, Spain. The beginning: a mutilated corpse is found on a rubbish dump. The first turning point: an explosion at a block of flats turns out to be a terrorism attack on the mosque in the basement. Or is it? Detective Javier Falcón is swept along by the media circus and political panic as fear of a widescale attack on Andalucía grips Spain.

This is the third of Robert Wilson’s four-book series about Falcón and the story twists and turns relentlessly. The plotting is excellent, I challenge you to work out the answers. As Javier unravels the knots you don’t know what to believe and neither does he.

I am fascinated by the insight into Falcón’s life provided by glimpses of his cooking. His housekeeper leaves his food in the fridge for him to prepare in the evening. He is something of a cook. “Encarnación had left him some fresh pork fillet. He made a salad and sliced up some potatoes and the meat. He smashed up some cloves of garlic, threw them into the frying pan with the pork fillet and chips. He dashed some cheap whisky on top and let it catch fire from the gas flame. He ate without thinking about the food and drank a glass of red rioja to loosen up his mind.” And then he goes out to work again. It is 10pm.

I will not give away the plot details, but there are sub-plots too involving characters who featured in books one and two: Javier’s ex-wife Inés and her husband the judge Esteban Calderón, his ex-girlfriend Consuelo, his sister Manuela.

As always, Seville is an additional character. Its streets, the heat, the lifestyle. It makes me want to go there now.

For my review of The Blind Man of Seville, the first of the Javier Falcón series, click here.
Click here to read my review of The Silent and the Damned, the second in the series.
To see the study where Robert Wilson writes at home in Portugal, click here.
To watch the trailer ‘Behind the Scenes: Made in Seville’ for the Sky Atlantic Falcón television series, click here.
For information about visiting Seville including the city, hotels, events, and the surrounding countryside, click here.

The fourth and final book in the Javier Falcón series is The Ignorance of Blood, will be reviewed here soon.

 

‘The Hidden Assassins’ by Robert Wilson [pub by Harper]