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Bruce Medway is the target of a deadly conspiracy in "this darkly tangled thriller" by the CWA Gold Dagger Award–winning author of A Small Death in Lisbon (Kirkus Reviews).As a fixer, Bruce Medway makes his living doing things other people don't want to do. And in the seedier corners of West Africa, there are plenty of tasks that need doing. For example, porn producer Fat Paul needs someone to deliver a video to the Ivory Coast, but the recipients will only trust a white man to make a show more drop. A Syrian millionaire wants Bruce to travel to Korhogo to fire someone on his payroll. And Martin Fall, head of security at a firm back home in England, needs a man to keep an eye on diamond hunter Ronald Collins.
Seems like three easy gigs for Bruce until two of his clients end up dead and the third goes missing. All three cases are dangerously tied to a group of Liberian rebels determined to wreak havoc wherever they go. Now, Bruce needs to outwit a band of killers all gunning for him before he becomes part of their swiftly rising body count.
"The action is furious and the one-liners . . . would have made even Raymond Chandler jealous." —The Sunday Times
"Wilson writes concisely but poetically about a callously brutal side of African life that . . . ring[s] with a dark, sad credibility." —Publishers Weekly, starred review
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Member Reviews
A sometimes complex hardboiled mystery involving diamond trading, greed and murder, tinged with politics; set mainly in the Ivory Coast.
There are also some great one-liners. The voice of Bruce Medway's (the narrator) dying father, sounds like "a radio on the other side of a windy railway track." An alley smells like it has "been dabbed with tincture of billy-goat sweat." Medway describes his health: "I was at the age when the extra pounds got belligerent, the heart started to want some time off and might take it without asking."
The fragility and richness of life in Africa is on almost every page and makes for a different and readable story.
There are also some great one-liners. The voice of Bruce Medway's (the narrator) dying father, sounds like "a radio on the other side of a windy railway track." An alley smells like it has "been dabbed with tincture of billy-goat sweat." Medway describes his health: "I was at the age when the extra pounds got belligerent, the heart started to want some time off and might take it without asking."
The fragility and richness of life in Africa is on almost every page and makes for a different and readable story.
I couldn't even finish this one. Too many characters that popped in and out of the story; too many killings and I couldn't keep track of who was killed or why or which one he was investigating. Gave up half way through.
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Author Information
14+ Works 4,575 Members
Series
Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- The Big Killing
- Original title
- The Big Killing
- Original publication date
- 1996
- Important places
- Côte d'Ivoire
Classifications
Statistics
- Members
- 155
- Popularity
- 211,213
- Reviews
- 2
- Rating
- (3.80)
- Languages
- English, Italian, Norwegian (Bokmål), Norwegian
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 10
- ASINs
- 2
