The Silent and the Damned Book + PRICE WATCH * Amazon pricing is not included in price watch

The Silent and the Damned Book

"Murder is the greatest aberration of human nature, it brings out some ingenious subterfuges," remarks Inspector Jefe Javier Falcón, as he ponders a series of ambiguously motivated and ostensibly unconnected suicides in The Vanished Hands, British author Robert Wilson's sequel to his haunting 2003 novel, The Blind Man of Seville. It's the summer of 2002, more than a year after the shattering events recounted in Blind Man, and Falcón, the chief homicide cop in Seville, Spain, has finally regained his confidence and powers of concentration. Still, he cannot fathom why Rafael Vega, a construction company honcho (and recreational butcher), should have smothered his younger, unstable wife in bed, then chugged a fatal draught of drain cleaner. Is there any connection between this tragedy and the disappearance of the Vegas's Ukranian gardener, or money laundering by the local Russian mafia? Can Rafael Vega's demise be related to his distrust of the U.S. government or to a note found in his hand, with its seeming allusion to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks? As Falcón questions the Vegas's suburban neighbors, he discovers one couple linked to the slaying of an Iranian carpet-dealer in New York, and another nearby resident, renowned actor Pablo Ortega, whose grown son is in prison for kidnapping and abusing an 8-year-old boy. Yet these scandals aren't obviously helpful to Falcón in solving the Vega case. Nor do they explain why those first deaths are soon followed by Ortega's drowning in a cesspool, the suicidal leap of an aging child-crimes investigator, and Russian mafia threats against Falcón. Wilson doesn?t exploit Seville's exotic setting so well here as he did in Blind Man, and it can be challenging to follow this sequel's political backstory. However, the author more than makes up for these weaknesses with the depth of his psychological explorations, the ways in which he taunts his police with justice slightly beyond their reach, and a patient storytelling pace that enhances investigative revelations. Falcón remains a potent and pivotal figure, his traumas in the last book being replaced in these pages by personal dramas (three different women tug at the inspector jefe's heart, feeding his hope without depleting his loneliness). Founded in mendacity, fraught with betrayals, The Vanished Hands maintains a firm grip on the reader from its start. --J. Kingston PierceRead More

from£17.53 | RRP: £12.99
* Excludes Voucher Code Discount Also available Used from £3.57
  • Product Description

    The new psychological thriller featuring Javier Falcon, the tortured detective from The Blind Man of Seville Mario Vega is seven years old and his life is about to change forever. Across the street in an exclusive suburb of Seville his father lies dead on the kitchen floor and his mother has been suffocated under her own pillow. It appears to be a suicide pact, but Inspector Jefe Javier Falcon has his doubts when he finds an enigmatic note crushed in the dead man's hand. In the brutal summer heat Falcon starts to dismantle the obscure life of Rafael Vega only to receive threats from the Russian mafia who have begun operating in the city. His investigation into Vega's neighbours uncovers a creative American couple with a destructive past and the misery of a famous actor whose only son is in prison for an appalling crime. Within days two further suicides follow -- one of them a senior policeman -- and a forest fire rages through the hills above Seville obliterating all in its path. Falcon must now sweat out the truth, which will reveal that everything is connected and there is one more secret in the black heart of Vega's life.

  • 0007117833
  • 9780007117833
  • Robert Wilson
  • 6 September 2004
  • HarperCollins
  • Hardcover (Book)
  • 358
As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases. If you click through any of the links below and make a purchase we may earn a small commission (at no extra cost to you). Click here to learn more.

Would you like your name to appear with the review?

We will post your book review within a day or so as long as it meets our guidelines and terms and conditions. All reviews submitted become the licensed property of www.find-book.co.uk as written in our terms and conditions. None of your personal details will be passed on to any other third party.

All form fields are required.