Tag Archives: crime fiction set in Spain

#BookReview ‘The Ignorance of Blood’ by @RobWilsonwriter #crime #Spain

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A car accident. Millions of euros. A Russian gangster drinking champagne in the middle of nowhere. The opening scene of The Ignorance of Blood, fourth in the quartet of books by Robert Wilson featuring Seville detective Javier Falcón, does not disappoint. Robert Wilson The intricate plotting is spot-on. I read this book voraciously as Falcón struggles to get to the whole truth, admiring the way the author weaves together the story strands from the preceding three books so that at the end you understand though you did not guess.
I did not get the ending right, I expected something different. There are moments when you wonder if Javier can continue, will he step over to the dark side, will his emotional strength desert him? This is the most international of the four books, with Javier travelling to London and Morocco but Seville retains its hot sultry presence. I can smell the dusty heat of the evening where the detectives seem to exist on coffee and cruelty lays just out of sight.
I’m sorry this is a short review, I can’t write more without giving away the plot. There were moments when I wanted to shout ‘don’t do it’ and others when I thought with sad acceptance ‘yes, that’s the only thing you can do’. At the end, I wanted to start reading the series all over again.

Here are my reviews of the other books in the Javier Falcón series:-
THE BLIND MAN OF SEVILLE #1FALCÓN
THE SILENT AND THE DAMNED #2FALCÓN
THE HIDDEN ASSASSINS #3FALCÓN

If you like this, try:-
‘The Blood Detective’ by Dan Waddell #1NigelBarnes
‘Hiding the Past’ by Nathan Dylan Goodwin #1MortonFarrier
‘The Guest List’ by Lucy Foley

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview THE IGNORANCE OF BLOOD by @RobWilsonwriter via @SandraDanby http://wp.me/p5gEM4-18j

#BookReview ‘The Hidden Assassins’ by @RobWilsonwriter #crime #Spain

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The pace of The Hidden Assassins by Robert Wilson 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. Robert WilsonThis 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.

Here are my reviews of the other books in the Javier Falcón series:-
THE BLIND MAN OF SEVILLE #1FALCÓN
THE SILENT AND THE DAMNED #2FALCÓN
THE IGNORANCE OF BLOOD #4FALCÓN

If you like this, try:-
‘Liar Liar’ by MJ Arlidge #4HelenGrace
‘Lord John and the Private Matter’ by Diana Gabaldon
‘The Various Haunts of Men’ by Susan Hill #1Simon Serrailler

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview THE HIDDEN ASSASSINS by @RobWilsonwriter via @SandraDanby http://wp.me/p5gEM4-Zq

#BookReview ‘The Silent and the Damned’ by @RobWilsonwriter #crime #Spain

4 Replies

The Silent and the Damned is second in the Javier Falcón series by Robert Wilson. Santa Clara is a wealthy neighbourhood of Seville where people stay inside their elegant air-conditioned homes and don’t mix much with their neighbours. Very un-Spanish. And then people start dying. Robert WilsonFirst, a husband and wife. Was it one murder and a suicide, or a double-murder? Falcón investigates only to find, living opposite the murdered couple, the wife of his last murder victim [in The Blind Man of Seville]. And this is how Robert Wilson neatly intertwines the back story from the first novel, bringing forward the things a new reader needs to know. Falcón has moved on since then, gone are the formal suits, now he wears a shirt and chinos and seems more relaxed, more at peace with himself. But this is a detective novel, and detectives are traditionally troubled souls so it is not long before the cracks appear.
The deaths keeping coming in the 40° heat, Falcón must deal with the impending marriage of his ex-wife plus the growing suspicion that all is not well at police headquarters. There are links to characters in the first book, dodgy characters, further crimes are hinted at. Will he be allowed to continue his investigation, or will higher powers decree his case unviable? And does Javier Falcón have the mental energy left to care?
An excellent follow-up to The Blind Man of Seville. 

Here are my reviews of the other books in the Javier Falcón series:-
THE BLIND MAN OF SEVILLE #1FALCÓN
THE HIDDEN ASSASSINS #3FALCÓN
THE IGNORANCE OF BLOOD #4FALCÓN

If you like this, try:-
‘The Killing Lessons’ by Saul Black
‘The Returned’ by Jason Mott
‘Wolf’ by Mo Hayder

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview THE SILENT AND THE DAMNED by @RobWilsonwriter http://wp.me/p5gEM4-OY via @SandraDanby