Blood Is Dirt

June 7, 2004
In Wilson's third fine mystery (after 2003's The Big Killing
) to feature Bruce Medway, the British expat/private investigator in West Africa, Medway is as fully realized as Chandler's Philip Marlowe or Ross MacDonald's Lew Archer—deeply human, aware of his limitations, a reluctant antihero. Equally well drawn are the many supporting roles, including Medway's African partner Bagado, his German girlfriend Heike and even the bad guys. Wilson also provides a palpable sense of place, here the dusty, impoverished port city of Cotonou in Benin. Alas, the labyrinthine plot sometimes veers close to incomprehensibility. A new client, another British expat, Napier Briggs, comes to Medway for help in recovering nearly $2 million stolen from him in an African confidence scheme, but that night he's brutally murdered, and the police express little interest in the case. His daughter, commodities broker Selina Aguia, comes to Cotonou to retrieve his body and hires Medway to help find his killer. Despite an overly complex plot that also involves a local Mafia Capo and some stolen plutonium, this elegantly written book provides an interesting glimpse into an unfamiliar world, with a compelling mixture of brutal violence and deadpan wit. Medway is far from perfect, but he's a perfect guide to the greed- and power-driven intrigues of a developing country.