Instruments of Darkness

Robert Wilson has become something of a bestselling author with a series of books dealing with espionage and detectives in the Iberian peninsula, either in Spain or Portugal. Having had some success with this, the author's publisher decided to reissue his earlier work, four books that are set in West Africa. I've never read anything like this before, in terms of setting anyway. Think Philip Marlowe in Heart of Darkness, but set in the modern era, and you'll get an idea of what the book is like. Bruce Medway is a "fixer" in various countries in West Africa. What this means is that Medway (he narrates the books first person, private eye style) works things out for people, businessmen and travelers through the area. He arranges visas, bills of lading for shipments of cargo, transport, drivers, etc. Occasionally someone hires him to find a missing person, something that the local authorities aren't usually interested in doing themselves unless sufficiently motivated by bribery. In the first installment in the series, Medway's hired to find another guy who's basically in the same business, minus the missing persons. Steven Kershaw works out deals and helps with shipping commodities and so forth. Since Medway has just been double-crossed in another deal, and almost killed, he's wary of taking the job, but needs the money enough that he overcomes his misgivings, and goes to work anyway. The plot is sufficiently convoluted to defy explanation here, as it should be. Suffice it to say that by the end you're almost rooting for at least one of the villains, and you're definitely happy to see the bad guys go down. The prose is very private eye tough guy, feeling as if the author is trying to immitate Chandler or Hammett the way foreign detective novelists often do. The Australian guy who writes private eye novels (Peter Corris?) has the same effect, it's almost as if they're trying too hard. If you can live with that (I happen to think it's fun, to be honest) then this is a great book.

Robert Wilson is a writer whose other thrillers I've read with interest, but this one took me someplace I've never been before and kept me there for every one of its 300 and some pages. This is an Africa I didn't know existed in fiction and one I can't wait to return to, so I'm personally delighted to learn that there are three other books featuring "fixer" Bruce Medway waiting for me. The setting is very much a character in the book -- its sounds, smells, heat, colors, and moral equivocation animate every scene. This is a world in which right and wrong are luxuries, and the real dividing line is between survival and destruction. The layered approach and the complexity of the characters puts this in Graham Greene territory, and that's as high a compliment as I know how to pay. (it also reminds me a little of William Boyd's wonderful "Brazzaville Beach, which also has an African setting.) And it's funnier than hell in places. If you're looking for something fresh, something that challenges you a little but delivers mightily for your efforts, get "Instruments of Darkness."

There is no denying that the author knows his stuff. The setting and characters were fascinating. My problem though was that I continually found myself distracted by the overuse of adjectives and misplaced modifiers. The narrative was overcrowded with metaphors and similies. I felt like I was swimming through tangled seaweed sometimes and wanted to edit sentences that seemed to so full of themselves with descriptives. Most annoying about this were that so many phrases were tacked on to the end of sentences without proximity to the nouns they were intended to modified. Other than this, I liked the book and will read another by the author.

"This is Africa, where everybody has mastered the art of waiting." Wilson's first African mystery/suspense novel, introduces Bruce Medway, a fixer, negotiator, and manager who lives on the coast of West Africa and does the odd service for his expatriate clients. Completing a shipping deal at the docks, one that involves transporting rice across state borders illegally, Medway incurs the wrath of the infamous Madame Severnou when he unknowingly conducts the transaction contrary to her wishes. The well-connected woman sends her armed goons on a midnight visit to teach Medway a lesson. Luckily, he is one step ahead of the game and anticipates the attack.The next morning, Medway is hired to find a missing person, Stephen Kershaw, perhaps to draw his attention from the real implications of the Severnou deal. Kershaw has disappeared, leaving a dead woman behind. In the course of his investigation, and tangentially the murder, Medway meets one of the series' most endearing characters, the noble Inspector Bogado. A wily and subtle police detective, Bogado proves indispensable to Medway, in this novel and future works. His solemn physiognomy a familiar presence, Bogado offers his intelligent perspective and enduring friendship, often appearing just in the nick of time. Medway and Bagado sift through clues and half-truths, searching for answers to complex and intertwining mysteries with improbable solutions.Medway is involved with some hard-drinking expats who walk the thin edge of the law. In the murky business affairs of West Africa, expediency is the bottom line. From Medway's first deal, moving rice into Nigeria, to the second, searching for a man who turns up dead, the situations become more convoluted and dangerous, involving illegal drug shipments, murder and police corruption. The cast ranges from wealthy entrepreneurs to hustlers, muscle men and beautiful women posing as art exporters, party girls and/or spies. To further complicate things, there is increasing political unrest, as the age of the dictator passes and the people anticipate a democracy, not anticipating the ensuing chaos and violence that comes with the changing of the guards.In this first endeavor, establishing the Medway series and the characters that will populate the other suspense/mysteries, Wilson carefully lays the groundwork for an interesting character, a man who finds himself embroiled in a variety of schemes with nefarious characters that take all his skills to survive. With the help of the intrepid Inspector Bogado, Medway not only emerges in one piece, but the author paints a fascinating portrait of life in a part of the world filled with violence, imminent danger and political uncertainty. The next Medway adventure, The Big Killing, ratchets up the action even more, offering another series of adventures to test Medway's mettle. Wilson pens a mystery/adventure novel that is virtually impossible to put down, a great read. This is a quality of writing that leaves the reader