Instruments of Darkness [Paperback]

"A witty, fast-moving and picaresque tale . . . peopled by deliciously shady characters." (Nelson DeMille )

"An atmospheric and absorbing debut ... Vividly paints a credible picture of a world I know almost nothing about. Now I feel I've been there."
(Val McDermid )

From the author of the national bestseller A Small Death in Lisbon and The Company of Strangers comes Wilson's compelling first novel, never before available in the United States. Bruce Medway's existence as a fixer and troubleshooter had been tough, but never life-threatening until he crossed paths with the mighty Madame Severnou. His life becomes even more complicated by his search for a missing fellow expat, Steven Kershaw. Against a backdrop of political disruption and endemic official corruption, Medway pursues the elusive phantom of Kershaw. Instruments of Darkness powerfully evokes the atmosphere, politics, and people of West Africa. With Medway's ironic voice, flashes of humor that may recall Raymond Chandler, and unforgettable characters, this compulsively readable thriller is the beginning of a remarkable series.

Robert Wilson is the author of seven novels, including A Small Death in Lisbon, which won the Gold Dagger Award for Best Crime Novel of 1999 from Britain's Crime Writers Association. A graduate of Oxford University, he has worked in shipping, advertising, and trading in Africa, and has lived in Greece and West Africa. He currently lives in Portugal and Oxford, England. 

Tuesday 24th September There were a few worse places to be in the world than outside warehouse 2 in Cotonou Port, but I couldn't think of them. Moses and I were on our haunches in 105 degrees and-it felt like-200 per cent humidity. I was losing weight and patience. Berthed on number 2 quay, in air crinkled by the heat from the baked concrete, was the Naoki Maru. It was a 14,000-tonner dry cargo ship with a rust problem and an Oriental crew who leaned on their elbows at the ship's rail, waiting. Waiting to discharge my client's 7000 tons of parboiled rice from Thailand which was going to be sold to Madame Severnou, who I was waiting for to come and give me the money. Above us, on the roof, a couple of vultures were waiting for someone to make a mistake crossing the road. A driverless fork lift stood outside warehouse 3 with a pallet of cashew nut sacks a metre off the ground waiting to put them down. I could see the driver, waiting and doing some sleeping on some sheanut sacks in the warehouse. We were all waiting. This is Africa where everybody has mastered the art of waiting. Waiting and sweating. The sweat was tickling my scalp as it dripped down the back of my head. I could feel it coursing down my neck, weaving through my chest hair, dribbling down my thickening stomach and soaking into the waistband of my khaki trousers so I knew I'd have a rash there for a week. I wasn't even moving. The dark patches under my arms were moving more than I was. I looked down at my hands. The sweat hung in beads off my forearms and dripped down my knuckles and in between my fingers. Christ, even my nails were sweating. I looked at Moses. He wasn't sweating at all. His black skin shone like a pair of good shoes. 'Why you no sweat, Moses?' 'I no with a woman, Mister Bruce.' 'You do sweat then?' 'Oh yes please, sir.' I had a newspaper in my hand called the Benin Soir which always came out the morning after the 'soir' looking unshaved, hungover and ready for nothing. I opened it and scanned the pages. There was nothing but smudged newsprint and black and white photographs of African people on black backgrounds. I tried to get some breeze from turning the pages. I turned the last page and folded the paper in half. I was going to start fanning my face, which is what most people use the Benin Soir for, when I saw an almost readable item in the bottom left-hand corner with the heading: Tourist Dead. Cotonou had never had tourists and now the first one had died. The article told me that a girl called Franoise Perec, a French textile designer, had been found dead in an apartment in Cotonou. There was a paragraph that finished with the word sexuel which I couldn't read at all and I didn't need to. A police spokesman said that it looked like a sex session that had gone too far. I wondered how a policeman could tell that from a dead body. Is there such a thing as an ecstatic rictus? A drop of my sweat hit the page. I folded the newspaper and used the Benin Soir h