Blood is Dirt

By Robert Wilson

The third powerful and evocative novel in Robert Wilson’s acclaimed West African-set Bruce Medway series.

Bruce Medway, fixer and debt collector for anyone in a deeper hole than himself, has heard a few stories in his time. The one that Napier Briggs tells him is patchy, but it doesn’t exclude the vital fact that two million of his dollars have gone missing. Bruce is used to imperfect information – people get embarrassed at their own stupidity and criminality. But for the first time it leads to the gruesome and brutal death of a client.

It would all have ended there but for Napier’s daughter, the sexy, sassy and sussed Selina Aguia, a canny commodities broker. She brings money to the game and launches Bruce into a savage world where a power-hungry Nigerian presidential candidate, a rich blow-loving American and a mafia capo are fighting a silent war in which pawns are badly needed. Worse for Bruce, Selina wants revenge, and with the scam she invents she looks as if she’ll get it. This is a world where blood is dirt – nobody really cares. Not even if they love you.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins UK
• Release date: Jul 1, 2010
• ISBN: 9780007393886

Robert Wilson

Robert Wilson was born in 1957. A graduate of Oxford University, he has worked in shipping, advertising and trading in Africa. He has travelled in Asia and Africa and has lived in Greece and West Africa. He is married and writes from an isolated farmhouse in Portugal.

Reviews for Blood is Dirt

[gypsysmom_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I will probably never physically travel to West Africa so it is nice to go there in books. Robert Wilson has obviously lived there and his descriptions are vivid. You can see, smell, hear and probably even taste the land of Benin and Nigeria which are locations in this book.Bruce Medway is an English PI located in Cotonou, Benin. He and his partner, ex police detective Bagado, are not exactly raking in the dough. So, when a white Englishman named Napier Briggs comes to avail himself of their services to recover a great deal of money they are definitely interested. The problem is that Briggs is reluctant to part with many details about how the money went missing. Briggs leaves without contracting with them but tells them where he is staying. That evening Bruce goes to his hotel and Briggs tells him he is going to get back his money. He asks Bruce to accompany him. It is dark in the coconut grove where the meet is to take place. Suddenly Briggs disappears and Bruce goes back home to his girlfriend Heike who works for a German NGO. The next morning Bagado calls him to tell him that Briggs’ body has been found by the railroad tracks. A few days later Briggs’ daughter, Selina, shows up to claim the body and hires Bruce to discover who killed her father. Selina is big, beautiful and sensual and she intends to be part of the investigation. They discover that powerful men in Nigeria are involved and that there has been money laundering, scamming, and many layers of deceit. Eventually Bruce and Selina manage to sort things out but a few bodies fall by the wayside.This is a dark and disturbing look at life on the African continent but it is strangely compelling.