Monthly Archives: July 2011

Kinglake-350 by Adrian Hyland

Posted on by
11

Regular readers of this blog will know I am rather taken with the writings of Adrian Hyland. His two novels set in central Australia, Diamond Dove and Gunshot Road, are both among my favourites of the past few years. But Kinglake-350, officially published on 1 August, is a different kettle of fish all together from these two stories.

Based on Hyland’s personal experiences, countless interviews and solid research the book is an account of the terrible February day in 2009 when the most ferocious bushfires on record swept through large swathes of rural Victoria, leaving 173 people dead, thousands of homes destroyed and much of the environment forever and irretrievably altered.

Rather than trying to account for every detail of the enormous tragedy the book offers a handful of individual stories of the day, with that of Acting Police Sergeant Roger Wood at its heart. Wood was in charge of the Kinglake police station on Saturday 7 February 2009 and Hyland takes us through his day from the moment he wakes up knowing that conditions are the worst they could possibly be from a fire hazard perspective. Leaving his wife and children at home on the outskirts of St Andrews he drives 13 kilometres up a dangerously winding road to the town of Kinglake to start his day’s work and reports into the police communications centre with his radio call sign: Kinglake-350. With one eye always on the sky, the weather, the air itself Wood goes about his routine duties until the first fire in the region breaks out in the early afternoon. He then hurries from one mini-crisis point to the next: diverting people from harm’s way, helping them to evacuate, driving victims to medical help and undertaking countless other tasks. For most of that time he is unable to contact his own family after hearing that their house is in the direct path of a fire.

Of course Wood is only one of thousands of participants in the day’s events and Hyland has included others. There are the Country Fire Association volunteers, nurses, policemen and ordinary people whose stories unfold alongside Wood’s as they try to save people, homes and entire towns without much in the way of resources or the much-needed early warnings. We meet people who survived due to good preparation, others who survived through luck and more who didn’t survive at all.

By their nature these personal accounts of the day are fragmented and can tell only snatches of the bigger story and so Hyland has complemented them with research into various aspects of what led to the fires, what happened on the day itself and, in a more limited way, the aftermath. There are sections dealing with elements such as

  • the weather and prevailing conditions in the region that explain how fires of such intensity and never-before-seen behaviour occurred
  • the alarming facts about the kinds of people who commit the crime of arson and the paltry number of whom are ever caught
  • the psychology of human behaviour in crises
  • the damage we humans have done to our precious environment and our seeming inability to learn anything much at all from our mistakes
  • the systems and procedures that worked on the day, and those that didn’t
  • how much (and how little) we know about the science of fires

As someone who was in no way involved with that terrible day and who has only ever watched a bushfire from the relative safety of the outer suburbs I found this book, with its combination of personal stories and academic elements, provided one of the few comprehensible accounts of tragedy I have ever read. So often the media and other true accounts of such events focus on tallies of the dead and injured or become embroiled in the blame game. I can’t tell you how much nonsense I saw and read about these fires in the days after that weekend, often from people who know as little about what causes bushfires and how to fight them as I do (which in case I haven’t made it clear is none at all).

What Kinglake-350 did instead for me was provide a comprehensible depiction of how the world fell apart for thousands of people, largely through no fault of their own. Certainly some some individual events on the day might have gone differently if this agency had better communications or that person had had a proper fire plan but, in the end, the blame game is fairly pointless (if not out-rightly dangerous by lulling people into a false sense of their own safety and security). But ultimately this is a book about  a community of people who coped with a natural disaster in the best way they could with a combination of knowledge, skill, luck and courage. Their individual and collective stories are sombre, heart-wrenching and so totally compelling I read the entire thing in a single sitting, starting late last night and finishing at about two o’clock this morning.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
My rating 5/5
Publisher Text Publishing [2011]
ISBN 9781921834738
Length no idea (this ebook format is peculiar)
Format a Booki.sh ebook (which lives forever in the cloud)
Source I bought it

On disappointment, perspective and looking forward

Posted on by
12

A day before the announcement of the winner of this year’s CWA International Dagger Award (which happened last Friday night in the UK) I shared my thoughts on the shortlisted books I’d read and mused there was only one book I’d grizzle about if it won.

Naturally enough that book, Three Seconds, won the award.

Perhaps if it had been a different week I might have had a real grizzle (or even a fully fledged rant) about the unfairness of that decision but as it happened time provided a bit of perspective. Personally I was very crook with a bizarre stomach bug (the symptoms of which I will not bore you with) for several days so was not up to even a gentle whimper about the judges getting it all wrong. And when I did raise my head from my sick-bed it was to hear the sombre news that the world has produced yet another mass murderer with a twisted, evil agenda; this time in the peace-prize giving Norway. Even my national pride took a hit when I heard a report that several Australian right-wing politicians and conservative leaders were among the evil bastard’s heroes.

Clearly there are a lot of things I have to be more angry about in this world than which book won an award.

Happily I don’t have to dwell on this year’s Dagger disappointment  for long. I can already start speculating about next year’s award thanks to Karen Meek (one of the judges of this year’s award) (and no, I’m not holding it against her) from the excellent website Euro Crime who has already started listing the books which will be eligible. She will update that blog post regularly enough that your credit card won’t ever see the inside of your wallet but if you can’t wait for those updates you can even subscribe to the RSS feed of her Good Reads shelf on which sit all the eligible titles (you don’t have to be a Good Reads member and can use any RSS reader).

I’ve already read a couple of the eligible titles (one being the five-star read Quarry by Johan Theorin) and have several more pre-ordered. It looks like a good year of translated reading ahead and who knows, next year I might just pick a winner :)

Putting the mockers on (or thoughts on the CWA International Dagger Award 2011)

Posted on by
7

Friday night (well Saturday morning my time) at the Theakston’s Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival in Harrogate the winner of the CWA International Dagger award for 2011 will be announced.

Of the seven shortlisted novels I have read six (but ran out of puff for the seventh) and definitely have my favourites though I am almost reluctant to speculate on a winner given my notoriously poor form with such matters. Though perhaps it is a smidgen narcissistic to believe that my actions could have a negative outcome on the results?

The six books I have read (in order) are

So….there are three books (marked with *) that I would be happy to see win the award and only one that I would genuinely grizzle about if it were to win (marked with ^). Until two days ago I was madly hoping for a win by Needle in a Haystack but having finished Death on a Galician Shore this week there’s now stiff competition in my heart. On balance though I think Needle offers a more well-rounded reading experience through tackling some weightier issues and being more tightly written. So I’m still crossing my fingers for a win by Mr Mallo and hope this hasn’t put the mockers on his chances. Of course Jean-François Parot’s The Saint-Florentin Murders, which I didn’t get around to reading, might be the best of them all and if it wins I’ll have to accept that the judges knew best, though it probably won’t stop me taking issue with them ;)

I am a little disappointed in this year’s shortlist as it doesn’t quite live up to the high quality of last year’s and I can think of a book or two that I’d have rather seen included (in particular Shuichi Yoshida’s Villain (Japan) and Liza Marklund’s Red Wolf (which even if it isn’t her best work is vastly superior to Three Seconds in my humble opinion). But I’m still genuinely thrilled that there is such a depth of translated crime fiction on offer to us pathetically monolingual readers and applaud the CWA for acknowledging this under-appreciated aspect of fiction which (hopefully) helps to ensure we will have more translations in the future.

 

Review: Death on a Galician Shore by Domingo Villar

Posted on by
12

In the Spanish village of Panxón locals think that fisherman Juan Castelo must have committed suicide by throwing himself overboard from his boat one stormy Sunday morning. But the pathologist convinces Inspector Leo Caldas of the Vigo police that, due to the way the man’s hands were tied, it must have been murder. And so Leo begins a slow and methodical round of interviews of the taciturn locals, becoming frustrated by their unwillingness to tell him anything which advances his investigation. The one glimmer of resolution that he spots early on is that Castelo was one of three men to have survived a tragedy some years before. Some believe that the man who did not survive that tragedy might have returned from the dead to exact his revenge.

As with the first book in this series that is fast becoming a favourite of mine two elements really stand out as memorable. The first of these is the characters who are subtly drawn but entirely engaging. Leo is a very self-contained person, spending much of his time alone though it’s not always clear if this is a deliberate choice. His relationship with his father is a complex and uneasy one though the genuine love between the two is evident even if they often show it by getting cross with each other’s foibles. There is humour too though such as when Leo’s father is visiting his sick brother in hospital and is reminded of his Book of Idiots that has fallen into disuse. After adding the name of his brother’s doctor the Book and its new entries becomes a running joke between the men and it provided a lot of warmth to the story (not to mention an inspiration for me to start my own book as it sounded like a satisfying and healthy way to deal with the idiots one encounters in life). The other key relationship Leo has in this book is with his assistant Rafael (Rafa) Estévez who has calmed down a little since the events depicted in the first book though he is still perplexed by the Galician weather and frustrated by the locals’ inability to answer a question directly. There is some friction between the pair and you never get the sense they will be firm friends but stranger things have happened and I am anxious to see what progress is made in future books (hoping of course that there are more to come).

The setting is the other element of the novel that I simply cannot forget. I love the way Villar paints a picture of this part of Spain, incorporating descriptions of both landscape and people in such a vibrant way that I fell like I have strolled along the shore, watched the fishermen bringing in their early morning hauls, wandered over to the market and, inevitably, found a café at which to eat fresh seafood and sip a glass of wine. In addition to making me wistful for a holiday this is a big part of what makes the book so credible. The lives and environment of the key players are depicted in such a way that their murderous ways seem perfectly believable, even sensible in the circumstances.

I did think this book a bit slower than its predecessor (it’s quite a bit longer) and especially in the first half a little repetitive in the way that Leo and Rafa kept re-interviewing the same people for not much gain. But this did help to generate a sense of the frustration that Leo was experiencing (and police must often experience in real life) and I was more than happy to relax a little and soak up the ambience. The pace and complexity of the investigation kicks up a notch in the second half and I enjoyed the neat but still surprising way the resolution fell into place. Without any of the violence or junk-science common to so many procedurals and brimming with warm characters and an inviting atmosphere this book has a great story and, if only fleetingly, makes you feel like you’ve had a holiday in Spain. Delicious reading.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Death on a Galician Shore has been reviewed at Crime Scraps, Euro Crime (By Maxine) and The Game’s Afoot

I reviewed Water Blue-Eyes, the first book in this series, last month.

This is one of seven books nominated for this year’s International Dagger award for translated crime fiction which will be announced this Friday (22 July). I managed to read 6 of the 7 which are Anders Roslund & Borge Hellstrom’s Three Seconds, Ernesto Mallo’s Needle in a Haystack, Fred Vargas’ An Uncertain Place, River of Shadows by Valerio Varesi and Andrea Camilleri’s Wings of the Sphinx. I’m afraid time (and a slight lack of inclination) has prevented my from reading Jean-Francois Parot’s The Saint-Florentin Murders. 

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
My rating 4.5/5
Translator Sonia Soto
Publisher Hachette Digital [2011]
ISBN 9780748120055
Length 346 pages
Format eBook (ePub)
Book Series #2 in the Leo Caldas series
Source I bought it

It turns out I don’t know my ABC after all

Posted on by
2

Kerrie at Mysteries in Paradise hosted the second round of the Crime Fiction Alphabet this year. Interested bloggers were invited to post weekly articles about authors, books or subjects relating to the letter of the week. Last time Kerrie ran the meme I did a tribute to Sue Grafton and chose 26 books with one-word titles. This time I chose a range of topics including types of characters, themes and locations but I admit I skipped a few letters of the alphabet due to a combination of other time commitments and, in a couple of instances, a lack of inspiration. So here is my 20-letter alphabet, with apologies to the letters H, K, T, U, X and Y.


Review: The Quarry by Johan Theorin

Posted on by
16

The Quarry is the third of Johan Theorin’s quartet of seasonal novels set on the Swedish island of Öland. It is the beginning of spring now and 83 year-old retired sea captain Gerlof Davidsson has decided to leave the senior citizen’s home in which he has been living. He doesn’t want to watch any more of his friends wheeled slowly from the home after dying alone in the night and he wants to spend however many years he has left at home in his cottage in Stenvik. As he settles himself back into his cottage he reacquaints himself with those villagers he has known for ever and starts to meet his new neighbours. Although the Swedes don’t really come to Öland in any numbers until the summer, Gerlof is not alone. There’s Per Mörner who inherited his uncle’s cottage near the quarry which was once a source of employment for villagers but is now abandoned. We also meet Vendela Larsson and her husband Max. Vendela grew up on the island as the poverty-stricken daughter of a quarry worker but now she is the owner of one of the newly built luxury homes and she has come here with Max so that he can write his latest self-help book (using an astonishing three desks and a significant amount of Vendela’s expertise).

Per’s father Jerry has recently had a stroke and so when his house is burned down Per, reluctantly, brings him to Stenvik to recover. It seems that Jerry’s shady past might be catching up with him and Per feels compelled to investigate what might have happened even though his relationship with his father is strained to say the least. If nothing else though it will take his mind away from the awful reality of his daughter’s hospitalisation for an unknown illness. Per is a brilliant characterisations in which a full range of human experience and emotion is credibly depicted. We see his frustration at not being able to do anything for his daughter, his ambivalence over his father’s unsavoury career and current circumstances and his yearning to connect with his own son and not knowing quite how to achieve it.

Alongside this main story there are multiple threads which are expertly woven together in a way that demands you read on while the suspense becomes almost unbearable. Gerlof, who can never resist a puzzle, spends some of his time helping Per with his investigation but he also embarks, rather guiltily, on reading his wife’s old diaries that he was meant to have burned after she died. He learns about some of the events in her life that took place while he was away at sea for long stretches and which just adds to the mystery unfolding before us all. Gerlof is one of my favourite characters of all time I think, the kind of 80-something I aspire to be: intelligent, thoughtful and pragmatic about the hand life has dealt him.

As he did in The Darkest Room Theorin has incorporated mythical elements of local folklore into the book intelligently. This time it is the legend of the trolls who, according to Vendela’s father, lived under the quarry and the elves who lived in the nearby alvar (sparsely vegetated area). In the middle of the alvar is a stone which, as a child, Vendela was taught to leave offerings on top of if she wanted her wishes to be granted. Her successes as a young girl fuelled her life-long fascination with elves and when she returns as an adult she is once again drawn to the stone and its magical powers. In a lesser writer’s hands I think Vendela would have been an unbelievable caricature but in Theorin’s she is a beautiful, sad person who has used fantasy to cope with the harsh deal life has thrown at her.

As has been the case with the previous two novels of this series I was once again enveloped by the atmosphere Theroin, ably aided by his translator Marlaine Delargy, has created here. It didn’t feel like I was just reading about the island’s slow awakening from it’s harsh winter to spring: I lived through the lengthening days, the appearance of the first butterflies, the people getting to know each other and themselves. I loved every moment of this book from its first word to its excellent closing line. I loved the intrigue, the gamut of real human emotions on display, the way that the past was connected to the present in surprising ways, the people who compelled me to find out more about them and the dual meaning of the book’s title.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

The Quarry has been reviewed at Falcata Times, Milo’s Rambles,  and The Nordic Bookblog,

I’ve reviewed the two earlier books of this series Echoes from the Dead and The Darkest Room

The only black mark I would give this (and I know it’s nothing to do with the author) is that the blurb on my copy of this book rather appallingly gives away a fairly major plot point that doesn’t occur until more than half-way through the book. Bad form.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
My rating 5/5
Translator Marlaine Delargy
Publisher Doubleday [2011]
ISBN 9780385619295
Length 409 pages
Format paperback
Book Series #3 in a quartet
Source I bought it

Crime Fiction Alphabet: Z is for Zeitgeist

Posted on by
12

Crime fiction writers are able, should they be so inclined, to explore the social and political settings in which their stories take place, often in a way that contemporary journalism or other writing cannot. In this way it is a genre that can capture the Zeitgeist* spectacularly well. Here’s my list of books which do this very well, though some may not have immediately been seen as a novel which captured the spirit of their age. For me anyway I think a Zeitgeist capturing work of crime fiction has to have been written at the time, it’s too easy to be brilliant with hindsight.

Of the many hard-boiled novels and short stories that arose out of the Depression/Prohibition era of America’s late 1920′s and early 1930′s I think Dashiell Hammett’s The Thin Man  is the one that, for me, most clearly captures the particular spirit of that age. It has the hardships being experienced by many people, the deliberate ignoring of those hardships by some people, the desperation felt by others, the speakeasies, the after effects of World War 1…all the things I associate with that particular time and place.

So far I have only read the first of Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö‘s 10-book series of Martin Beck novels collectively planned as The Story of a Crime with a mission to hold up a mirror to the social problems the authors saw in 1960′s Sweden. In Roseanna the authors tackle all sorts of subjects including the nature of bureaucracy and the rise of consumerism which they saw as being significant social issues of their time.

Earlier this year I read Alan Glynn‘s Winterland which is set in contemporary Ireland and seems to me to depict its time and place perfectly. Ostensibly a story about two deaths in the same family what made the book standout for me is that it captures the exact moment when the country’s status as the Celtic tiger of the world economy was coming grievously unstuck due to the global financial crisis and those with any political clout at all were doing whatever it took to stay afloat. It’s a brilliant read.

I thought a book I read last week and reviewed for my other blog (Fair Dinkum Crime where we are serious about Australian crime fiction) captured contemporary Australia particularly well. Alan Carter‘s Prime Cut is set in south-eastern Western Australia which is one of the centres of this country’s latest mining boom. Issues such as the impact such economic booms have on long-term residents of an area and the exploitation of various social groups, including foreign workers, are explored with a subtly that I found refreshing. It’s also got two top-notch mysteries in it.

So, what crime fiction have you read that has captured the Zeitgeist?

*my Macquarie dictionary defines Zeitgeist as the spirit of the time, general drift of thought or feeling characteristic of a particular period of time.

Review: The Wings of the Sphinx by Andrea Camilleri

Posted on by
13

When a young woman’s body is found in a rubbish dump Inspector Silvio Montalbano and his team are at first baffled. Her face has been severely damaged so the only identifying feature they have to go on is a tattoo of what appears to be a butterfly on her shoulder and Montalbano uses his friends in the local media to publicise this and try to drum up some information. Eventually the team is led to a charitable organisation in which things are not always what they appear to be.

I read my first Camilleri novel only last year and while I liked it, I did not fall in love with its protagonist as so many other readers have done. However on my second meeting with this character and his environment I am well and truly smitten. This is, quite simply, a delightfully concise book full of humour and warmth and I revelled in its myriad of little joys that felt like they were hidden just for me.

Montalbano is once again worried about his advancing years but whereas this annoyed me a little in the previous book here I found it amusing and at times even poignant. The depiction of two Montalbanos inside his head who argue with each other about his motivations and behaviour is priceless (and relief-inducing because it’s nice to know I’m not the only one who hears such voices). He is also experiencing some difficulties with his long-time love interest Livia but he doesn’t let this get in the way of his investigating. Well not much anyway. In the end he wades through all these personal problems, stands up to the ever-present political and business interests who try to influence his work and even untangles all the wrongly transcribed messages from his devoted but fairly useless desk sergeant Catarella to solve the crime with intelligence and a dash of panache.

Much of the enjoyment in the book stems from the word play and language games with which the book is littered; a testament both to Camilleri and his translator Stephen Sartarelli. I cannot think of any aspect of translation that would be more difficult to get right than the range of both obvious and subtle humour on display here. But the book is not all laughter and lightness; alongside the almost slapstick moments such as a police department which can’t afford petrol for its cars there are touching elements too like Montalbano’s growing intolerance for the death he is confronted with in his work and on his television screen.

I read this book in not much more than a single sitting and enjoyed every minute of it. The implausible but nevertheless compelling set pieces, the seriousness with which Montalbano treats lunch and the brilliant depiction of local life and customs are a welcome treat. In the middle of a cold and gloomy winter you can’t ask for much more than a book which puts a smile on your face for several days.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

The Wings of the Sphinx has been reviewed at Crime Scraps, Euro Crime (By Maxine) and The Game’s Afoot

This is one of seven books nominated for this year’s International Dagger award for translated crime fiction which will be announced later this month. So far I have read Anders Roslund & Borge Hellstrom’s Three Seconds, Ernesto Mallo’s Needle in a Haystack, Fred Vargas’ An Uncertain Place and Valerio Varesi’s River of Shadows. I have Domingo Villar’s Death on a Galician Shore and Jean-Francois Parot’s The Saint-Florentin Murders still to read. I’ve got both on my eReader and will definitely read the Villar but haven’t yet decided on the Parot – it sounds a bit heavy-going for someone who hasn’t read any of the earlier books in the series.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

My rating 4/5
Translator Stephen Sartarelli
Publisher Penguin [2009]
ISBN 9780143116608
Length 227 pages
Format paperback
Book Series #11 in the Inspector Montalbano series
Source borrowed from the library

Review: The Brass Verdict by Michael Connelly

Posted on by
11

Mickey Haller is a Los Angeles-based lawyer who hasn’t been practicing for the past year or so. All that changes when an acquaintance of his is murdered and Mickey inherits all of Jerry Vincent’s cases. Among these is the ‘franchise case’ (a term I’ll leave it to Mickey to explain) of movie studio owner Walter Elliot who is accused of murdering his wife and her lover. Such a case will put money in Mickey’s bank account and, if he wins, get his career back on track. However, the detective investigating Vincent’s murder, one Harry Bosch, is convinced that Vincent’s murder is connected to one of his cases, which may mean that Mickey is now in danger.

I listened to this book’s predecessor a couple of years ago and while I thought it could have done with a good edit, overall I enjoyed it. Unfortunately about the best I can say of this one is that it passed the time in a marginally more entertaining way than listening to the conversations of my fellow commuters would have done. It felt like Connelly had deliberately failed to include all the things I liked about The Lincoln Lawyer (Haller’s complex character make-up, a range of cases being tackled and solidly entertaining court room scenes) and incorporated all the elements I didn’t like much the first time around.

Perhaps because of the personal traumas he has experienced since the events depicted in The Lincoln Lawyer Mickey’s character has changed somewhat here. If he were someone I knew in real life this would be good news as he is less uncompromising and not as self-absorbed but as a fictional character he’s become a bit of a bore. He is now another mutli-divorced, substance-addicted bloke trying to re-connect with his child. Yawn. He’s also developed a conscience which, again, is more desirable in one’s real life acquaintances than fictional ones, especially when it results in a thoroughly predictable and saccharine-soaked ending. This is really where the book lost points with me as it was a total copout on just about every level.

The rest of the book was simply flat. The big legal case which occupies most of the narrative was completely uninteresting due to its central character being as emotionally disconnected from events as he could be. With legal thrillers I don’t mind if the accused is guilty or innocent but I want to care about that one way or the other. I want to be rooting for the innocent man to be set free or the guilty one to get what’s coming and at least be disappointed (if not devastated) if the appropriate result is not forthcoming. In short I want to feel invested in the case, its participants and its outcome whereas here I felt bored. The victims of the murder were barely described at all, the suspect was a cold, uninteresting fish and even Haller didn’t have a whole lot riding on the outcome of the case in the end.

To be fair the court room scenes were very good and added real tension, but they didn’t start until the last third of the book and by then I’m afraid my attention had waned considerably. I did like the fact the book explored the notion of the so-called justice system being much more about pizzazz and the size of your bank account than about determining innocence or guilt but even this was done in a rather detached way and without any real depth. The incorporation of Connelly’s more well-known character, police detective Harry Bosch, didn’t seem to add much to the story to me but I’m not a reader of those books so perhaps I missed something there.

My enjoyment of this book was, unusually, even hampered by the audio book narrator whose voice I found lacking in nuance (virtually the entire tale was told in a mildly aggressive monotone). The pronunciation was a little off as well. For example Mickey’s often repeated surname is rhymed with dollar throughout the book; a fact which annoyed me so much I did some digging (well I asked the good folks of the 4MA reading group) after finishing and discovered it wasn’t just my Australian ears finding fault, his name should rhyme with caller.

As is usual I am out of step with just about everybody who has read this book which has won awards galore and received glowing reviews aplenty. Sometimes I can see what it is about a book that others might like and simply acknowledge a difference of taste but here I’ll admit to being genuinely astonished when reading other people’s descriptions of the very same book. I feel like I have read a completely different work of art that was, through my eyes, bland and totally predictable.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

As I mentioned almost everyone else disagrees with me so do check out some other reviews including those at Mysteries in Paradise, Petrona and Reviewing the Evidence.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
My rating 2.5/5
Author website http://www.michaelconnelly.com/index.html
Narrator Peter Giles
Publisher Orion Publishing [2008]
ISBN N/A (downloaded from audible.com)
Length 11 hours 27 minutes
Format audio (mp3)
Book Series #2 in the Mickey Haller series (with a special appearance by Harry Bosch)
Source I bought it

Review: River of Shadows by Valerio Varesi

Posted on by
11

In the Po valley in northern Italy it has been raining for days and the river is flooding. Among those watching the water during the night are members of a boat club who see the old barge owned by Anteo Tonna leave its moorings and weave it’s way down the river, though no one is sure if the old man is on board. At various bends and crossings along the river people try to make out who, if anyone is on board the boat but when it comes to rest they determine that the barge is empty. At the same time as this drama is unfolding Commissario Soneri of the Parma police is called to what is thought to be the suicide of an elderly man at a local hospital. However Soneri soon discovers this man, Decimo Tonna, is the brother of the missing boat man and, thinking this an unlikely coincidence, he links the two cases although this is not a popular move with the local magistrate.

River of Shadows has one of the most atmospheric settings I’ve read in a long time, with Varesi deftly painting a picture of the swelling river and the mixture of people living and working along it. I really did have a sense of being there. The opening pages which describe the deluge of rain and the pragmatic approach to it and the flooding river that the old timers have drew me in very quickly. I chuckled too at the conflict between those who had lived around and worked on the river for years and the bureaucrats from far away issuing edicts that no one would follow. I also liked that my copy of the book had a little map of the region and the towns mentioned as many books used to do and few seem to do these days. I feel like starting a campaign to bring them back though as I found it very useful.

The investigation, for Soneri really does treat it as a single case, did prove in the end to be interesting too, though I have to say I found the middle of the book a bit lacking in direction and it didn’t quite hold my attention as much as I’d have liked. Ultimately though the resolution is a satisfactory one, revolving around the volatile political past of the area and the long memories that some people have of such things.

Although I did enjoy this book I didn’t love it and I think the biggest reason for this was that I didn’t find the characters particularly engaging. Soneri himself seems cold and not terribly interesting. His only significant relationship is with a woman who likes to entice Soneri into having sex in dangerous places where they might easily be caught (and will never do it in a bed). But even this relationship is a very distant one and none of the other people depicted are any warmer or more engaging.

I enjoyed the atmosphere created by this book and the insights into human nature offered by the kind of investigation explored here. But in the end I thought the book, or its main character anyway, lacked whatever ‘x factor’ it is that draws me back to a series. I’m not suggesting I’d never read another book in the series, merely that I won’t be counting the days until a new release is available as I do with my favourite reads.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

River of Shadows has been reviewed at Crime Scraps and Euro Crime (By Maxine)

This is one of seven books nominated for this year’s International Dagger award for translated crime fiction which will be announced later this month. So far I have read Anders Roslund & Borge Hellstrom’s Three Seconds, Ernesto Mallo’s Needle in a Haystack, Fred Vargas’ An Uncertain Place and am half way through Andrea Camilleri’s Wings of the Sphinx. I have Domingo Villar’s Death on a Galician Shore and Jean-Francois Parot’s The Saint-Florentin Murders on my eReader but am not sure I will get through them both before the award is announced.

Although I have read quite a few books set in Europe I keep forgetting to count them for the global challenge, so shall count this as the second European leg of my virtual tour.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
My rating 3/5
Translator Joseph Farrell
Publisher Quercus [this translation 2010, original edition 2003]
ISBN 9781906694272
Length 259 pages
Format hardcover
Book Series #1 in the Commissario Soneri series
Source borrowed from the library