Rebecca Cantrell, A Trace of Smoke (2009)

This novel is the first Hannah Vogel story and the American writer´s debut.

The story begins in Berlin 1931 when the German crime reporter Hannah Vogel visits the police station to see if there is a good story for her. What she finds is a picture of her dead brother on the wall of recent unclaimed bodies. As Ernst has lent his identification papers to a Jew who is emigrating to the USA, she has to keep his identity secret though hear heart bleeds.

She promises herself she will find Ernst´s killer, but she seems to be a bit distracted by Boris, the very attractive single father she met during one of her court cases. She embarks on a search in Ernst´s environment, among the young Nazi soldiers and crossdressers of the nightclub El Dorado, however.

And then five-year-old Anton, the courageous little ´Indian´, is delivered on her doorstep like another parcel. He brings with him a birth certificate that says Ernst and Hannah Vogel are his parents, plus a very strong personality.

A beautifully written historical crime novel that engaged me from the very first page, not least because of the interesting and determined protagonist. Strongly recommended for lovers of historical crime fiction.

I won the book in a competition and read it for the Global Reading Challenge (the seventh continent; history).

Vanda Symon, Overkill (2007)

This police procedural from New Zealand is the first volume of the Sam Shephard series.

Gabriella thinks she lets a telephone repairman into her house, but her visitor has something else in store for the young mother. After the quotation I shared with you the other day, I was caught up in this story, wishing I could forget about work and just sprint through the story. I had to know who and why! No more about the plot - it´s fine - enough said. And though the prologue would be tough reading for most parents, this is not a graphic story that revels in gruesome details.

Sam Shephard is a small, twenty-eight-year-old cop who grew up having to prove she could do everything a bit better than her brothers. She is an interesting protagonist who is down-to-earth and easy to relate to. She is not exactly used to ugly murder cases, and as she knows Gabriella´s family far too well, it is difficult for her to draw the line between work and personal involvement. First of all she is a good police woman, however, always dogged and determined, using her brains and any other resources at hand to get results.

The story offers a good sense of place. Mataura, New Zealand, is a world which is different from mine in some ways, yet I have trod in my share of cow dung and felt oddly at home in this farming community. Did I remember to mention there is also a touch of humour?


Vanda is a friend from my Crime and Mystery FriendFeed room, and when she heard my lament about how difficult it was to get her debut in Europe, she sent me a review copy with a lovely inscription. But as Vanda has landed a London agent recently, there is hope that this great series will be published closer to my home soon (her latest novel is on the New Zealand bestseller list right now). We are keeping our fingers crossed, Vanda, because we want access to your Sam Shephard books!

Global Reading Challenge # 5, Australasia (New Zealand)

Kate Summerscale, The Suspicions of Mr Whicher (2008)

This is a British non-fiction account of a true crime in Victorian England which took place in 1860.

The gruesome story begins when three-year-old Saville Kent is taken away from his bed in the nursery in the middle of the night. A few hours later he is found in the servants´ privy in the yard with his throat cut.

Almost immediately the local police suspect the nursemaid Elizabeth Gough, and they are rather unwilling to question the members of the middle class family though it is most likely that the killer was one of the eleven persons who spent the night under the roof of Road Hill House. One of their theories is that the boy caught Gough with a man in her bed and threatened to tell, but even though their prime suspect for this role is the father, Mr Kent, they focus on questioning and charging the young woman.

After two weeks Scotland Yard is called in, however, and the renowned Inspector Whicher suspects Constance, Saville´s sixteen-year-old half-sister who might be jealous because the younger siblings get more attention than her, and/or she might be mentally unstable like her late mother.

There were several aspects of this book I appreciated. The account of the death of little Saville is very thorough and well written, and it is obvious that Summerscale knows her crime and her period thoroughly so it is also an excellent document of crime and police work in Victorian times. Besides, there are several references to Victorian crime novels which are based on or inspired by the Road Hill murder (I plan to read one or two of these soon).

The wide scope was not quite what I had expected, though, so parts of the book felt more like work than entertainment, because I wanted to know who killed little Saville, plus how and why, so I skimmed some sections to get back to the case. I found the lengthy accounts of the detectives´ former careers and private lives particularly uninteresting.

Another weakness is that Summerscale often tells the reader something and afterwards she uses a lengthy quotation to say exactly the same.

I enjoyed this quotation from “The Semi-Detached House” (1859), however:

“´I like a good murder that can´t be found out,´ says Mrs Hopkinson… ´That is, of course, it is very shocking, but I like to hear about it.´” (So true, Mrs Hopkinson).

I bought the book myself and read it for the 2011 Global Reading Challenge (Seventh Continent, history). 



Kate Summerscale, Mr Whichers mistanker (2009)

Denne britiske bog om en virkelig forbrydelse i Dronning Victorias England er ikke en roman, men en fagbog.

Den grusomme historie begynder, da treårige Saville Kent bliver fjernet fra sin seng i børneværelset midt om natten. Næste dag bliver han fundet i tjenestefolkenes udendørs lokum med halsen skåret over.

Det lokale politi retter straks deres mistanke mod barnepigen Elizabeth Gough, og de er ikke meget for at udspørge medlemmer af middelklassefamilien, selv om det er højst sandsynligt, at morderen var en af de elleve personer, som befandt sig i herskabsvillaen den pågældende nat. En af deres teorier er, at drengen overraskede barnepigen og en mand i sengen og truede med at sladre, men selv om den vigtigste mistænkte mand er drengens far, retter de al deres opmærksomhed mod den unge kvinde. 

Men efter to uger bliver Scotland Yard tilkaldt, og den berømte inspektør Whicher mistænker i stedet Constance, Savilles 16-årige halvsøster. Han mener, motivet er jalousi, fordi de yngre søskende får mere opmærksomhed end de ældre, eller at pigen er uligevægtig, ligesom sin afdøde mor.

Der var mange aspekter af denne bog, jeg satte stor pris på. Beretningen om Savilles død er grundig og velskrevet, og det er tydeligt, at Kate Summerscale kender sit materiale og viktoriatiden til bunds, så den er et fremragende værk om forbrydelser og politiarbejde i perioden. Desuden er der adskillige henvisninger til viktorianske krimier, som er baseret på eller inspiret af Road Hill-mordet (jeg har tænkt mig at anmelde et par stykker inden så længe).

Den brede pensel var imidlertid ikke, hvad jeg havde forventet, så visse afsnit føltes mere som arbejde end fornøjelse, fordi jeg bare gerne ville vide, hvem der dræbte lille Saville, samt hvordan og hvorfor, så jeg skimmede en del afsnit for at komme tilbage til sagen. Og de lange redegørelser for detektivernes tidligere karriere og privatliv interesserede mig især ikke.

Endnu en svaghed er, at Summerscale har en tendens til at fortælle sine læsere noget, for bagefter at bringe et langtrukket citat, som siger nøjagtig det samme.

Dette citat fra krimien “The Semi-Detached House” (1859) morede mig imidlertid:

“´Jeg kan lide et godt mord, som ikke kan afsløres´, siger Fru Hopkinson… ´Det vil sige, det er selvfølgelig chokerende, men jeg kan godt lide at høre om det.´” (Ja, det kan vi krimifans jo).

Jeg købte selv bogen under en ferie i Skotland.
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Alan Bradley, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie (2009)

[Dansk titel: Flavia de Luce og hævneren fra Ulster, 2010. De to første kapitler kan læses på Saxos hjemmeside] 

This debut is written by a Canadian but set in Britain in the 1950s.

On the very first page eleven-year-old Flavia de Luce has been gagged, tied and locked up in the attic. Fortunately only by her older sisters Daphne and Octavia. With the mother dead and the father an unobservant philatelist, the daughters are left to solve their conflicts on their own.

Soon, however, a very real enemy from outside the family leaves a dead snipe with a one-penny stamp on the doorstep. Flavia, who is not beyond listening at doors, learns that her father is involved in a thirty-year-old mystery that involves a very rare stamp and a death.  The following morning she finds a dying man among their cucumbers, and when Inspector Hewitt botches up the case, it is up to Flavia to solve the mystery with the aid of faithful Gladys, her mother´s old bicycle.

Despite her young age, Flavia is an excellent chemist who also shows great detecting skills. She has taken over the old lab in the Georgian family home, Buckshaw – a setting which slowly comes to life together with Flavia who seems to know the place better than anyone else.

“Like an inchworm, I wiggled my way up onto my knees, but it was too late.”

This ubiquitous inchworm is a rather unusual amateur detective; a lonely, precocious protagonist who struggles hard to be the son she believes her father wanted.

I bought the Kindle version myself and my one-word judgement: wonderful!

Read for the 2011 Global Reading Challenge: North America (Canada)
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Esther Verhoef, Close-up (2010)

Denne hollandske thriller er den første roman, Verhoef har skrevet alene og under sit eget navn.

Et citat fra prologen (min oversættelse fra engelsk): 

“Mens badekarret blev fyldt, faldt mine øjne på barberkniven i etuiet. Ikke en engangsskraber, men en håndlavet ragekniv, af den slags man sommetider ser hos italienske barberer, utroligt skarp. Mit hjerte sprang et slag over, så stærk var følelsen den skarpe kniv vakte i mig, og de ideer – nye ideer – jeg fik. Men jeg rystede på hovedet. Nej. Hold dig til planen. Der er altid en næste gang.

Men ikke for Edith.”

Efter en barsk skilsmisse fra John flytter Margot ind i sin nye lejlighed og forsøger at få det bedste ud af det. I lang tid har hun følt, hun blev kvalt af sin konventionelle familie og sit ægteskab; der har ikke været plads til hendes individualitet og kreative evner.

Under en weekend i London møder Margot den fantastiske men også lidt mystiske landsmand og fotograf, Leon. Selv om hun er usikker på, hvad han er for en fyr, ringer hun til ham efter sin hjemkomst og lader ham hvirvle hende ind i hans nye, spændende verden af kunstnere.

Hun dropper sit kedelige job, kommer ud af sin triste sindsstemning og sin afhængighed af mand og familie, og læseren kan kun håbe på, hun ikke er faldet i kløerne på en dominerende mand, som måske ændrer hendes liv til det værre. Og hvad er historien bag Leons ekskæreste Ediths ´selvmord´?

Ikke mere om det spændende plot og hovedpersonen, hvis udvikling var interessant at følge. Efter min mening er der dog et enkelt minus. I en spændingsroman skal der selvfølgelig være en håndfuld mistænkte, men der var lovlig mange personer i den tætte kreds omkring Leon hvis opførsel virkede mere påfaldende end nødvendigt.

Jeg fik bogen fra Maxine, hvis anmeldelse kan læses her.   
Global Reading Challenge # 2, Europa.

HUSK: bogkonkurrence for danske læsere.


Esther Verhoef, Close-Up (2009).

This Dutch thriller is the first novel Verhoef has written on her own and under her own name.

A quotation from the prologue:

“While the bath was filling up, my eye fell on the razor in its case. Not the disposable kind, but a handmade cutthroat razor, the sort you sometimes see in Italian barber shops, extremely sharp. My heart skipped a beat, such was the feeling the sharp razor awakened in me and the ideas – new ideas – that occurred to me. Then I shook my head. No. Stick to the plan. No improvisations. There´s always a next time.
 
Not for Edith, though.”

After a tough divorce from John, Margot moves into her new flat, trying to make the best of it. For a long time she has felt smothered by her conventional family as well as John; in her former life there was no scope for individuality and creativity.

During a weekend in London Margot meets the gorgeous but intriguing country fellow and photographer, Leon. Even though she is not quite sure what kind of person he is, she calls him when she returns home and lets him whirl her into his new, exciting world of artists and jetsetters.

She gives up her boring job, snaps out of her gloom and her dependence on her husband and family, and the reader can only hope she has not fallen into the clutches of a possessive man who may turn her life from bad to worse. And what is the real story behind the ´suicide´ of Edith, Leon´s former girlfriend?

No spoilers; let me just say that in many ways this was a fine debut with an intriguing plot and a main character whose development was interesting to follow. In my opinion there was one drawback, however. I do realize that in a thriller, there have to be a handful of suspects; still, there were too many of the people in the close circle around Leon whose behaviour struck me as more mysterious than necessary.

I read the book for the Global Reading Challenge # 2 (Europe), and it was a gift from Maxine whose review you can see here.

Reminder: competition - win gift card - until Jan 21st.
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Cathryn Grant, The Demise of the Soccer Moms (2010)

This American suspense novel is the writer´s debut.

“After a moment of silence, a thud shook the walls of the living room and the hallway outside Amy´s bedroom. Her mother yelped. Amy rolled onto her back. The walls shivered again. There was a thick, damp sound like the pounding of her mother´s meat tenderizer on a piece of beef.”

When Amy Lewis was a little girl, her mother was raped in their own living room. She was too terrified to do anything, but for the rest of her life she remembers her father´s verdict: if her mother hadn´t invited a stranger in or ´dressed like a slut´, nothing would ever have happened to her.

Afterwards Amy´s mother stops caring about clothes, make-up, food – even her two daughters. So when Amy grews up, she decides to create a perfect life for her own girls. She becomes one of the group of devout soccer moms in their pleasant Sunnyvale suburb.

When Charlotte, a budding photographer and the mother of Meadow, enters the scene, things change very quickly, however. “She wore a gauze skirt paired with Doc Marten boots that made her look like a hybrid of Tinker Bell and a thug.”

The outrageous newcomer who doesn´t even wear a bra sticks out a mile, and the soccer moms Amy, Rachel, Jane and Kit are less than pleased with this inchworm in their paradise.

When it comes to plot, it is difficult to say if the story is mainly about crimes against women, or about the long-term consequences of these. No matter what, I rushed through the book in a few hours. As I had expected, the suburban environment was well drawn, and I was intrigued by the small group of female characters, especially Amy and Charlotte who appear to be opposites.

I bought the Kindle version myself.

Global Reading Challenge # 1, North America. 

2011 Global Reading Challenge

If you should be interested in participating in the global challenge of 2011, you can see the rules and sign in here. The challenge runs all the year, and there are three levels to choose among. (Some of you have already posted about the challenge, and I really appreciate that).

I plan to go for the medium level (14 books) and use some of my TBR books. Here are my preliminary ideas, eleven writers who are all new to me, but I may change my plans several times before finishing the challenge.

Africa:
Deon Meyer, Devil´s Peak, 2007 (South Africa)

Asia:
Shamini Flint, Inspector Sing Investigates, A Most Peculiar Malaysian Murder, 2009 (Malaysia)
Kishwar Desai, Witness the Night, 2010 (India)

Australasia:


Europe:
Esther Verhoef, Close-Up, 2009 (The Netherlands)
Fred Vargas, Have Mercy on us All, 2003 (France)

North America:
Giles Blunt, The Fields of Grief, 2006 (Canada)
Barbara Fister, In the Wind, 2008 (the USA)

South America:
Leonardo Padura, Havana Red, 2005 (Cuba)

The Seventh Continent:
Rebecca Cantrell, A Trace of Smoke, 2009 (history)
Kate Summerscale, The Suspicion of Mr Whicher, 2009 (history)

2011 Global Reading Challenge - testing logo

It seems that some of my readers want a 2011 Global Reading Challenge. 

So here is my proposal for a new logo. 

What do you think?