A Darkening Stain

Bruce Medway #4

by Robert Wilson

A stylish, tough and exciting thriller set in West Africa, the fourth in Robert Wilson's critically acclaimed Bruce Medway series. Bruce Medway, fixer for the great unfixed, does not see the disappearance of schoolgirls off the streets of Cotonou as any of his business. That is the domain of his ex-partner, police detective Bagado. Bruce has the more pressing matter of a visit from two mafiosi, employees of the Lagos-based capo, Roberto Franconelli. They want him to find Jean-Luc Marnier, a French businessman, who is definitely in for more than a wrist-slapping. In a night of brutal terror with Marnier, Bruce finds himself with a choice to make, followed by a life-saving lie that has to be told. Both choice and lie will rumble over the rest of his days like the interminable rainy season. Then an eighth and very important schoolgirl goes missing and Bruce must descend into a morass of police corruption, mafia revenge, sexual depravity, and illegally mined gold... To save himself, Bruce has to conceive a plan. A scam that will excite the natural greed that prevails along this coast and when executed will inevitably result in death and destruction. But then innocence has always been t

Genres: Mystery, Thriller, Fiction, Africa, Mystery Thriller, Crime

Paperback

First published January 1, 1997

About the author

Robert Wilson has written thirteen novels including the Bruce Medway noir series set in West Africa and two Lisbon books with WW2 settings the first of which, A Small Death in Lisbon, won the CWA Gold Dagger in 1999 and the International Deutsche Krimi prize in 2003. He has written four psychological crime novels set in Seville, with his Spanish detective, Javier Falcón. Two of these books (The Blind Man of Seville and The Silent and the Damned) were filmed and broadcast on Sky Atlantic as ‘Falcón’ in 2012. A film of the fourth Falcón book was released in Spain in 2014 under the title La Ignorancia de la Sangre. Capital Punishment, the first novel in his latest series of pure thrillers set in London and featuring kidnap consultant, Charles Boxer, was published in 2013 and was nominated for the Ian Fleming Steel Dagger. This was followed by You Will Never Find Me in 2014. The third book in the series, Stealing People, will be published in 2015. Robert Wilson loves to cook food from all over the world but especially Spanish, Portuguese, Indian and Thai. He also loves to walk with dogs…and people, too.

Reviews

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bruce Medway is a British private investigator living in Cotonou, Benin in West Africa on the Gulf of Guinea. Life is cheap here and brutality a part of everyday life. When young schoolgirls start to disappear, Medway tries at first to remain uninvolved, but when the nine year-old daughter of his best friend and former partner becomes one of the victims, he tries to uncover what is going on and recover his friend’s daughter. He finds corruption at every turn and is himself soon entangled with the criminals he is investigating. For Medway, it is as if he had lifted a rock to look at the slimy creatures that live beneath it, only to find that the rock had somehow grown and trapped him under it as well.

A DARKENING STAIN is a tense mystery/thriller that radiates the tropical heat of West Africa. I had not read this author before, but was impressed with this tightly plotted tale. The actions of his characters, though often extreme, seem very real indeed, some are driven by desperation others by an insatiable greed, but all are three dimensional beings whose true natures are shown by what they do as much as by what they say. I would recommend this book to any reader not afraid of the nightmares that could be induced by this truly dark thriller.

[Andrea Irvin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed that this book takes place in Benin, which is unusual, and Nigeria, where I used to work. I generally liked the principal characters of Bruce Medway, Bagado and Heike, although by the end, some of the men's core values seem to have been flung to the winds. Bruce Medway is supposed to be a "fixer", so not a detective. He immediately gets into a whole heap of troublesome situations for little apparent reason. The plot was complicated, which kept it interesting, and touched on many social issues, HIV, human trafficking, police corruption, being the main ones. But also has some wrong information on HIV-2. However, it got a bit too violent for my taste. I might read another one in the series someday.

[George Henry · Rating 4 out of 5]

I started to read "Alex Cross" by James Patterson (my first book of his) and had to pause halfway through such a bland, unbelievable, formulaic effort to find a better book. I'd already read the first three "Bruce Medway" novels and overall found them exotic, deeply coloured by the author's African experience, full of interesting characters, dark, humorous and page-turning. I can't rank it as "amazing" (what is?) but I found it to be a thoroughly enjoyable read by a top class author and recommend it to those readers who like a British writing style and type of humour that is sorely missing from books such as "Alex Cross".

[Paul Harvey · Rating 3 out of 5]

A new author to me. Although I had not read any of the previous books in this series, I was intrigued by it being set in West Africa, a region I spent some time in a few years ago. The author captures quite well the chaotic ways of doing business, and the sleazy aspect of life in the coastal ports of West Africa.

Although he is no innocent, the protagonist is reluctantly drawn into a tangled web involving high-level corruption, mobsters, murder and the sex trafficking of young girls. The story plumbs some of the darkest depths of depravity. Not one for the faint-hearted.

[Bevan Lisle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Is there a noir hangover literary contest? Robert Wilson would give it a fair crack - “I opened a gummed eye which shrank from the light like a live oyster to a squeeze of lemon”

I’ve just finished reading the four Bruce Medway books in nine days. My second time round, the first about fourteen years ago.

And I recommend it - all four novels shape nicely as a long novel - with a marvellous romantic arc.

If you love Africa and love your crime fiction moody and gritty, this is a series to cherish.

[Sue Jacob · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm a big fan of Wilson's mysteries -- this one, unlike some of his earlier work, takes place in Africa. Like a Small Death in Lisbon, Blind Man of Seville and others, his novels have a strong sense of place and history so that in addition to having a chance to read a good mystery/thriller, I also feel I travel in time and space.

[Daniel]

french west africa is a good place to set your thriller/crime novels because it's perfectly plausible that people there actually do die at the excessive rate demanded by your publishers.

[Charlotte Osborn-bensaada · Rating 4 out of 5]

Incredibly dark mystery novels set in west Africa. Writing in taunt and vivid. Hard to imagine a more evil set of characters than those in Robert Wilson's Bruce Medway series.

[Ken Fredette · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a really good read. Bagado's little girl was kidnapped and was going to be sold into a certain death. There were other plots going such as gold being sold. I'm happy with the outcome.

[Peter Kavanagh · Rating 4 out of 5]

The final novel in a powerful series. Searing and dark and yet highly entertaining. If you are thinking of reading this series, do it. Great stuff.

[Meredith · Rating 3 out of 5]

Blood, violent, full of twists and turns. Not really credible, but some of the characters make sense despite their amorality.

[El Thomson]

Just wasn't excited about this one but it could be because I started the series on book 4!

[Kim Ross · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book grew on me. In my view it started out slow. In particular, not a big fan of untranslated French dialogue. But at the end of the book, I found myself saying "wow"

[Karen Rettig · Rating 2 out of 5]

I’ve enjoyed some of Robert Wilson’s previous books, but not his Bruce Medway/Africa series. Too violent, too salacious, too obscene. I didn’t finish it.

[Sebastian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good taut thriller. Very evocative of seedy West Africa. Believable characters, especially the hero, Bruce Medway, who of course is flawed. Alcoholic.

Wilson handles prose well. I'll watch out for more of his books

[N · Rating 2 out of 5]

Med unntak av at Wilson har valgt Benin som setting for romanen, var det lite som fenget interesse i en heller langdryg historie hvorvidt inngår kidnapping av småjenter og menneskehandel, gulltyveri og korrupte politifolk.

[Mary · Rating 1 out of 5]

Set in Equatorial Africa, its depressing opening was not engaging; I read maybe 15% before giving up. I like his other books but not this one. Read The Poisonwood Bible instead.

[Dlmrose · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5