Blood Is Dirt (Bruce Medway Mysteries)

My first taste of Wilson's writing was A Small Death in Lisbon! WOW!! Powerful but brutal. Since then, I've been reading everything I can get my hands on by this author. Wilson draws on Africa for this tale and it is tautly written with complex characters. I can never see around the next corner, I am constantly amazed as Wilson pulls rabbit after rabbit out of the hat. What I like about Wilson is that even when he's being brutal, he never forgets to be funny as well. Some of the better one liners I've read have come from his novels. Always brutal, his characters flawed as we would expect, plots in keeping with today's drama, Wilson's novels are way ahead of the formulaic mystery writers in America. Though I ususally pass my books on to others, Wilson is one author I hate to part with. Looking forward to the next novel.

Like Robinson's, The Sapphire Sea, this well written novel takes us into the steamy alleys of Africa through the eyes of an outsider who knows the inside track. You may not like what you see, but you can't stop turning the pages. Good stuff.

If Raymond Chandler was an acerbic Brit living in Benin, well, okay, he wouldn't be Raymond Chandler, but Robert Wilson is a latter day Chandler, who describes the complexities of African corruption, gives us the flavor of heat and violence, and presents an expat private eye (Bruce Medway) who is smart, funny and about the only dry thing in West Africa. This novel is interesting, smart about Africa, especially Nigeria, Benin, corporate fraud and political corruption. It's also funny and moves along at a good clip. Wilson is deft with characterization and complexity, and the writing is so evocative you'll feel by turns drunk, hot or terrified as you read. A great example of what detective fiction should be: smart, original, funny and interesting.

Blood is Dirt is Robert Wilson's third installment in the Brude Medway series, thrillers set in West Africa.The Medway series works for two reasons: Bruce Medway is an interesting anti-hero and Wilson is very good at physical description, and he makes the cities and countryside of this region come alive. About Bruce Medway. The idea of a lone hero battling his (or her) own demons while simultaneously trying to achieve justice for his clients is a standard trope for fleshing out PIs. The usual way this gets played out is that the hero has some terrible unresolved loss in his past that impels him toward life as a loner, and perhaps as a lone avenger. Medway is a different spin: his troubles are not in the past, but are right there in this story. His partnership with Bagado is all but defunct, the partners are almost out of work, and clearly desperate for a paying client. Nor is all set with Medway's personal life, his on-and-off relationship with his German girlfried appears at risk once again.When he describes the stultifying and oppressive heat, for example, and how it affects his characters, I get clammy myself. And it's not just the heat that he describes, it's the look, the feel, even the smell of these places, and the contrast between the mostly-European operated hotels and fancy restaurants and the varying degrees of misery that the vast majority of the population lives in.So when Napier Briggs comes to Medway's office with a sketchy story about having been scammed out of nearly $2 million, and having been referred by a bureaucrat in the Lagos office of the Britsh Foreign Office, but then refuses to give Medway and Bagado enough detail to allow them to assist him, its clear that Briggs is Trouble, and the partners initially turn him away.Even so, out of his desperation, Medway trails Briggs to his hotel, in hopes of turning Briggs into a paying client. At that point, Briggs then offers Medway a large fee to chaperone him at a meeting at which Briggs is supposed to be paid a small fortune. Medway agrees to accompany Briggs, but when he takes his eyes off of Briggs for just a moment, Briggs disappears, and soon thereafter turns up dead. I won't spoil more of the plot, but needless to say, the point then becomes to determine who killed Napier Briggs and why.

Blood Is Dirt (1998)Robert WilsonAwards: noneGenre: mystery - modern detective Date Read: August 6, 2003 - August 12, 2003Setting: West Africa - Cotonou, Porto-Novo (Benin), Lagos (Nigeria)Comments: another well written book from Wilson; great characters and story development; interesting setting; easy read; as long as you don't pay more than the cost of a mass market paperback version you will not be disappointedAdvice: recommended