Category Archives: 4.5 Stars

Review: THE BLACKHOUSE by Peter May

Posted on by
8

Of late it seems to be the books with a really strong sense of their time or place that hold my attention. I suspect it has something to do with my yearning for a holiday I can’t have just at the moment. Not that I’m sure I would choose to have a holiday on the island of Lewis as depicted in Peter May’s THE BLACKHOUSE. While undoubtedly a spectacular place physically, May has depicted one of those remote settings full of troubled souls that makes this city girl quite comforted by the anonymity and crowds of urban sprawl. But I am a sucker for visiting such places virtually.

It is the story of Finn MacLeod, an Edinburgh-based detective who has just returned to work after a family tragedy. He is sent to the island because a murder there bares a strong resemblance to one he investigated several months ago in the city and as he is from the island originally he is thought (by the police computer system) to be the obvious person to investigate. Finn is ambivalent about the case, wanting to be away from his present circumstances where grief is overwhelming but reluctant to travel to the place he left 18 years earlier which still holds many memories, not all of them pleasant. So it is with a sense of foreboding mixed with curiosity that he – and we readers – set out on our travels.

The murder victim was the school bully of Finn’s childhood and few people have a kind word for the adult he became so there is a plethora of suspects in his brutal murder. But as is the way of things in small communities the secrets must be uncovered slowly and, in this instance, involve Finn re-living his own history of old friendships, a great love and some hazily remembered but significant events. May has created a group of very intense and credible characters for us to get to know over the course of these events: all of them with human frailties and secrets small and large that are revealed compellingly.

The book is told in two intertwining narratives: one a historical one which delves into Finn’s personal history and the recent history of the wider island community. We learn of Finn’s great childhood friendship, which was eventually tested by the girl both boys loved, and about the harsh environment and the ultra religious community. The annual guga hunt, where a dozen local men are selected to go to an off-shore rock to hunt the nesting birds which are a local delicacy, plays a pivotal role in the community and, at least for one year, in Finn’s life though it takes almost the whole book for all the details of this event to unravel.

In the present-day story which follows the investigation it is comparatively easy to see where the story is heading (if you’re a regular crime fiction reader anyway) but because we are meeting many of the people who have been introduced in the historical narrative it remained a compelling story for me. I was thoroughly hooked on wanting to see how the two versions of each character and the village community (which is a character of its own) would be connected.

This is a hard book about which to convey all the reasons I stayed up late into the night to finish it. Suffice it to say that it is a psychological study of an insular society and the lives, choices and actions of its key players. I found it totally engrossing and am looking forward to the second book in what is to be a trilogy. Happily for me a copy of that arrived on my doorstep this very afternoon.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

THE BLACKHOUSE has been reviewed at Petrona (the review which prompted me to buy the book) as well as Crimepieces, Euro Crime and The Lit Witch

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
My rating 4.5/5
Publisher Quercus [2011]
ISBN 9781849163866
Length 498
Format paperback
Book Series #1 in a trilogy
Source I bought it
Creative Commons Licence
This work by http://reactionstoreading.com is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Review: Trackers by Deon Meyer

Posted on by
12

It’s hard to know how to talk about TRACKERS without giving away too many of the book’s surprises which come from both story and structure so I shall err on the side of caution. I don’t think it’s letting too much out of the bag to say that there are three distinct books here, and though the reader assumes the stories will eventually intertwine most connections are not made until almost the very end so you are really reading three independent stories. While this maintains suspense it does require more than the usual amount of small-detail retention on the part of the reader, something that proved quite challenging with the audio version of the book.

The first and most prominent of the three stories centres around a woman called Milla Strachan who, when we meet her, is just coming to the decision to leave her violent, philandering husband and their boorish, spoiled son. Although she trained to be a journalist she has not worked for many years and struggles to find a job until she spies a small newspaper advertisement. That leads to a report-writing job with a government agency. In the second book we meet a young freelance bodyguard called Lemmer who is hired for the seemingly innocuous job of escorting two endangered rhinos being smuggled into the country from Zimbabwe on behalf of a wealthy and slightly dodgy farmer. In the final book of TRACKERS we follow the trail of former policeman Mat Joubert as he starts his new job as a private investigator and takes on the case of a missing husband whose wife is unsatisfied with what she perceives to have been a fairly cursory investigation by police.

All three stories are compelling in their own right though I have to admit to finding the first one a little tough-going in parts. Although the audio narration was excellent I found the very complicated plot a little hard to follow in this format and did have to rewind quite a bit which is something I very rarely need to do. I had no such problems with the other two books within this book and perhaps for that reason I enjoyed those two stories slightly more than the first.

There are several elements which link the books, the most obvious being that each depicts some version of tracking; be it people, animals, objects or something less tangible.  This could have been clumsy in a less talented author’s hands but Meyer is a terrific storyteller and manages to use this device almost without the reader noticing it’s being done. Another theme common to the stories is that the main character in each one is at something of a crossroads in his or her life and the events cause, or force, them to learn something not entirely comfortable about their own makeup. Milla Strachan’s case is probably the most dramatic of the three but these threads are all fascinating and provide part of the depth of this book.

The remainder of that depth comes from the other thing which links the books which is the  ever-present commentary on life in modern South Africa. It is almost as if Meyer has written a non-fiction book underneath the fictional one in which he is depicting a year in the life of his country. Setting the main part of the story in the time leading up to the country’s hosting of the football (soccer) world cup offers scope to show how the country and its residents want to be seen on the all-important international stage, while the disparate stories within TRACKERS allow a broad cross-section of ‘routine’ lives to be depicted which helps readers build up a real picture of the country today. Again it is something you almost don’t notice until the book is finished when you suddenly realise you have such a detailed picture of the place that you feel like you could walk into the pages and feel at home.

I think I’ve only scratched the surface of all that is good about TRACKERS so can only recommend you read the book for yourselves, though I’d only recommend the audio format to seasoned listeners. It is an intelligent, compelling thriller with a fantastic range of characters and an absorbing sense of place. At a time when many successful writers seem content to write the same book over and over again Meyer is to be applauded for continuing to stretch himself and his readers.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Trackers has been reviewed at International Noir Fiction, Mysteries in Paradise, Petrona, The Game’s Afoot and was chosen as one of 2011′s best thrillers by Kirkus Reviews

I’ve reviewed three of Deon Meyer’s other books Devil’s Peak, Dead at Daybreak and Thirteen hours.  There hasn’t been a dud in the bunch.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
My rating 4.5/5
Author website http://www.deonmeyer.com/
Translator K.L. Seegers (from Afrikaans)
Narrator Saul Reichlin, Rupert Degas, Sandra Duncan
Publisher Hodder & Stoughton [2011]
ASIN B005OSUOAE (downloaded from audible.com)
Length 17 hours and 55 minutes
Format audio (mp3)
Book Series standalone
Source I bought it
Creative Commons Licence
This work by http://reactionstoreading.com is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Review: Dregs by Jørn Lier Horst

Posted on by
19

Dregs is the sixth novel in Jørn Lier Horst’s series featuring Chief Inspector William Wisting who lives and works in Stavern south of Oslo, though annoyingly (for the linguistically challenged like myself) it’s the first to be translated to English. It is a classic police procedural that sees Wisting and his team investigating the appearance of two severed left feet clad in running shoes which wash ashore in separate incidents. The area is not exactly rife with crime so the Police have a reasonably good idea that the feet are probably related to four outstanding missing persons cases on their books. However, they still have a lot of work to do to piece together the case and the feet on their own do not provide much help and the coppers have to rely on good, old-fashioned legwork to get to the bottom of things.

I enjoyed this book very much not least because it often went in a direction I wasn’t expecting. I love that in a plot. Without car chases, gruesomely described violence (I know severed feet sounds bad but it is handled well) or any of the other hallmarks of a certain kind of crime fiction Horst has produced a very clever and readable story that has a number of surprises. Although sometimes hindered by their boss who is a little too keen to discuss cases with the media Wisting and the team do manage make some sense out of the bizarre case by linking it to events from the area’s past history and I enjoyed seeing the police work depicted so credibly. The fact there is a good team and a subtle sense of humour on display added to my enjoyment.

Wisting is a great character and though I would like to read about his earlier exploits (hint hint publishers) I thought the book did a good job of presenting him.There’s enough of his background so that new readers are not left floundering but not so much that those familiar with the series would be bored. What I liked about Wisting is that although he has had some tragedy in his life (he is a widower for example) it has not left him the dysfunctional wreck common to crime fiction. He’s in a new relationship with a woman in the town and he manages to maintain a good relationship with his daughter. He doesn’t think much of her current job interviewing convicted murderers or her boyfriend (who has been in prison twice) but he refrains from getting on her case about these things which is undoubtedly the hardest but most sensible thing to do in the situation. On the other hand Wisting has his head in the sand a bit about his own health but this is such a realistic trait that I thought it added very well to his overall character.

I also liked the way the author gently but intelligently explored social themes. Probably the most interesting of these for me was the notion of imprisonment as punishment being an ineffective method for dealing with murderers. Horst uses the character of Line, Wisting’s daughter who is a journalist, to tease this issue out in a series of interviews with convicted murderers who have been released from prison. It was a somewhat surprisingly thoughtful and balanced look at the issue, especially considering Horst was a policeman himself and could be expected to perhaps take a harder line on such an issue.

Dregs was very readable to me which I always attribute to excellent translation, in this case by Anne Bruce, as well as good original writing. I will look forward to reading more of this series though whether that proves to me earlier books or later ones remains to be seen.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Based on the fact there are at least two other recent crime novels featuring severed feet I’m clearly not the only person who has been following the bizarre news stories from Canada (and more recently the US) about unattached feet washing up on various shores. Sometimes it’s easy to see where novelists get their inspiration :)

Dregs has been reviewed (to pretty universal acclaim) at Crime Fiction Lover, Crime Segments, Crimepieces,  International Noir Fiction, Nordic Bookblog (I am so jealous that Peter has read the earlier books in their native language) and Petrona

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
My rating 4.5/5
Translator Anne Bruce
Publisher Sandstone Press [2011]
ISBN 9781905207671
Length 310 pages
Format paperback
Book Series #6 in the William Wisting series (but the first available in English)
Source A gift from my fairy godmother
Creative Commons Licence
This work by http://reactionstoreading.com is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Review: Evil Intent by Kate Charles

Posted on by
10

Callie Anson is a newly ordained Anglican Priest and has just received her first posting as Curate of All Saints’ Church in Paddington, London. Recovering from the breakup of a relationship and coming to terms with her demanding new job (which includes more than its fair share of abuse as some people do not take well to the idea of female priests) are enough to deal with but she is soon embroiled in a murder investigation too. A hardline conservative priest is strangled and one of Callie’s closest friends is the prime, indeed only, suspect.

As my memory resembles a sieve I have no clue what prompted me to mooch this book nearly three years ago but I am immensely pleased that I did. Even without the mystery element (which was perfectly entertaining in its own right) this book has a lot to offer. You might not think you’d be absorbed by a depiction of the modern Anglican church and its internal political issues (including the ordination of women and the acceptance of openly homosexual clergy) but Charles has made them utterly compelling reading. She manages to be respectful of an institution she clearly loves but does not fawn or fail to criticize elements of doctrine or collective behaviour that she finds outdated and/or offensive. Most importantly though she does all this as part of an intriguing story, not as some political diatribe on the various issues raised. I wish that all the authors I read who have something political to say were equally well-versed in the art of showing (not telling).

Another aspect of the novel I found fascinating was its depiction of the media and the relationship between the police and the media. There is a journalist character here who drives much of the plot development and she, or at least her actions, are at times horrific, being entirely devoid of journalistic ethics, fact checking and the like. At one point in particular she shreds someone’s career based solely on one person’s claims without, it appears, any attempt (or even need) to check the claims made or interview the person who was the subject of them. I don’t know enough about either English law or media to know if this is realistic but if it is then it is a very sad indictment on the English fourth estate. I know our media here in Australia isn’t perfect but they wouldn’t quite get away with that.

The mystery plot is almost a minor component then of what made this book interesting for me but that’s not to say it wasn’t interesting too. While police could only see one possible suspect readers were provided motivations for several more potential culprits in what was something of an old-fashioned whodunnit. Even (especially?) among the various clergy and their families there were plenty of secrets which might have warranted killing someone in order to keep. Charles teases these out adroitly and keeps readers guessing until the end.

In some ways this book is quite scathing of the institution that is the Anglican church but it is also reverential at times. Various characters describe what drew them to the church or what aspects keep them coming back, even when they don’t agree with everything going on from a political standpoint, and I liked the balance this provided. It made the book much more compelling than a one-sided polemic would have been. I really had no idea what to expect when I plucked this book from the depths of my TBR pile and was pleasantly surprised to find a thought-provoking and engaging book which I gobbled up in a single, late night sitting.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
My rating 4.5/5
Author website http://www.katecharles.com/
Publisher Poisoned Pen Press [2005]
ISBN 9781590582008
Length 339 pages
Format hardcover
Book Series #1 in the Callie Anson trilogy
Source I mooched it

This post is published at http://reactionstoreading.com if you are seeing it at another site then it has been stolen and/or used entirely without permission.

Review: Mercy by Jussi Adler-Olsen

Posted on by
12

Note: this book is published in the US as The Keeper of Lost Causes and is referred to at the author’s website as The Woman in the Cage.

Given that everyone in the world has already read this book (refer links below) there doesn’t seem much point in writing this review but my life appears to be full of pointless pursuits these days so one more can’t hurt. Perhaps if I add my voice to the chorus of positive reviews there might be a hastening of the translation of other volumes by this clearly talented author?

Mercy tells us two stories. The first is the story of Merete Lynggaard, a successful politician who disappears very suddenly one day in 2002. While the rest of the world thinks her dead, drowned when falling or jumping from the ferry she was travelling on, we learn that she is alive and imprisoned in horrendous circumstances. Merete’s part of the book takes us back through her life as well as depicting her current circumstances in such an affecting way that I was close to hyperventilating more than once (I am extremely claustrophobic and the descriptions are all too realistic).

The second story is that of Carl Mørck who is a Detective with the Danish police. As the book opens he is returning to work after a traumatic incident in which he was shot, one of his colleagues was murdered and another was crippled for life. Carl’s entire focus as he comes back to work is to ensure that he can do as little as possible while still getting paid and his employers are keen to sideline him too. With the help of a new source of funding they establish a new Department for Carl to head up which will investigate unsolved cases. Putting Carl out on his own is seen as advisable as no one likes working with him and the bosses have plans to use much of the allocated money for their own ongoing investigations. Carl sets himself up in his basement office, where he spends days surfing the net and arranging case files in piles (but putting off actually looking at them) and prepares to do not much at all. But one of his demands in the bargaining that he conducted with his superiors was for an assistant who could do cleaning and make coffee and the man assigned to him, Assad, forces Carl to actually open some of the cold case files. And he becomes intrigued in spite of himself. When they decide to focus on the Lynggaard case Carl and Assad (who takes on a wide array of duties, most of which would not normally be performed by a cleaner) cleverly uncover the mistakes made by the initial investigation and doggedly work their way towards finding an answer to the mysterious disappearance.

People (and book blurbs) are always keen to paint Scandinavian crime fiction as universally bleak and miserable but this book is hardly that. While individual circumstances are indeed on a scale from merely bad to utterly horrific there is a strong sense of humour throughout Mercy and this is where Lisa Hartford’s superb translation skills are most evident. There were many genuine laughs in the book for me, especially from the dialogue between Carl and Assad or Carl and his superiors and I am always extra impressed when linguistic humour can be translated and remain funny.

Another element that keeps this book from being too grim is the depiction of Merete. Perhaps because I know that if I were in her situation I would have curled into the foetal position and died I loved the way she was shown to be keeping her sanity and wits. She is locked alone in a room with no distractions, no comforts and no human contact for a very (very) long period and yet she never lets it get to her, or at least not for too long. Thankfully Adler-Olsen resisted the temptation to infuse her imprisonment with any kind of sexual or violent torture which also scores extra points with me as that particular trope has worn very thin.

From a plotting perspective it’s not that difficult to work out who must be responsible for Merete’s kidnapping but there is a lot else going on to keep the reader engaged and guessing right up until the end. The unveiling of the characters’ back stories and the ongoing battles that Carl has with his superiors and colleagues, not to mention his beleaguered family life, provide plenty of tension and intrigue. This really is a multi-threaded story but kept well controlled so that you don’t, as a reader, feel confused at all.

In short this is a tremendously good read with excellent characters, lots of interesting storylines and offering a credible depiction of a modern bureaucracy with all its flaws. If there does happen to be anyone left who hasn’t read it then my only advice is to do so. Now. I eagerly await the next translated volume.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

This book (either as Mercy or as The Keeper of Lost Causes) has been reviewed at Crime Scraps, DJ’s Krimiblog, Euro Crime (By Maxine), How Mysterious, Mysteries in Paradise, Reading Matters, The Nordic Bookblog,

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
My rating 4.5/5
Author website http://www.jussiadlerolsen.com/
Translator Lisa Hartford [aka Tina Nunnally]
Publisher Penguin [this translation 2011, original edition 2008]
ISBN 9780141399966
Length 504 pages
Format paperback
Book Series #1 in the Department Q series
Source I bought it

This post is published at http://reactionstoreading.com if you are seeing it at another site then it has been stolen and/or used entirely without permission.

Review: A Walk in the Dark by Gianrico Carofiglio

Posted on by
11

In Bari in Southern Italy we meet Guido Guerrieri; a forty-something lawyer with a non live-in girlfriend and an introspective approach to life. A policeman friend of Guerrieri’s calls on him one day and brings with him a nun with a story to tell. The story is about Martina, a volunteer who works at the women’s shelter the nun runs. Martina wants to bring a civil case of assault and battery against her ex-boyfriend who has beaten her multiple times. Two other lawyers have turned down the case because the man accused is the son of a powerful local judge and anyone who takes on the case is risking an end to their own professional career. Partly because he is unable to say no in the presence of the strangely intriguing nun, Guido agrees to take on the case.

At only just over 200 pages (positively tiny in today’s environment) this unassuming little book packs an unexpectedly powerful punch. The author manages to bring something new to the all too frequent tale of an abused woman in a number of subtle ways. Firstly, although Martina’s case is at the centre of the story the woman herself is not. Readers see events through Guido’s eyes and those of Sister Claudia more than they do through Martina’s. This does not diminish her or the grimness of her situation but it does offer a less common perspective. The problems of achieving a positive result in this kind of “he said, she said” case, especially when there is an overarching potential for corruption due to the man’s connections, are starkly drawn and really highlight the difficulties that women in these situations must face. In a fraction of the length of lesser books we get a very real sense of the inner strength it took for Martina to take legal action and the practical difficulties involved in protecting her and obtaining justice. It is terribly moving though sad to be reminded that there is a need for places called women’s shelters the world over.

The other standout feature of the novel is the nicely developed characters, particularly of Guido and Sister Claudia. While not the tortured, loner, alcoholic endemic to crime fiction Guido does have his demons including a strong belief in his own cowardice. His intermittent insomnia, and the late night walks which are his treatment, provide for some touching introspection of the kind that only the wee small hours can bring. They counterbalance nicely Guido the non-corrupt lawyer who must use some creative manoeuvres to bring his cases to successful conclusion against a system in which there is a lot of corruption and nepotism. Sister Claudia, a martial-arts practising nun, has more than her fair share of troubles too and is an interesting character added to this mix.

Given that on several occasions I stopped to re-read sentences or passages just because I liked the way the language sounded I’m proposing that the translation by Howard Curtis is an excellent one though my own knowledge of Italian is far too rudimentary to really know. In fact the only down note to this review is my own annoyance at having been so long in discovering this terrific author. I loved the book’s combination of thoughtful legal procedural and journal of a man’s life and thoughts so much that I’m not even going to complain too much that it made me embarrass myself in public. The ending surprised and angered me (on behalf of the characters not due to any lack of quality in the storytelling) and the several loud sobs I tried (unsuccessfully I think) to pretend were the result of hay fever as I sat on a crowded bus generated furtive glances from my fellow passengers. I highly recommend this book (though perhaps one to be read in the privacy of one’s own home).

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

A Walk in the Dark has been reviewed at Bookslut, Euro Crime, International Noir Fiction

I’m using this book as the book with travel or movement in the title for this year’s What’s in a Name challenge

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

My rating 4.5/5
Author website
Translator Howard Curtis
Publisher Bitter Lemon Press [this translation 2006, original edition 2003]
ISBN 9781904738534
Length 214 pages
Format paperback
Book Series #2 in the Guido Guerrieri series
Source I bought it

This post is published at http://reactionstoreading.com if you are seeing it at another site then it has been stolen and/or used entirely without permission.

Review: Detective Inspector Huss by Helene Tursten

Posted on by
9

When wealthy Swedish businessman Richard von Knecht falls to his death from his apartment balcony everyone assumes it is suicide. Naturally enough for a mystery novel there is soon evidence that leads police to believe von Knecht was actually murdered and they begin the slow process of unravelling which secrets of his life might have led to his murder.

And so we meet the members Göteburg Violent Crimes squad as they start interviewing von Knecht’s family members, neighbours and friends to uncover who might have had the motive and opportunity to commit the crime. The team is a large one led by Detective Superintendent Sven Andersson who is shown, as the book progresses, to be intelligent and supportive of his own staff, though he struggles to know how to handle emotionally charged situations and can’t seem to quite fathom how to deal with the women on his team. At times I wanted to give him a good slap but I found him very believable and ultimately sympathetic.

Among the seven Detective Inspectors on the team is Irene Huss, a middle-aged married woman with twin teenage daughters and a refreshingly supportive husband. We see her struggle with a truly scary situation as a parent alongside both frustrating and frightening situations at work and in all instances her behaviour and reactions seem entirely credible. The rest of the team is an interesting mixture of new and old colleagues including Irene’s good friend Tommy whom she has obviously known for many years as he offers to help out when the problem with her daughter arises. There’s also a quiet but hardworking Finnish man on the team, the ubiquitous bloke with one eye on his retirement, a feisty young female Detective Inspector and a brash and often worrisome young man who has a repugnant attitude towards women. Tursten does a lot with the team dynamics over the course of the novel and all of it quite fascinating.

The case, and therefore the novel’s plot, is complicated but Tursten does a good job of keeping the reader on top of all the threads, some of which turn out to be dead ends (though none the less emotional and engaging in one instance in particular). At times I was a bit lost as to the significance of something everyone in the novel seemed fixated on but I felt like the team were learning what was important and what wasn’t along with me and it felt natural to be a little confused at times. This book did an outstanding job of drawing the reader in to the experience of being in on such a case and the myriad of useless information that has to be collected before it can be discarded as of no importance.

At the same time though Tursten does explore a range of interesting social issues in just the right way to keep me interested in the novel. There’s a really moving thread about the perils of forgetting historical events which might lead to repeating the mistakes of past generations and a gripping, if highly frustrating, storyline about the difficulties still faced by women in workplaces that have traditionally been dominated by men. These were incorporated into the story beautifully and gave the book a quite thought-provoking after taste.

I’ve had this book lying around for ages but was prompted to pluck it from Mount TBR when I realised its author was one of three listed at the Crimescraps Favourite Nordic Women Crime Writers poll whose books I had not yet read (the other two are on my ‘to read soon’ soon pile too). I’m very glad to have been introduced to this thoughtful and engaging series which really does set a high bench mark for novels in the police procedural sub-genre.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Detective Inspector Huss has been reviewed at A Book a Week, Euro Crime, Letters from a Hill Farm (I so agree with Nan’s comment that this book really makes readers feel like they are part of the investigative team) and Mystery File (which shares the tip that the original translation for the book’s name would be The Broken Tang Horse which I think is a better name but what the heck do I know?

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

My rating 4.5/5
Translator Stephen T Murray
Publisher Soho [this translation 2003, original edition 1989]
ISBN 9781569473702
Length 371 pages
Format paperback
Book Series #1 in the Detective Inspector Huss series
Source I bought it (exactly 3 years ago this week…and only just got around to reading it, shame on me)

Review: The News Where You Are by Catherine O’Flynn

Posted on by
7

Frank Allcroft is a presenter on a regional English news program based in Birmingham and this novel is, in a roundabout way, his story. He is married to Andrea, has a 12 year-old daughter, Mo, whom he adores, has recently lost his best friend in a hit and run accident and struggles to let go of the past. This manifests itself in little ways, such as his inability to throw away even the most unfashionable clothing items lurking in his wardrobe, and bigger ways too as he campaigns to save the buildings his architect father built in the city’s post-war boom which are now being pulled down for a new era’s landmarks. Frank is also becoming interested in (or obsessed with depending on your point of view) the people he reports on who die alone and even attends some of their funerals. This habit leads Frank to become an investigator of sorts as he attempts to unearth some family or friends of a particular man who died alone who has a connection, albeit vague, to Frank himself.

I loved this book (almost as much as O’Flynn’s first novel What Was Lost which I read earlier this year). It somehow manages to be sad without being unrelentingly depressing and so was a delight to read, unlike some other books I’ve read recently which just seem to wallow in a single tone of unending misery. Like most lives I suppose Frank’s has its ups and downs and we are exposed to both. His relationship with his father was distant due to his father’s obsession with his work and his enduring legacy for the city but to counterbalance this we also see that he had a good relationship with his mother, especially on her good days when they would have absurd tea parties and other fun. His mother is still alive and is in an assisted living centre as this book opens, which also offers scope for a mixture of sadness and humour. In the end I thought I had a terrifically well-rounded picture of Frank and his foibles and if he does not inspire love I think most readers will like and identify with some aspects of his life. The other characterisations, though not as fully-formed, are equally engaging and thoughtful. Frank’s friend Phil is one of the most beautifully drawn but saddest people I have ever met in fiction.

The story seems like it will be a simple one at the outset but there is a complexity in the way that it tackles a range of contemporary issues. One of these is society’s (or at least media’s) obsession with appearances over substance. This is beautifully observed via the inclusion of a reality television show called Tough Love which is hosted by Frank’s friend’s widow and which his daughter adores. Some of the saddest moments of the book take place as a manipulative episode is dissected before us, but O’Flynn offsets this by incorporating a warm humour into the thread with Mo’s innocent misinterpretation of some aspects of reality television. The dumbing-down of televised news is also explored,  offering a couple of genuinely laugh-out-loud moments in addition to the overall bitterness that viewers (and even presenters) are treated like simpletons in these unenlightened times. The nature of ageing and the constant tension between remembering the past while looking forward at both a personal and social level are other subjects drawn out as part of this gentle but quite powerful story.

I’m not sure what the rules are for deciding a writer is a ‘favourite’ but if it’s permissible to do so based on only two books then Catherine O’Flynn is definitely a new favourite author of mine. Having adored her first book, What Was Lost , only a few months ago I wanted to wait longer before jumping into this second novel but a few days ago I found myself in something of a melancholy frame of mind and seemingly irresistibly drawn to the book. I am now equally thrilled to have read it and sad that I don’t still have it to look forward to. It has a strong sense of its place and time, very natural-feeling characters who leap off the page and a very accessible but intelligent writing style and I highly recommend it. If you happen to be a fan of audio books you will enjoy Michael Tudor Barnes’ excellent narration which matches the warmth and sadness of the novel in exactly the right way.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

The News Where You Are has been reviewed at Petrona and The Black Sheep Dances

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
My rating 4.5/5
Narrator Michael Tudor Barnes
Publisher ISIS Audio books [2010]
ISBN 9781445006499
Length8 hours 20 minutes
Format audio (CD)
Book Series standalone
Source I borrowed it from the library

Review: The Screaming of the Innocent by Unity Dow

Posted on by
9

I was prompted to add The Screaming of the Innocent to my global reading challenge list by this excellent review at Petrona. My short summary review would simply be: read the book yourself, you’ll be glad you did.

The Screaming of the Innocent is set in the author’s native Botswana and tells a harrowing tale about a young girl who goes missing, the men who are responsible and the ease with which they engineer a cover up of their actions. The girl is 12 years old and one day she is spotted playing with her friends by a local businessman, Mr Disanka, which seals her unfortunate fate. He calls upon two men he knows who share his heinous interests and together they plan what they’ll do with the girl. Although at this point there is no graphic depiction of what is done to the girl, the passage in which this odious individual, who is thought to be a good man despite his many mistresses and other moral lapses, identifies the girl as ‘perfect for his purposes’ quite literally made my skin crawl.

We then jump forward five years and meet Amantle Bokaa, a young woman in her 20s, as she begins an internship at the clinic in the same village from which the girl disappeared. When carrying out some cleaning at the clinic Amantle finds a box marked Neo Kakang: CRB 45/94 and when she tracks down the village resident who shares the name Kakang the box is opened to reveal a set of blood-stained clothes. The villagers, including Motlatsi Kakang, are stunned because the clothes clearly belong to Molatsi’s daughter Neo who went missing five years earlier. They were told at the time by police investigators that the girl had been killed by lions.  Amantle, being a remarkably strong young women, then takes it upon herself to uncover the facts behind Neo’s disappearance and what she soon realises must have been the official cover up of those facts.

The subject matter of this book is undoubtedly dark but, because it is based on a real case of ritual killing, there is a purpose to that darkness. This is not gruesome violence for the shock value of it like so many ‘thrillers’ contain these days; this is actually quite a restrained depiction of events which will keep occurring in the real world unless they are exposed in this way. But perhaps the most important thing to know is that despite the utter wretchedness of many of the events in the book there is a sense of optimism and hope too. The introduction of Amantle and the friends she co-opts to her cause is a master stroke on the part of the author, allowing the reader to imagine the possibility of a brighter future for Botswana and its poor people, especially its women.

For Amantle is a delightful character who, as the youngest of seven children in a traditional Botswanan family, was selected to be the first one who would go to school. We learn via flashback some of Amantle’s personal history and it becomes clear how she developed into such a smart and resourceful young lady who is prepared to stand up for herself and those she identifies cannot do so for themselves. She is not entirely alone, engaging the help of a young female lawyer friend who in turn ropes in another chum or two and you get the sense that the author sees these young people as a big part of her country’s future.

This is one of those books that oozes its setting, both physical and psychological, from every page. The traditional values which are increasingly at odds with modern thinking, the entrenched poverty, the heavily hierarchical social structure in which women at each layer have to struggle more for their share of what is in offer are all present. But so are the beauty of the landscape, the strong sense of community that develops among the rural villages and even, albeit briefly, some flashes of humour such as when the young people have to spend a night camping and the city-living lawyer is terrified they will all be eaten by lions.

If the book had depicted only a single note of despair and sadness I would, I think, hesitate to recommend it but knowing that it also contains the seeds of reason to be optimistic I do think it’s well worth reading. It is emotionally harrowing (the ending particularly so) but not gratuitously so and, on balance, I am glad that I read the book, despite the sadness and sense of impotent outrage it engendered.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

The book has been reviewed at Petrona

As well as being a writer Unity Dow is a human rights activist, former High Court Judge and earlier this year was nominated as one of Newsweek’s 150 women who shake the world.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
My rating 4.5/5
Publisher Spinifex Press [2002]
ISBN 1876756209
Length 215 pages
Format trade paperback
Book Series standalone
Source borrowed from the library

Review: Until Thy Wrath Be Past by Asa Larsson

Posted on by
16

When seventeen year old Wilma Persson and her boyfriend Simon go diving in northern Sweden’s Lake Vittangijärvi they’re simply after a bit of adventure. Looking for the wreckage of a German plane rumoured to have crashed into the lake during WWII. But somebody is threatened by the very fact of the dive and so the two are killed; ruthlessly trapped beneath the lake’s frozen surface. Wilma’s body is discovered in a river some months later, though police soon learn she did not die where she was found. Rebecka Martinsson, District Prosecutor, immerses herself in the investigation being led by a fragile Police Inspector, Anna-Maria Mella. The two begin to learn that there are decades-old secrets that some people will kill to protect.

One sign you’re in the presence of outstanding crime writing is when you know what crime has been committed, how it was done and soon develop a strong sense of whodunnit but you’re thoroughly enthralled by the story regardless. From a storytelling perspective at least I think this is the best of Larsson’s four novels that have so far been translated into English, striking the perfect balance of thrills and thoughtfulness as it strips away the layers of secrets being kept by a family in the village of Piilijärvi near the lake where the couple died. The once-powerful father, embittered mother and two malicious, adult sons are at the heart of one half of this novel and they are depicted wonderfully though not, for the most part, sympathetically. It is through their eyes though that we learn of the myriad small decisions and choices made over the previous decades that culminated in the murder of Wilma and Simon.

Rebecka Martinsson is at the centre of the other part of the story: former high-flying Stockholm lawyer now satisfied as a country Prosecutor as she rebuilds her life after the harrowing events depicted in earlier novels. Even without reading those earlier books though I think it would be easy to get a sense of Rebecka’s strength as well as her underlying vulnerability. Visited by Wilma’s spirit early on in the story Rebecka is sceptical but prompted to ask a few questions about the recently discovered body and so seems to feel a particularly personal connection to the case. Given that the policewoman assigned to investigate is herself experiencing fallout of actions she took during the third novel in this series, it seems quite reasonable that Rebecka might become more involved than a prosecutor would normally do. The various personal tensions surrounding all the main players are nicely intertwined with the rest of the story and help to flesh out the sensitive and credible characterisations.

My threshold for ‘woo woo’ elements in my fiction is pretty low so I was a little concerned when Wilma’s ghost made an early appearance as the narrator of parts of this novel but Larsson pulled it off with panache. I’m sceptical about the notion of proactive spirits who stomp about the afterlife rattling chains and intervening in affairs but Wilma is not that kind of ghost. She is more a manifestation of the thoughts and feelings of people still living and I can easily believe in that. I’ve had the odd conversation with someone now dead, imagining their responses to my queries, thoughts and fears and it’s that kind of presence that Wilma provides to the people in this story.

Åsa Larsson is one of the names that pops into my head whenever anyone asks about favourite writers and this book is yet more evidence of the reasons why. The writing is assured (ably assisted in this instance by translator Laurie Thompson), the story is engaging and the characters are well-crafted and surprising. Until Thy Wrath be Past has a similar sensibility to the best fairy tales: offering a compellingly dark story with just a hint of the supernatural and containing within it a gentle parable for those who need to learn about the dangers of living a life fuelled by anger and resentment. First class reading.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Until Thy Wrath Be Past had been reviewed at Mysteries in Paradise, Nordic Bookblog

I have read all three of Larsson’s earlier novels but only The Black Path since starting this blog.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
My rating 4.5/5
Translator Laurie Thompson
Publisher Maclehouse Press [this translation 2011, original edition 2008]
ISBN 9780857050731
Length 326 pages
Format trade paperback
Book Series #4 in the Rebecka Martinsson series
Source I bought it