THE BLIND MAN OF SEVILLE, by Robert Wilson, Harcourt, 434 pages, $25.
"The Blind Man of Seville" is a masterful suspense novel beautifully written by the acclaimed author of "A Small Death in Lisbon." It is set in Spain and West Africa, areas of the world well-known to the cosmopolitan Robert Wilson.
The novel begins during Easter Week celebrations in Seville, one of the most beautiful, sophisticated and dangerous cities in Spain. When a well-known restaurateur is found bound, gagged and viciously murdered in front of his TV set, Javier Falcon, an experienced homicide detective, is called to investigate.
Falcon, who is normally cool and collected in his work, is mysteriously terrified at what he sees, which includes self-inflicted wounds suggesting the victim had struggled to avoid watching unbearable images as he died. There are more killings that can be easily tied together, particularly because of one alarmingly common thread in all the murders — each victim's eyelids have been sliced off.
But this is so much more than a typical murder/suspense story, because the detective becomes deeply involved personally and because he finds an inexplicable relationship to the killings and to his own life — including a role for his famous father, Francisco Falcon, a painter who died two years earlier.
Detective Falcon finds himself poring over his father's massive but previously unread diaries in order to find out more about his father and to find a solution to the killings.
The reader soon discovers that the detective wanted to be an artist, too, but his father had discouraged him, telling him he lacked talent. Even though Javier was clearly his father's favorite child, he resented his father, yet he feels the need to get to know him better.
What he discovers is not encouraging. The diaries are so candid and detailed that they reveal a troubled painter, whose personal life was a shambles. In fact, Francisco Falcon could well be the personification of evil.
Yet, his son retains a certain respect for him, drawing inestimably closer to him in death, despite the discovery of the atrocities he committed.
This isn't an easy experience for the razor-sharp detective, who finally seeks counseling from a blind analyst but also suffers a complete emotional breakdown that takes him off the case. That doesn't stop him, however, from continuing to plow his way through his father's journals and to try to connect his discoveries to the increasingly grisly murders.
Although the telling of dual stories within a novel can be off-putting to some, Wilson is enormously effective in employing this device. Midway through, the reader becomes immersed in diary excerpts that quickly become connected to the murders.
Impressions of art and problems of the artistic life run throughout the novel, making it an intellectual, as well as a frightening, experience.
Even though there are references to a number of atrocities of a violent and sexual nature that might give this book an R rating if it were on the screen, the story itself is marvelously rejuvenating. This is because Falcon is such a genuinely good man, in spite of his evil father. And because his work on the murder cases and the rediscovery of his father becomes life-affirming in the end.
E-mail: dennis@desnews.com