Sarah Andrews, In Cold Pursuit (2007)

This American geologist writes about a detective who is also a geologist. The novel is the eleventh in the Em Hansen series (though she only plays a minor role in the story).

To be honest, I only bought this one because I needed a second story set in Antarctica.

Valena Walker, a geology student, gets her first glimpse of the Antarctic station McMurdo from the height of 35,000 feet. “The confectionary swirl of chocolate mountains notched by whipped cream glaciers went on and on, trackless mile after mile... She saw not a tree, not a road, no cities, no towns, not even a lonely hut, no marks of man, and for that matter, no animals, plants... nothing but ice!”

Small wonder so few good crime novels are set there.

Valena is supposed to work on her master´s degree under Dr Emmett Vanderzee, but upon her arrival she learns that Vanderzee has just been sent back, apparently arrested for the murder of a journalist who died in his camp a year earlier.

Valena does not just give up; she has come to Antarctica to work and write her thesis so she begins asking questions. Besides, she admires her professor and wants to clear his name – so she contacts Emily Hansen, a specialist of forensic geology (and crime).

“It [the trail] was formed of bashed-up scoria, a volcanic rock filled with little air bubbles because it had flowed out of the ground frothing with rapidly expanding gasses. It was odd to think that in this world of ice, the island had been born of fire. She had been to Hawaii, where volcanic rock weathered quickly under invasive vegetation and other organisms, but this scoria was so cold and perennially bound in ice and snow that nothing could grow on it or live in it, nothing to break it down into soil.”

I am not quite convinced a young, inexperienced girl could solve a year-old crime just by chit-chatting to a bunch of tough survivers, but it didn´t bother me too much because I enjoyed the description of Valena´s initiation to Antarctica so much more than I had expected.

So if you want to learn something about geology, global warming and surviving under extreme conditions, you might enjoy this story, though the plot is not the best and the characters are numerous but not all very memorable.

I read it as my last 2010 Global Reading Challenge book, Antarctica, and for that purpose it was a fine choice.
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2010 Global Reading Challenge - finished

The other day I finished my fourth and last 2010 challenge.

Africa: 
Yaba Badoe, True Murder, Ghana

Malla Nunn, A Beautiful Place to Die, South Africa

Asia: 
Colin Cotterill, The Coroner´s Lunch, Laos

Matt B Rees, The Bethlehem Murders, Israel


Australasia: 
Paul Cleave, Cemetery Lake, New Zealand

Peter Temple, Bad Debts, Australia

Europe: 
James Thompson, Snow Angels, Finland

Simone Van der Vlugt, Reunion, The Netherlands


North America: 
Megan Abbott, Bury Me Deep, the USA

Vicki Delaney, Valley of the Lost, Canada


South America: 
Leighton Gage, Blood of the Wicked, Brazil

Mario Vargos Llosa, Who Killed Palomino Molero, Peru

Antarctica: 
Raymond Khoury, The Sign

Sarah Andrews, In Cold Pursuit (review coming up tomorrow)
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Two Sentence Tuesday # 3

As the whole family has been afflicted by sore throats, I haven´t been as productive over the weekend as I hoped. I did write more than two sentences, however, so here is a titbit for you:

She found three old cook books, one of them kept together with tape, plus some pink and orange Danielle Steel novels, a dozen Barbara Cartlands and a few other female writers she had never heard about. Unless Archibald had some hidden side she didn´t know about, something was clearly wrong.

Two-Sentence Tuesday is hosted by Women of Mystery.

The Global Reading Challenge
More than a hundred people have participated in 2010, and many of you seem to have enjoyed the 2010 Global Reading Challenge so perhaps it is time to ask you if this was it, or if you want to play along next year.

Should we have a 2011 Global Reading Challenge?

I won´t be sad or disappointed if you don´t want it – I have plenty of other projects to keep me preoccupied for more hours than I have. On the other hand I don´t mind hosting the challenge again. It doesn´t take much of my time once the blog is up and running, and Kerrie is very helpful if I need technical assistance.

NB: I have thought about changing "the seventh continent" from Antarctica to a sort of wildcart setting - it could be the sea, the space, the future, the past or some supernatural world so don´t worry; unless you really want to, you won´t have to struggle to find interesting books with Antarctic settings.
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Malla Nunn, A Beautiful Place to Die (2009)

This debut is written by an Astralian author, born in South Africa.

The setting is South Africa of the 1950s, a country marred by rigid race laws and strict hierarchies, making police work an intricate act of balance.

The story begins when Willem Pretorius, Afrikaner and police captain, is shot. He belongs to the leading family of the local community so the write detective Cooper knows how important it is to find the killer – at least if the perpetrator is not someone who belongs to ´volk´ in the eyes of his temperamental sons.

“The younger brothers nodded a greeting, wary of the city detective in the pressed suit and green-striped tie. In Jo´burg he looked smart and professional. On the veldt with men who smelled of dirt and diesel fuel he was out of place.”

Even among the police force the hierarchy is strict. From bottom to top: Shabalala, half-Zulu and half Shangaan – an intelligent man who is excellent at reading a crime scene. Hansi Hepple, the naive Afrikaner, Emmanuel Cooper, the white detective from Johannesburg, and above him, the security branch who do what they can to take over the case when it seems that the motive was political.

Even though I enjoyed the environment and the characters, I read the four hundred pages very slowly. As I could only snatch a chapter in between work, it took a lot of time to keep track of all the layers of the South African society. Besides, I think the depiction of the Apartheid-ridden society is the best part of the book while the murder plot struck me as less engaging.

Maxine sent me the book which was an excellent choice for the 2010 Global Reading Challenge (South Africa).

Mario Vargas Llosa, Who Killed Palomino Molero? (1987)

As I mentioned in my quotation Sunday, this crime story takes place in Peru of the 1950s. Not a peaceful and cosy environment, but if you get through the first page, you´ll have survived the worst bit.

The young airman, Palomino Molero, is killed in the most brutal fashion, but neither his comrades from the air base nor the villagers want to talk about the case. They appear scared, and the locals have made up their mind anyway that no one will ever be punished because ´the big guys´ always shut the police up.

The book is about crime, but it is also a different story where the reader meets ´gentlemen´ and coloured men, fat women and intense women, vultures and delusions, and many versions of one death – and where exactly lies the truth?

The two policemen on the case are smart, worldwise Lieutenant Silva who knows how to manouvre in a world of corruption, and the inexperienced Officer Lituma who stands in awe of his superior – or is this impression also a delusion?

Other surprises were the unexpected ending and the fine, but different tone of dark humour. If you want to try something out of the ordinary, I recommend this remarkable, little story.

I bought it myself – read for the 2010 Global Reading Challenge, Peru, South America.

NEWS: I just heard that Mario Vargas Llosa received the 2010 Nobel Prize in literature.

Going Global

All the ambitious blog friends around me keep reminding me that I have a Global Reading Challenge to finish. I have read & reviewed eleven out of fourteen books, and I brought two with me to our cottage.

So right now I am in Peru in the 1950s. Seen from my Scandinavian perspective, the fifties were the quiet, cosy time that we tend to call ´the good old days´. Perhaps it was not quite like that in other parts of the world?

“The boy had been both hung and impaled on the old carob tree. His position was so absurd that he looked more like a scarecrow or a broken marionette than a corpse. Before or after they killed him, they slashed him to ribbons: his nose and mouth were split open; his face was a crazy map of dried blood, bruises, cuts, and cigarette burns.”

The book in questions is Mario Vargas Llosa´s “Who Killed Palomino Molero?”, and I think I ought to tell you that apart from the very first page, the writer does not seem to revel in graphic violence. I have read one third of the rather short novel which I plan to review in a few days.

Tomorrow´s blogpost will be about cosy mystery, though.

Yaba Badoe, True Murder (2009)

This thriller is a debut from Ghana

The narrator of this rather unusual story is eleven-year-old Ajuba from Ghana who has been dumped at a boarding school in Devon. Her father did not feel he could take care of her after her mother´s break-down. Ajuba does not really feel she belongs among the British middle-class children so when the kind and well-meaning owners of the school, Major Derby and his wife, tell her to look after Polly, the new girl, she feels it is her duty to do her best to help the other newcomer settle in.

Though you have never met Polly Venus, I am sure you know the type. A girl who has seen far to much and knows about a world the other children have not quite understood exists yet. Like Ajuba, she is an outsider, but she takes charge immediately, making them believe her American ways are superior to theirs. She manipulates the naive girls around her, introducing secrets and dangerous games, e.g. the true murder game that gave name to the title.

Soon Polly invites Ajuba to visit her in her beautiful home, Graylings, first for a weekend, later every time the girls have a weekend or holiday away from school. Ajuba misses her own mother acutely and is soon whirled into the exciting atmosphere, finding it difficult to decide if she likes her friend Polly best. Or her charming mother. Or her considerate father. But slowly it becomes clear where Polly has her manipulative behaviour from.

We are told on the third page that Polly is going to die, and the story also involves other deaths, so this is the kind of plot where we approach the disaster from two sides: the child Ajuba who tells us about the events leading up to it, and an adult Ajuba who looks back on that time a few years later by discussing it with her mother´s sister, Aunt Lila.

As Ajuba grew up in another culture, it seems fairly plausible that she notices the peculiarities of the Englismen around her though she is so young: “despite their love of nature, the Derbys were not life-affirming huggers of trees or people”.

Like “Red Leaves” the story relies on quite a bit of premonition, but the plot moves along at a better pace. There is also superstition, just as Ajuba occasionally ´sees´ scenes she has not experienced herself. They help her come to terms with life and the scary events that take place around her, but the plot does not rely on supernatural intervention which makes a difference to me.

The book was sent to me by Maxine, Petrona, and I read it for the 2010 Global Reading Challenge # 11 (Ghana, Africa).

Maxine´s EuroCrime review.

Colin Cotterill, The Coroner´s Lunch (2004)

This novel, written by a British writer who lives in Thailand, is set in Laos, and it is the first in the series about Dr Siri Paiboun.

The book gives a strong sense of Communist Laos in 1976 and of the very intriguing character, Dr Siri. It grabbed me from the very first chapters because I had to know more about Dr Siri who begins his career as the State Coroner very reluctantly, but as all other doctors have fled, no one else is better qualified. He finds some French textbooks in the humble morgue and embarks on his new career though the just as inexperienced judge does not show much interest in his results. So Dr Siri does not have much left to hope for but retirement, the sooner the better.

But when he gets involved in two cases where someone apparently does not want him to get to the bottom of the causes of death, Dr Siri wakes up and shows what kind of person he really is. And this is also the point when he realizes that his assistants, the romantic nurse Dtui and Mr Geung who suffers from Down´s Syndrome, have hidden talents. So though the story is highly critical of the political system, it is very gentle and respectful towards the team who seem ailing and deficient on the surface. Perhaps it would have been impossible to unravel the rather unusual cases without the combined efforts of the unusual team, plus the aid of several spirits and an exorcist.

As if all these strong points were not enough, I enjoyed the style and the humour so much that I actually laughed out loud several times.

Here Dr Siri and Comrade Civilai from the politburo are eating their lunch sandwiches together:

He took a swig of his tea and handed the flask to Civilai. ´I don´t want to be cutting up bodies till the day I become one of them. I need this. I need to know when I can expect a replacement. When I can stop. God knows, I could keel over any second. What would you do then?´
´Eat the rest of your sandwich.´

This book is highly recommended for several reasons.

The book is a gift from Maxine, Petrona, and I read it for the 2010 Global Reading Challenge # 10 (Laos, Asia), and for the What´s in a Name Challenge # 5 (title).

If you need further recommendation, you can read Maxine´s review here.

Leighton Gage, Blood of the Wicked (2007)

This Brazilian crime novel is the first in the Chief Inspector Mario Silva series.

Already from the first page I enjoyed the language and setting of this one. We are in Brazil, in the town Cascatas do Pontal, where bishop Dom Felipe Antunes has just arrived by helicopter to consecrate the new church. A large crowd is waiting for him, including a group of local landless peasants, demonstrating against the authorities which are very unwilling to adhere to the law that farmland which is not cultivated should be distributed to the landless.

When the bishop is assasinated during the ceremony, Chief Inspector Mario Silva is ordered to go to the place and solve the case immediately to prevent negative attention from the press. Some of the first theories are that the assassin has hit the bishop instead of a landowner, or that it is related to liberation theology, the idea that the church should fight for equality on this earth.

Mario Silva joined the police force when his father was killed and his mother raped during a robbery several years ago. Though he is not necessarily averse to tough methods, he has not forgotten his ideal of fighting crime as we see when the story turns into a battle between Silva of the Federal Police and the corrupt, local cops. And just for once in a crime novel, we see that journalists are not only obstacles but can actually work for good causes.

The book offers a fine crime plot, but also a glimpse of Brazil behind the facade; a depressing place of social injustice and inequality, marred by crime, police brutality and corruption. To quote Leighton Gage´s postscript:

“The wealthiest 10 percent of the population enjoy more than 50 percent of the national income. Fifty-four million Brazilians live below the poverty line. A minuscule fraction of 1 percent of the population owns half the arable land. Twenty-five million agricultural workers survive on two dollars a day.”

A very exciting read, but I must admit that the book did not exactly make me want to go there myself! It was an excellent choice for my 2010 Global Reading Challenge # 9, however.

I bought the book myself.

Kerrie´s review

Cathy´s review

Norman´s review

R.T´s review


Leighton Gage, Blood of the Wicked (2007)

Denne brasilianske krimi er den første i inspektør Mario Silva-serien. Den er ikke oversat til dansk, men forfatteren har lige solgt serien til Finland, så måske en dag ...

Jeg nød sproget og miljøet lige fra starten. Vi befinder os i Brasilien, i byen Cascatas do Pontal, hvor biskop Dom Felipe Antunes lige er ankommet med helikopter for at indvi byens nye kirke. En stor folkemængde venter på ham, blandt andet en gruppe jordløse jordarbejdere, som demonstrerer mod de myndigheder, som ikke er særligt villige til at overholde loven om at udyrket landbrugsjord skal fordeles til de jordløse.

Da biskoppen bliver snigmyrdet under ceremonien, bliver inspektør Mario Silva beordret til stedet for at løse sagen øjeblikkelig for at forebygge negativ presse. Nogle af de første teorier om mordet er, at snigskytten var ude efter en jordejer, eller at sagen har med frigørelsesteologi at gøre (tanken at kirken burde kæmpe for social lighed her på jorden).

Mario Silva blev politimand da hans far blev dræbt og hans mor voldtaget under et røveri mange år tidligere. Selv om han ikke nødvendigvis er modstander af barske metoder, har han ikke glemt sine idealer om at bekæmpe kriminalitet, som vi ser, da historien udvikler sig til en kamp mellem Silva fra det føderale politi og de korrupte, lokale betjente. Og for en gangs skyld en krimi, hvor journalister ikke kun står i vejen for politiets arbejde, men arbejder aktivt for at få sandheden frem.

Bogen byder på et udmærket krimiplot, men også et indblik i Brasilien bag facaden: et deprimerende land med uretfærdighed og social ulighed, skæmmet af kriminalitet, politibrutalitet og korruption. Et citat fra Leighton Gages efterskrift:

“De rigeste 10 procent af befolkningen sidder på mere end 50 procent af landets indtægter. 54 millioner brasilianere lever under fattigdomsgrænsen. En minimal gruppe på 1 procent af befolkningen ejer halvdelen af landbrugsjorden. 25 millioner landarbejdere overlever på én dollar om dagen.”

Spændende læsning, men jeg må indrømme, at bogen ikke ligefrem gav mig lyst til at rejse til Sydamerika. Men den var et fint valg til min 2010 Global Reading Challenge # 9, og jeg har selv købt den.

The Global Reading Challenge

I have just checked the 2010 Global Reading Challenge blog, and will you believe it, we are 100 participants now!

When I came up with the challenge in December, I would have been happy with ten or twenty participants, especially as I know how busy you all are out there. So it has been such a pleasure to see it growing - and even being ´bullied´ into adding a fourth level.

So far, I have only read eight novels out of fourteen myself, but then I have never planned to finish this challenge early. I want to spread the books out over the year (and if you suspect I am afraid I may forget all about the challenge blog if I finish too early, you are not quite wrong).

Tomorrow: book review.
Monday: guest post on Cozy Mysteries.

Challenge Pressure

I thought that a reading challenge with an expert level forcing the participants to read 14 novels from all over the world would be enough for most people.

But no, I am surrounded by reading extremists so yesterday I gave in to massive pressure and added a fourth level.


The Extremist Level

Read three novels from each of these continents in 2010:
Africa
Asia
Australasia
Europe
North America (incl Central America)
South America

Add two novels which are set in Antarctica + a ´wildcard´ novel (from a place or period that is NEW to you).

And if you really are an extreme reader, you will do your best to read novels from 21 different countries or states.

(Somehow no one seemed to want to read more than two novels set in Antarctica - how very odd).

Raymond Khoury, The Sign (2009)

This thriller is the writer´s third novel. Khoury was born in Lebanon but lives in London today.

In the prologue we meet a person who is plunging into a deep cleft in a jeep, pursued by a helicopter. He takes his time and bears it quite philosophically, I´d say.

Other ingredients are a top-secret project, Antarctica, Egypt, global warming, a fire ball in the sky, religious fanatics, non-religious fanatics, and a conspiracy, of course. In short, a bunch of macho men with no sense of judgement, spiced up with one important female character, the ambitious TV journalist Gracie Logan.

A librarybook, read as part of my 2010 Global Reading Challenge, Antarctica.

Did I like it? Not much, but I finished it, and it is probably a fairly good novel of its kind.
Will you like it? If you are one of my faithful readers, I am not at all sure. Well, if you like Dan Brown, you might.

Raymond Khoury, Tegnet (2009)

Denne thriller er forfatterens tredje roman. Khoury blev født i Libanon, men bor i London i dag.

På første side møder vi en person, som er ved at styrte i døden i en jeep, forfulgt af en helikopter. Han tager sig god tid og behersker sig meget pænt, synes jeg.

Et indtryk af Khourys stil:
”Pludselig eksploderede deres brystkasser i mørkerøde skyer, da Maddox plaffede dem ned uden så meget som at sætte farten ned bare lidt.”

Andre ingredienser er et tophemmeligt projekt, Egypten, Antarktis, global opvarmning, en ildkugle på himlen, religiøse fanatikere, ikke-religiøse fanatikere og selvfølgelig en konspiration. Kort sagt, en bunke machomænd med dårlig dømmekraft, tilsat en enkelt kvindelig rolle, den ambitiøse tv-journalist Gracie Logan.

En biblioteksbog, læst som del af min 2010 Global Reading Challenge, Antarktis.

Syntes jeg om den? Nej, men jeg fik den læst, og jeg tror egentlig, den er en ganske god roman af slagsen.

Paul Cleave, Cemetery Lake (2008)

This thriller from New Zealand is the author´s third. I chose this one for the title because I wanted one I could use for both my reading challenges.

The novel is well-written and captures one´s attention immediately (though it is written in the present tense), just as there is a nice streak of (dark) humour.

It begins when private investigator Theo Tate watches the exhumation of a grave. While waiting for the coffin of Henry Martins to resurface, he and the diggers see three bodies rise to the surface of the lake nearby. Later it turns out that the body in the coffin is not even the one that should be there.

Theodore Tate is a former police officer who lost his little daughter and nearly lost his wife to a car accident (a drunken driver) two years ago. He soon gets personally involved in the case, partly because he cannot help feeling that if he and his colleagues had done a better job two years ago when Henry Martins died, they might have prevented the murders of four young girls.

The plot of this somewhat dark thriller is exciting and unexpected, and even though the protagonist is not always very likeable and sometimes hits the bottle at the wrong moment, the reader gets to know him and to understand his flaws to some extent.

I found the middle part less convincing than the rest as there are a few chapters which are more like Greek tragedy than real life, but after this lapse, the ending turned out to be very satisfactory.

I bought the book myself because I had seen glowing recommendations of the writer here

If you want to know something about New Zealand crime fiction, Craig´s blog Crime Watch is the place to go.

Read for:
2010 Global Reading Challenge: Australasia/New Zealand
What´s in a Name: A body of water.

Vicki Delany, Valley of the Lost (2009)

[Denne krimi er ikke oversat til dansk]

This Canadian police procedural is the second in the Constable Molly Smith series.

Lucky Smith hears a baby cry in the bushes outside the Trafalgar Women´s Support Centre. She follows the sound, and next to the angry baby she finds the dead body of his mother Ashley, one of the young clients of the centre.

Lucky calls for help, and the first constable who arrives is Molly Smith, Lucky´s own daughter. Molly, baptized Moonlight Legolas Smith by her hippie parents, is a competent policewoman, but in private she is unhappy and sleeps badly after the loss of her lover, Graham.

Molly and her superior, Sergeant John Winters, soon realize that it is surprisingly difficult to find information about Ashley and her past, and after the autopsy they are told that she has never given birth to a child. Who is little Miller then, and why has he not been reported missing?

Meanwhile Molly´s stubborn mother insists on taking care of the little baby at the cost of all her strength and most of her sleep. The social services are determined to put Miller in an approved foster home, however, though good homes do not exactly grow on trees.

A fine police procedural with a solid, exciting plot.

Thank you to Kerrie, Mysteries in Paradise, who sent this ARC on to me! See her review of Valley of the Lost.

Reviewed for the 2010 Global Reading Challenge, North America.

TOMORROW: a guest blogger writes about forensics.

2010 Global Reading Challenge - Progress

So far I have read and reviewed five out of fourten crime novels - see the blue links.

Africa:
1) Yaba Badoe, True Murder, Ghana (TBR)
2) Deon Meyer, Blood Safari? Rob Marsh, Beasts of Prey? Margie Orford, Blood Rose (S. Africa)


Asia:
3) Shamini Flint, Inspector Singh Investigates (TBR)
4) Matt B Rees, The Bethlehem Murders - reviewed January 18.


Australasia:
5) Paul Cleave, Cemetery Lake, NZ
6) Peter Temple, Bad Debts – Australia - reviewed January 7.


Europe:
7) James Thompson, Snow Angels - Finland - reviewed Feb 1.
8) Simone Van der Vlugt, The Reunion, The Netherlands - reviewed January 15.


North America:
9) Megan Abbott, Bury me Deep, the USA - reviewed Feb 5.
10) Vicki Delaney, Valley of the Lost, Canada (TBR)


South America:
11) Leighton Gage, Blood of the Wicked, Brazil (TBR)
12) ????


Antarctica:
13) Robert Masello, Blood and Ice
14) ????

Megan Abbott, Bury me Deep (2009)

Reviewed for the 2010 Global Reading Challenge, North America, America.

This crime novel is American writer Megan Abbott´s fourth book. I won it in a competition.

The plot begins when Doctor Seeley goes to Mexico to work in the mining area as he has acquired an unfortunate taste for his own medicine.

His wife, Marion Seeley, is left behind in a guesthouse in Phoenix. The problem is that this is 1931, and that Mrs Seeley is so very young and inexperienced and pretty, far too pretty for her own good.

She works in a clinic where she meets the helpful nurse Louise Mercer who is more than ready to introduce her to a large circle of interesting friends.

The reader soon fears that this cocktail of innocence and experience will turn into disaster. Louise and her bosom friend, Ginny, are always mysteriously surrounded by generous ´gentlemen´ who are more than willing to bring liquor and an interesting supply of useful drugs. Marion does not really notice the slow process of corruption she is going through until she is so entangled in their complicated lives that she cannot get out.

The plot was inspired by the true story of Winnie Ruth Judd. Usually ´true crime´ is not my favourite taste, because authors too often let the truth obstruct their imagination, but this cannot be said about Abbott´s compelling mystery.

True crime AND noir? I shouldn´t like this story at all! But I did, partly because of the Abbott´s absolutely wonderful language, and just like Marion, this reader was soon caught in the web, unable to put down the story, even though she bit her nails in anticipation, worried how wrong things might turn out for Marion.

Not another word about the book. You will have to read this one yourself to find out why this story has been nominated for an Edgar Award!

James Thompson, Snow Angels (2010)

[Denne krimi er ikke udgivet på dansk endnu, men da den amerikansk-fødte forfatter er bosat i Finland, og hans første engelske krimi er af rigtig god kvalitet, må man næsten regne med den dukker op i Skandinavien inden så længe.]

This ARC was sent to me by the American publisher. The novel was out in the USA in January. The writer was born in Kentucky, but has lived in Finland for ten years. The novel is the first in a planned series about the Finnish Inspector Kari Vaara. It is not the author´s debut, but the first book which has been published in English.

The environment is the northern part of Finland, inside the dark winter of the Arctic Circle, and the temperature is minus forty degrees Celsius!

“There would be silence, but cold has a sound of its own. The branches of trees freeze solid and crack under the weight of snow with sounds like muted gunshots. The snow freezes so hard that its surface contracts and takes on a pebbled texture. It crackles underfoot, even when I think I´m standing still.”

Kari Vaara´s American wife Kate is the competent manager of a local entertainment centre with hotel, bar and restaurant. She is a beautiful, young woman who is expecting their first child, and only recently has she begun to realize that she is less than thrilled about living in the ´exotic´ Arctic Circle among perpetually happy people:

“This winter, I feel like the cold and dark will never end. I get it now that people weren´t happy, just drunk. It makes me depressed. It´s terrible. Being pregnant in Finland seems scary, makes me homesick for the States.”

The plot begins when a murder victim is found on a reindeer farm, a Somali movie star called Sufia Elmi. An unpleasant crime because, as Vaara explains, “Fins are sensitive about race relations because by and large we´re closet racists”, and because the woman has been horribly mutilated.

Within a day or two Vaara believes he has cracked the case when he discovers that his ex-wife´s lover was closely connected to the victim. But is it really so simple, or does he let his hate of his former wife colour his opinion?

This debut has several very strong points: the knowledgeable and observant writer conveys a strong sense of place in the winter-dark Finland, his new home country. The protagonist and his wife are a likeable couple, happily married but with the ups and downs any couple have to live with.

The plot is fine, and though it is dark and dramatic, I ´bought it´ because the writer convinced me that these things could easily happen during the seemingly eternal night of the Arctic Circle. So beware! In spite of the apparent reindeer idyll, this is noir, and not at all a cozy Christmas story.

One small minus because the writer is so eager to portray the Finnish environment that occasionally he tells his reader too much.

I read the book as part of the 2010 Global Reading Challenge, Europe, Finland.

Another review of Snow Angels by Material Witness

Matt Rees, The Bethlehem Murders (2007)

[Dansk titel: Kollaboratøren fra Betlehem, 2008]

US title: The Collaborator of Bethlehem

Read for the 2010 Global Reading Challenge (Asia) + What´s in a Name Challenge (place).

This novel is Matt Rees´ debut. The writer lives in Israel, and as the title indicates, the story takes place in a town that many of us associate with birth, not death. But this is Bethlehem in the twenty first century:

“George Saba´s family huddled against the thick, stone wall of his bedroom. It was the side of the house farthest from the guns. George came through the front door. The shooting was louder inside and he realized the bullets were punching through the windows into his apartment. He ducked into an alcove in the corridor and crouched against the wall.”

The protagonist, Omar Yussef, is an Arab history teacher. One of his old students, the Christian antique dealer George Saba, is arrested, suspected of having killed a member of the Palestinian resistance movement. Yussef cannot believe Saba would collaborate with the Israeli, he suspects his former student must be set up, possibly because he is a Christian.

Omar Yussef is a wise and likeable, very human character, who has had problems with alcohol, and who does his best to make his pupils think for themselves, not just accept the ´truths´ they hear or read. As Yussef makes it clear at some point, it is difficult to decide who are the terrorists and who are the terrorized, but though he fears for his own and his family´s safety, he fights for George Saba´s life, and for everything he believes in.

This crime story, which is built on real events, is a story that should be told! Like many other stories about real crime, the plot is not the strongest point, however. So this is a novel you should read for the very vivid sense of place and the credible characters, which makes it a good choice for the Global Reading Challenge.

I bought this book myself.

Simone van der Vlugt, The Reunion (2009)

[Denne roman er ikke oversat til dansk]

This novel is the author´s first crime novel, a psychological thriller translated from Dutch.

The book is subtitled Never Go Back, and I must admit that even without having read several enthusiastic reviews of it, I could probably not have resisted that.

The main character and first-person narrator, twenty-three-year-old Sabine Kroese, has just returned to her office job after a burn out. The reader soon begins to fear for her mental state, however, as the female colleagues harass and bully her, led by Renée, their semi-official head of department.

Furthermore, Sabine is haunted by memories of her youth when her 15-year-old classmate Isabel disappeared without a trace. Isabel and Sabine had been best friends, but when Isabel grew up faster than Sabine, everything changed when Isabel and all the girls from her class began bullying Sabine.

The plot begins when Sabine sees a notice in the paper about a high school reunion. Soon after she meets Olaf, a colleague from another department and an old school friend of her brother Robin. Olaf sweeps her off her unstable feet, but when he suggests they go to the reunion together, Sabine is not sure it is such a good idea to rip up in the past.

A compelling mystery where everything happens very fast, especially when Sabine realizes that she has some repressed memories about Isabel´s disappearance. Psychologically, the plot reminded me of the Danish writer Christian Jungersen´s The Exception.

If Dutch crime is like this, I want more!

This novel is part of my 2010 Global Reading Challenge, and I bought it myself.

Peter Temple, Bad Debts (1996)

[Denne australske krimi er ikke oversat til dansk, men det er den prisbelønnede “Den knuste kyst” fra 2008]

Australian debut, the first in the Jack Irish series, and my first Global Reading Challenge Review.

A taste of the style (p 7):

“Eddie Dollery´s skin wasn´t looking good. He´d cut himself several times shaving and each nick was wearing a little red-centred rosette of toilet paper. The rest of Eddie, bloated, was wearing yesterday´s superfine cotton business shirt, striped, and scarlet pyjama pants, silk. The overall effect was not fetching.”

Jack Irish, the first-person narrator, is a former lawyer, a debt collector and detective who still struggles to come to terms with the loss of his beloved wife some years earlier. The plot begins when an old client, Danny McKillop, leaves a message on Irish´s phone, asking him for help. Irish checks up on the old case which took place soon after his wife´s death, finding out that McKillop was convicted of culpable driving, killing a woman while he was intoxicated. Jack Irish gets the message too late, and soon after McKillop is shot down by a policeman in ´self-defence´. Irish speaks with friends and relatives, and soon new information makes him uncertain whether McKillop really committed the crime he was sent to prison for.

The case also involves politics (giving me the impression that Peter Temple is not exactly impressed by their honesty and integrity) and a touch of conspiracy. And at some point the police give Jack Irish the feeling they want him to ´give the case a miss´. Well, we all know what will happen next, don´t we?

No more about the exciting and well-wrought plot. Temple gives a clear impression of the Melbourne environment and a colourful impression of Australian English.

A taste of Australian geography:

“It takes hours to get to Perth, flying over the huge shark-infested dent in the continent called the Great Australian Bight. And when you get there, you´re two hours in the past. I didn´t know Perth; it was just an airport on the way to Europe. They tell me the locals have secessionist tendencies. I can understand that. Judging by the accents, they´ll probably have a fight over whether to rename the State Manchester or Birmingham.”

I have been looking forward to the Jack Irish series, and in spite of the conspiracy aspect (not exactly my favourite plot), I enjoyed the debut thoroughly. (Dash it, now I will have to add number two, three and four to my list).

I bought this book myself.