fredag den 24. juli 2009

John Sandford, Winter Prey aka The Ice Man (1993)


The fifth book in the American Lucas Davenport series.

The reader knows from the beginning that the murderer calls himself The Iceman, but don´t know his real identity. The Iceman prepares himself for the cold and moves into a remote area in Wisconsin in the middle of a snowstorm. He kills a whole family, father, mother and daughter, to get a photo which poses a threat to him. Afterwards he sets the house on fire and escapes.

“It had always been difficult for him to fall asleep. The affronts and insults of the day would keep him awake for hours while he planned his revenge; and there were not many days without affronts and insults.”

As the antagonist has this attitude to life, it is small wonder that the crimes escalate.

Lucas Davenport, experienced policeman and lone wolf, is staying in his cottage in the area. He has left the police in order to create computer games. Lucrative, but is this kind of life enough to keep him preoccupied? The local sheriff asks him to take over the case because of his experience with murder cases, and it does not take much persuasion. Davenport is an interesting and reasonably faceted character, and once again the reader gets a feeling that a Davenport mystery must include several deaths.

The book is an entertaining thriller, teeming with tough guys, and all the heroes are of course soft and gentle underneath the façade, but it did not quite capture me. The fact that the translation was so-so did not exactly make it better.

John Sandford, Vinteroffer (1997).
Dette er femte bind i den amerikanske serie om Lucas Davenport.

Læseren ved fra starten, at morderen kalder sig selv ”Vintermanden”, men kender ikke hans rigtige identitet.

Vintermanden klæder sig på til kulden og trænger ud i ødemarken i Wisconsin midt i en snestorm, hvor han dræber en hel familie: far, mor og datter for at få fat på et billede, der udgør en fare for ham. Bagefter sætter han ild på huset og forsvinder.

”Han havde altid haft vanskeligt ved at falde i søvn. Dagens krænkelser og fornærmelser ville holde ham vågen i timevis, mens han planlagde sin hævn; og der var kun ganske få dage uden krænkelser og fornærmelser.”

Med en skurk, som har denne indstilling til tilværelsen, er det ikke så underligt at forbrydelserne eskalerer.

Lucas Davenport, erfaren efterforsker og ensom ulv, opholder sig netop i sin feriehytte i området. Han har forladt politiet for at skrive computerspil. Indbringende, men er det nok til at holde kedsomheden fra døren? Den lokale sherif beder ham lede sagen på grund af hans store erfaring fra tidligere mordsager, og der skal ikke megen overtalelse til. Davenport er en interessant og nogenlunde nuanceret person, men igen lægges der forholdsvist hurtigt op til, at en Davenport-sag vil ende med mange dødsfald.

Denne bog er en meget underholdende spændingsroman, som vrimler med barske børster, og alle heltene er selvfølgelig vældig bløde og blide under facaden, men den holdt mig nu ikke helt fangen. Måske også fordi oversættelsen havde sine svage punkter. Når bogen indeholder gloser som valuar, korroderet, off-vinrød og drugstore, er det vist ikke så meget fordi oversætteren gerne vil brillere med sit store ordforråd, men snarere hurtige løsninger, som ligger påfaldende tæt op ad begrebet ´false friends´.

4 kommentarer:

Kerrie sagde ...

I have something for you here

Dorte H sagde ...

Thank you for thinking of me, Kerrie!

Louise sagde ...

I LOVE John Sandford's Prey-series, and have read them all, but I fully agree that some of them can be....well....not that good. And I also agree with you re. your comment on translations. I have been swearing many times because of lousy translations. I have found books I hated in Danish, but didn't mind their English original. Call me snobbish, I just like to read books in English if they were written in English.

Dorte H sagde ...

Louise, on the whole I like what I have read of Sandford´s series. Good entertainment, but not stories you´ll remember for the rest of your life. Obviously one should read English books in English, but I can´t afford to buy all the books I read. And it is probably only one translation out of ten than really annoys me.