In cases of sudden death, everything is not always the way it appears to be. English author Robert Wilson, who has lived in Spain, Greece and West Africa, mines that truism in all its shadowy depth and range with his Sevillano chief of homicide, Javier Falcon, uncovering not one murder, but a skein of corruption that threatens the government itself. Wilson's Spanish setting is a unique atmospheric flavor in the genre and follows his haunting predecessor, "The Blind Man of Seville."

First, Rafael Vega, the owner of a successful construction business, living in the posh neighborhood of Santa Clara is found dead in circumstances that could indicate suicide. His wife is upstairs, also dead, but clearly the victim of suffocation and, hence, homicide. Did Vega kill his wife before swallowing the poison that did him in?

The doubts about it are enough to keep Jefe Falcon on the case even as it leads to a string of suspects and a rash of neighborhood and departmental suicides that would be enough to put any sleuth in a fog of confusion. The Russian mafia seems to be involved, but in a way that is anything but clear and it soon becomes evident that a poisin that seems to have killed one man is spread high and low in the community.

Falcon gets himself very seriously involved with the widow of one of the suicide victims, against all investigative rules, but keeps his progressions through the mystery as clear as he can as the heat pours down both from celestial and departmental sources. But his transgression is nothing compared to that of the duty judge, Jesus Esteban Calderon on whom he's dependent for search warrants, prosecution, etc. Calderon, after announcing his intention to marry Falcon's ex-wife Ines, a prosecutor, goes off the deep end over the sensual Maddy Krugman, the young wife of Marty Krugman who has worked for the dead man and must be considered one of his suspects.

All of which is a part of a manifestly intricate and densely complicated plot that Wilson somehow keeps in a framework of clarity despite a character list that grows with every discovery. Our investigator plods patiently through a muddy terrain of hidden crimes with the assistance of his homicide squad and a blind psychoanalyst who is both his therapist and consultant.

But can anyone be prepared for a case that exposes kidnapping, molestation, seduction, spying, a pedophilia ring, political scandal, false imprisonment, and sociopathic evil? There's enough here to drown a whale but, surprisingly, led by a charismatic and flawed central character, it's a muscular piece of fiction from a richly dimensional author.

As though to provide evidence of his story's sometimes confusing cast of characters, Wilson provides a categorized list of identities, both onstage and off, to help his readers keep track.