Foreign Detective – MostlyFiction Book Reviews We Love to Read! Sat, 28 Oct 2017 19:51:27 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.4.18 STRANGE SHORES by Arnaldur Indridason /2014/strange-shores-by-arnaldur-indridason/ Sat, 22 Feb 2014 23:41:08 +0000 /?p=25814 Book Quote:

“When a loved one went missing time changed nothing.”

Book Review:

Review by Friederike Knabe  (FEB 23, 2014)

Arnaldur Indridason’s most recent novel available in English, Strange Shores, is the most thoughtful, subtle and sympathetic portrait of Reykjavik Police Inspector Erlendur Sveinsson I have read. The author shines an intimate searching light on the seasoned, somewhat curmudgeon, Erlendur, and a tragedy in his past that “convinced [him] there and then that he would never be a happy man.” On vacation in the village of his childhood, situated in a remote part of the eastern region of Iceland, Erlendur cannot escape the long lost or suppressed memories of two disappearances that of his young brother in one of the sudden vicious storms and of a young woman in another.

Erlendur’s father was a sheep farmer until tragedy made the family move away to the capital Reykjavik. Their old farmhouse stands in ruin and, ever so often in recent years, Erlendur has returned, camping out among the remnants of the house and wandering into the nearby mountain range, reliving that tragic day. It is like a pilgrimage for him, a journey that he feels compelled to take, still searching for clues or signs.

“Admittedly, [time] dulled the pain, but by the same token the loss became a lifelong companion for those who survived, making the grief keener and deeper in a way he couldn’t explain.”

Pain for Erlendur is fused with survivor guilt for his lost younger brother. For related and different reasons the disappearance of the young woman Matthildur has been occupying the police inspector’s mind for many years. Rumours kept alive among the locals as to whether she really was lost in the storm or some other fate had befallen her. A chance encounter with an old local hunter rekindles Erlendur’s passion to solve long lost mysterious disappearances. But, can there any hope to find clues, if not answers, after so many years?

The questions surrounding the two disappearances, separate and nonetheless linked in the mind of Erlendur, stand at the centre of Arnaldur’s captivating narrative. The author shows his usual insight into his protagonist’s motivations, yet, here he goes deeper into discovering the hidden facts that surrounded the disappearance of Matthildur. Surviving family members are reluctant to open up old wounds. By following the inspector’s various leads, we gain considerable insight into one of these remote communities, the complicated intimate relationships and strongly held ties to the past. Secrets that have been hidden can be pried open only if handled with great care and sensitivity. Erlendur himself experiences a wide range of emotions, provoked not only by the recurring memories from the past, but also made palpable through vivid dreams, nightmares possibly, that capture the depth of pain and loss and the wish to search for evidence that could heal the wounds. Reliving his own past gives him the determination, obstinacy to some, to find the evidence that lay hidden from sight regarding the young woman’s disappearance.

Arnaldur’s understanding and empathy with the witnesses of the past events, their personalities and individual behaviour is exquisitely rendered. His understated evocation of the landscape reflects its stark beauty as well as its many hidden dangers. I found this to be one of his most engaging books yet, at least of those that I have read.

AMAZON READER RATING: from 33 readers
PUBLISHER: Harvill Secker (September 16, 2013)
REVIEWER: Friederike Knabe
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? Not Yet
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Wikipedia page on Arnaldur Indridason
EXTRAS: Reading Guide and Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: Read our review of:

Bibliography:

Reykjavik Police Inspector Erlendur Sveinsson series:

Stand-alone thrillers:

]]> THE WAYS OF EVIL MEN by Leighton Gage /2014/the-ways-of-evil-men-by-leighton-gage/ Sun, 26 Jan 2014 16:16:27 +0000 /?p=25303 Book Quote:

“When Raoni’s father was a boy, the tribe had numbered more than a hundred, but that was before a white man’s disease had reduced them by half.  In the years that followed, one girl after another had been born, but the girls didn’t stay; they married and moved on. It was the way of the Awana, the way of all the tribes. If the spirits saw fit to give them boys, the tribe grew; if girls, the tribe shrank. If it shrank too much, it died.
The Awana were doomed, they all knew it, but for the end to have come so suddenly was a horrible and unexpected blow.”

Book Review:

Review by Eleanor Bukowsky (JAN 26, 2014)

Leighton Gage, who spent a great deal of his time in Brazil, used his extensive knowledge of the country’s political, economic, and social climate to create an outstanding series of police procedurals. His latest, The Ways of Evil Men, published posthumously, opens with a heartbreaking scene. Anati, a member of the Awana tribe who live in the rainforest, goes hunting with his eight-year-old son, Raoni. When the two return to their village they discover that all thirty-nine members of their tribe are dead. Who killed these men, women, and children? Jade Calmon, an employee of the federal government’s National Indian Foundation, will not stop asking questions until she learns the truth. Since the local law enforcement authorities have no love for the Awana, Jade is forced to pull strings in order to bring in the big guns: Mario Silva, Chief Inspector of the Brazilian Federal Police, Arnaldo Nunes, Silva’s partner, and a support team that includes other agents and an assistant medical examiner.

Why can’t the locals investigate this crime? The nearest town, Azevedo, is run by the Big Six, corrupt landowners (including the mayor) who have contempt for the Indians and covet their land. To insure that no one gets in their way, they have the parish priest, the head of the local police, and a so-called environmental watchdog on their payroll. Only incorruptible law enforcement professionals like Mario Silva can be trusted to apprehend the guilty parties. Silva travels to Azevedo, where he and his colleagues interview Osvaldo Neto and his wife, Amanda, the owners of the town’s only bar, restaurant, and hotel. Osvaldo is part Indian and has disdain for the bigots, liars, thieves, adulterers, and murderers who patronize his establishment. Fortunately, Silva is a tenacious detective who relishes a challenge. He will need to be clever, devious, and lucky to solve what will turn out to be a complex and ugly case.

The Ways of Evil Men is a hard-hitting and engrossing novel that lives up to its title. The villains (both male and female) are utterly vile. They frame the innocent, bribe people to turn a blind eye to their transgressions, and enrich themselves through legal and illegal means. Another person who takes an interest in these outrageous goings-on ia a fearless female reporter named Maura Mandel; she risks her life, expecting to make headlines with what she hopes will be a sensational story. This is a compelling, gritty, and atmospheric tale with lively descriptive writing, dark humor, and sharply-crafted dialogue. Readers will admire Silva and his associates, who are determined to prove that no one–no matter how wealthy, influential, and arrogant–is above the law.

Those of us who admire Leighton Gage’s talent, creativity, and integrity will miss him greatly.

AMAZON READER RATING: from 13 readers
PUBLISHER: Soho Crime (January 21, 2014)
REVIEWER: Eleanor Bukowsky
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Leighton Gage
EXTRAS: Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: Read our review of:

Bibliography:

]]> TATIANA by Martin Cruz Smith /2014/tatiana-by-martin-cruz-smith/ Fri, 17 Jan 2014 12:48:35 +0000 /?p=25117 Book Quote:

“You don’t get it. I don’t need to know the ins and outs. I’m a pirate like those Africans who hijack tankers. They don’t know a dog’s turd about oil. They’re just a few black bastards with machine guns, but when they hijack a tanker they hold all the cards. Companies pay millions to get their ships back. The hijackers aren’t going to war; they’re just fucking up the system. Tankers are their targets of opportunity and that’s what you are, my target of opportunity. All I’m asking is ten thousand dollars for a notebook. I’m not greedy.”

Book Review:

Review by Eleanor Bukowsky  (JAN 17, 2014)

Each chapter heading in Martin Cruz Smith’s brilliant novel, Tatiana, is printed on a slant, providing fair warning that not everything in this story is “on the level.” The author manipulates us by withholding facts and feeding us misinformation. Why does Smith lead us astray? He may be informing the uninitiated that his hero, Arkady Kyrilovich Renko, Senior Investigator for Very Important Cases, lives in a society that is off-kilter, warped, and perverse. To survive in today’s Russia, Renko, and others like him, must always be on their guard. Arkady’s cynical colleague, Detective Sergeant Victor Orlov, is tired of wasting his time trying to get the goods on influential miscreants. He insists, “The point is, you can’t win. We’re just playing it out.” He would rather spend his days passed out in his apartment after drinking himself into a stupor.

The prologue begins with two wonderful sentences: “It was the sort of day that didn’t give a damn. Summer was over, the sky was low and drained of color, and dead leaves hung like crepe along the road.” Even nature is in tune with the fact that callous and avaricious men, whose power and wealth shield them from the law, routinely target anyone who stands in their way. Tatiana Petrovna, the title character, is one such victim, a fearless investigative journalist and troublemaker who dares to expose her country’s rampant corruption. She was furious at “lawmakers who were sucking the state treasury dry” and “billionaires who had their arms around the nation’s timber and natural gas.” When she falls off the balcony of her apartment, the authorities refuse to consider that someone murdered Tatiana to keep her from telling the world what she knew. They rule her death a suicide; there will be no inquest and no autopsy.

Moscow-based detective Arkady Renko is himself a crusader of sorts. He has not risen in the ranks because he refuses to look the other way when his superiors order him to do so. Renko and his sometime lover, Anya Rudenko, make the acquaintance of Alexi, the son of dead billionaire mob boss Grisha Grigorenko. Among other activities, Grisha “had his thumb in drugs, arms, and prostitution.” Alexi wants to grab control of his father’s empire and plans to eliminate anyone who tries to stop him.

Arkady uses his powers of deduction and finely honed instincts to solve difficult puzzles. His inquiry into Tatiana’s death takes him to Kaliningrad, formerly called Königsberg, a seaport city on the Baltic coast that is famous for its rich supplies of amber. Arkady’s friend, a seventeen-year-old chess prodigy named Zhenya, stumbles into Renko’s case with unintended consequences. Chaos ensues, bullets fly, and Arkady takes a courageous stand that could cost him his life. Smith creates a rich tapestry of sights and sounds and introduces us to a variety of off-beat characters, including a dissipated poet; various crime bosses (such as Abdul Khan, a Chechen rebel turned automobile smuggler turned hip-hop artist) and their hangers-on; and a beautiful young girl who can actually beat the brilliant Zhenya at chess. All of this, in addition to Smith’s elegant writing and caustic humor, makes Tatiana an involving and entertaining thriller that is also a biting critique of those who habitually line their pockets at the expense of honest, ordinary citizens.

AMAZON READER RATING: stars-4-0from 219 readers
PUBLISHER: Simon & Schuster (November 12, 2013)
REVIEWER: Eleanor Bukowsky
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Martin Cruz Smith
EXTRAS: Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: Read our review of:

Bibliography:

Arkady Renko series:

]]> THE FIFTH WOMAN by Henning Mankell /2011/the-fifth-woman-by-henning-mankell/ Mon, 19 Dec 2011 02:10:30 +0000 /?p=22140 Book Quote:

“When I was growing up, Sweden was still a country where people darned their socks.”

Book Review:

Review by Roger Brunyate  (DEC 19, 2011)

I first read this 1997 novel (the sixth in Henning Mankell’s Inspector Wallander series) in 2004, and saw the television adaptation starring Kenneth Branagh last year. So the general outline was familiar; I even knew who the murderer was going to be. All the same, I read the book this time with just as much enjoyment as on the first occasion, and with even more appreciation of detail of its texture. Unlike most detective novels, this one is less about the eventual solution than the process of getting there. The review from the Rocky Mountain News quoted on the back of my edition has it exactly right: “a police procedural in which the main procedure is thought.”

The first short chapter (following a brief prologue) ends with both a murder and (unusually) a glimpse of the murderer: an elderly man, coming out at night to listen to migrating birds, falls upon a group of sharpened bamboo stakes placed point-upwards in a pit; the person watching his agony from the shadows is a woman. Not that Inspector Wallander and his small team of detectives in Ystad, on the Southern coast of Sweden, realize this at first; the reader almost always knows a thing or two more than they do; the interest comes in seeing how they get there. More victims will follow; although different, the cases seem connected as different phrases in the same language that the murderer is using to communicate with the world. But this is no more than Wallander’s feeling; translating that language, finding factual connections between the victims, deducing the murderer’s motive, all this will be the work of many months.

A few weeks ago, after reading PD James’ THE PRIVATE PATIENT, I wrote a review entitled “TMI” (too much information). For almost 100 pages, James handled nothing but exposition, introducing almost the entire dramatis personae in separate chapters of great detail. Only then could the murder be committed and the work of detection begin. Mankell, by contrast, has almost no exposition at all. He plunges the reader immediately into the daily work of the Ystad police force, investigating an apparently minor crime, a break-in at a flower shop, that will turn out to have greater significance later. Mankell’s great strength is his grip of texture; he reveals information in bits and pieces, as would happen in life. You meet the officers in the station as a group who are doing a job; any personal details you might discover about them come up almost accidentally, just as they might among colleagues in the workplace; the one exception is Wallander, whose family relationships do play a small part, but their effect is to emphasize the difficulty of balancing his personal and professional life. Although this is the sixth book in a series, there is none of those tedious side-bar summaries for those who missed the earlier novels, and the reader has no sense of being left out either. You never doubt that this is a real world, not something concocted for your entertainment.

A less realistic crime novel might filter the information reaching the investigators so that everything is either a Clue or a Red Herring. Mankell does nothing of the sort; business at the Ystad station does not stop for the murders, and much information comes in that has little directly to do with them — things such as the formation of a local vigilante group to make up for the perceived inefficiencies of the police. But vigilantism does turn out to be a running theme in this novel, and yet one more example of Mankell’s underlying subject: the rapid decline of law and order in Sweden. He sees it as an age where it is easier to throw something away than take responsibility for it, an era “when people stopped darning their socks.”

Mankell’s novels have all tended to balance an inner focus on a small area of Sweden against an awareness of the outer world, especially Africa, where Mankell lives for part of each year. Even so hermetic a novel as the excellent Italian Shoes (not a Wallander story) has tentacles reaching into other continents. Of note, in one of his most recent novels, The Man from Beijing, in my opinion the balance tipped too far towards the global scene, losing the meticulous sense of local life which is his anchor. It would appear that The Fifth Woman also has an African connection; the prologue begins with a killing in the Sahara: four nuns and a fifth woman, a Swedish tourist, whose death has been suppressed by the local authorities. The back cover suggests that the fate of this Fifth Woman will be integral to the solution of the case, but the connection is merely catalytic. The true meaning of the title will appear as other women appear in the Swedish shadows, and the half-seen world has deadly impact on the real one.

AMAZON READER RATING: stars-4-0from 50 readers
PUBLISHER: Vintage (August 30, 2011)
REVIEWER: Roger Brunyate
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE:

 
EXTRAS: Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: Read our review of:

Bibliography:

Kurt Wallander Series:

Stand alone novels:

Teen Read:

Movies from books:

]]> ALL CRY CHAOS by Leonard Rosen /2011/all-cry-chaos-by-leonard-rosen/ Fri, 04 Nov 2011 01:54:39 +0000 /?p=21951 Book Quote:

“Henri Poincaré was a man who longed to believe, a man who was moved by mystery and beauty but a man for whom belief was impossible. He was too much a scientist, ever the investigator in a world bound up in webs of cause and effect that had served him well in every regard save one: that at the hour between dusk and darkness, when the sky slid from deepest cobalt into night, he suspected something large, momentous even, was out there just beyond his reach….”

Book Review:

Review by Eleanor Bukowsky  (NOV 3, 2011)

In Leonard Rosen’s superb mystery, All Cry Chaos, Henri Poincaré, fifty-seven, is a veteran Interpol agent who believes that it is “better to let one criminal go free than to abuse the law and jeopardize the rights of many.” One of the malefactors that Henri tenaciously and successfully tracked down is Stipo Banovic, a Serb accused of ordering and participating in the mass murder of seventy Muslims in Bosnia. A furious Banovic vows to make Poincaré suffer. In a stunning exchange, during which Henri trades invective with the imprisoned criminal, Banovic screams, “Did you once stop to think why a man becomes a killing machine?” He goes on to say, “I will put you in my shoes before I die.”

Such confrontations do Henri no good, especially since he suffers from heart arrhythmia. His wife, Claire, has repeatedly urged her husband to retire to their farm in the Dordogne; she would like him to spend stress-free hours with her, their son, and their beloved grandchildren. Instead, Inspector Poincaré persists in using his experience and uncanny intuition to “anticipate a criminal’s moves as if he were the pursued.”

Poincaré’s next case involves an explosion in an Amsterdam hotel where a thirty-year old mathematician, James Fenster, had been staying prior to delivering a speech to the World Trade Organization. All that is left are the corpse’s charred remains. Who would want to destroy this man of ideas, a gentle and brilliant scholar with no obvious enemies? The search for Fenster’s murderer will lead Henri down many byways, during which he will encounter, among others, a Peruvian activist, a fabulously wealthy mutual fund manager, Fenster’s former fiancée, and a graduate student in mathematics. Most fascinating of all is the possibility that the crime occurred as a result of Fenster’s prodigious mathematical knowledge and wide-ranging imagination.

Nothing is obvious or can be taken for granted in this beautifully constructed and intricate novel. Rosen’s vividly depicted characters have lively discussions that touch on philosophy, economics, psychology, theology, mathematics, and jurisprudence. Passages of deliciously dark humor and vivid descriptive writing enhance All Cry Chaos, a challenging brain-teaser as well as a powerful, literate, and entertaining police procedural. Rosen expresses ideas about family, human rights, morality, and justice that take on added significance in a unsettled world marred by war, financial collapse, political infighting, and lawlessness.

AMAZON READER RATING: stars-5-0from 33 readers
PUBLISHER: Permanent Press (September 1, 2011)
REVIEWER: Eleanor Bukowsky
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Leonard Rosen
EXTRAS: Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: Read our review of:

Bibliography:

Interpol Agent Henri Poincaré series:

 

]]> THE VAULT by Ruth Rendell /2011/the-vault-by-ruth-rendell/ Sun, 25 Sep 2011 13:06:59 +0000 /?p=21093 Book Quote:

“The real meaning of retirement had come to him the first day. When it didn’t matter what time he got up, he could stay in bed all day. He didn’t, of course. Those first days, all his interest seemed petty, not worth doing. It seemed to him that he had read all the books he wanted to read, heard all the music he wanted to hear. He thought of closing his eyes and turning his face to the wall.”

Book Review:

Review by Eleanor Bukowsky  (SEP 25, 2011)

The brilliant and prolific Ruth Rendell continues to entertain us with her latest Inspector Wexford novel, The Vault. Although he is retired and has no official standing, Wexford, the former Chief Inspector of Kingsmarkham, is delighted when Detective Superintendent Thomas Ede asks for his advice concerning a puzzling case. The scene of the crime(s) is a two-hundred year old house in London, Orcadia Cottage. The current residents are Martin and Anne Rokeby, who bought the property for one and a half million pounds. One day, Martin decides to lift a manhole cover in the “paved yard at the back of the house,” curious to know what, if anything, is down there. Little does he realize that this deed would end up “wrecking his life for a long time to come.” It seems that some unknown person or persons had hidden four dead bodies, two male and two female, in this hole in the ground, along with forty thousand pounds worth of jewelry.

Ruth Rendell has always dug beneath the surface of her characters’ lives, and this time she reveals how retirement has, in some ways, diminished Wexford. Although he loves reading, long walks, listening to music, and spending time with his family, he misses being a detective. How could he be content when “it didn’t matter what time he got up?” Fortunately, Wexford’s affluent daughter offers her parents the use of a home in London, which they happily accept. Now that Wexford and Dora have places both in London and Kingsmarkham, they have more ways to keep themselves active and entertained.

The case of the four corpses proves to be just what the doctor ordered to make Wexford feel useful and involved. He examines the evidence, helps interview witnesses, studies the autopsy reports, and uses his superb instincts, experience, and impressive intellect to help solve what turns out to be a series of complex misdeeds and misadventures. Adding to the drama, another crime is committed that hits close to home, since the victim is Wexford’s daughter.

The author’s prose style is as crisp, fluid, and succinct as anyone writing today, and she creates a rich and realistic picture of life in urban and rural London. Her descriptive writing is precise and evocative. In addition, Rendell presents us with a fascinating and varied array of characters who are compassionate, altruistic, adulterous, desperate, vicious, and predatory. The mystery is challenging, even for someone as uniquely talented as Wexford. The Vault succeeds as a character study, family drama, police procedural, and whodunit. Ruth Rendell delivers the goods, as she has done so often during her long and legendary career.

AMAZON READER RATING: from 51 readers
PUBLISHER: Scribner (September 13, 2011)
REVIEWER: Eleanor Bukowsky
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Wikipedia page on Ruth Rendell
EXTRAS: Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: Read our reviews of some of Rendell’s outstanding stand-alone novels:

Read a review of the first Insp. Wexford in this long series:

and more recent:

Also, some of her books written as Barbara Vine

Bibliography:

Inspector Wexford Mysteries:

Standalone Mysteries & Psychological Thrillers:

Collections:

Movies from books:

]]> THE KEEPER OF LOST CAUSES by Jussi Adler-Olsen /2011/the-keeper-of-lost-causes-by-jussi-adler-olsen/ Sat, 10 Sep 2011 14:09:15 +0000 /?p=20790 Book Quote:

“Have you thought about the question? Why we’re keeping you in a cage like an animal? Why you have to be put through all of this? Have you come up with a solution, Merete, or do we need to punish you again? What’s it going to be? A birthday present or a punishment?”

Book Review:

Review by Bonnie Brody  (SEP 10, 2011)

Danish Detective Carl Morck is a walking tormented shell of his former self. Recently returned to work, he is living with post-traumatic stress disorder following an incident that ended with the shooting death of one of his colleagues and a shot that paralyzed his friend, Detective Hardy. Morck was also injured by a shot to the head. So far the perpetrators have not been found and Morck lives with survivor’s guilt. He is difficult to get along with, often late to work, and no longer has his heart in his work.

To deal with his attitude, his supervisor, Superintendent Jacobsen, assigns Carl to head Department Q, a newly funded police department, and he stations it in the basement so that Carl is out of eyesight from his colleagues who are sick of his negativity and attitude. Department Q has been funded by parliament in order to solve dead cases, especially those that involve persons of interest or famous victims. Carl’s idea of a perfect work-day is to lounge around with his feet on his desk, napping or watching television. “In his end of the basement there were no people, there was no daylight, air, or anything else that might distinguish the place from the Gulag Archipelago. Nothing was more natural than to compare his domain with the fourth circle of hell.”

It’s not long until Carl realizes that Department Q has been funded to the tune of five million kroner. The money is all being channeled to the homicide division and hardly any of it is going to Department Q. Carl approaches Jacobsen and requests his own car and an assistant, letting him know that he is wise to the side-channeling of his funding. He gets what he wants.

As the book opens in 2007, we find out that Merete Lynggaard, a once promising Danish politician, has been kidnapped and held in captivity since 2002. She has no idea why she has been kidnapped. She only knows that she is in an empty concrete cell with two buckets given to her each day – one for her waste products and the other with barely edible food. Each year, on her birthday, the atmospheric pressure in her chamber is cranked up two notches. This will happen every year until she is able to answer her captors’ question: “Why are you here?” Of course, Merete has no idea.

There is a case file for Merete on Carl’s desk and the theory is that she jumped or was pushed overboard on a ferry while on vacation with her brother Uffe. However, no body was ever found and no reason for her to commit suicide was ever ascertained. Uffe, who was disabled in a car crash that killed their parents, is very close with Merete and she cares for him with a deep and abiding love. She is also a rising star in her political party.

Meanwhile, Carl is assigned an assistant named Assad. He is a man of many abilities, strange though they may be. He makes strong coffee, drives like a maniac, can take a lock apart in a second, knows people who can decipher encrypted words and numbers and is a mystery to Carl. He is Syrian and ostensibly is hired to clean Department Q and keep it neat. Carl makes the mistake of giving Assad a book on police procedure – Handbook for Crime Technicians. Assad reads the book and then gets antsy for Carl to start working on cases. He prompts Carl to start working on the Merete Lynggaard case and together they get a start on it.

Carl tries to find out more about Assad but he keeps his past close to his chest, alluding to difficult and bad times. He keeps a prayer rug in his office and kneels to pray to Allah during the day. He also plays Arabic CD’s and has only a passing knowledge of spoken Danish. He gradually becomes Carl’s partner, leaving his cleaning duties in the background.

The novel is noir, filled with great characterizations and action, and also comedic at times. Carl’s wife, Vigga, from whom he is separated, has gotten Carl to help subsidize a gallery that she is starting with one of her many young lovers. Carl is also raising Vigga’s son from another relationship. Vigga doesn’t believe in getting another divorce so Carl is stuck with her. Vigga has the uncanny act of calling Carl’s cell phone at the most inopportune times. Carl also has a boarder who pays him rent and is like a housewife to him. His name is Morton and he collects play animals and is a great cook.

Carl suffers from physical symptoms of his Post-traumatic stress disorder including chest pains, anxiety and panic attacks. He is attracted to his department’s psychologist and sees her for treatment. However, he spends most of the time trying to pick her up and she’s wise to him, telling him to come back when he can be honest with her.

This is a book filled with great writing, telling a page-turning story. I could not put it down. It has everything I’ve come to expect from the very best Scandinavian writers – an angst-driven hero, dark situations that confound the mind, characterizations that are stunning, and action-packed scenes. I can’t recommend this book highly enough. The Keeper of Lost Causes by Jussi Adler-Olsen is definitely one of the ten best books I’ve read this year and certainly the best Scandinavian mystery I’ve read, bar none. It is excellently translated by Lisa Hartford.

AMAZON READER RATING: stars-4-5from 381 readers
PUBLISHER: Dutton Adult (August 23, 2011)
REVIEWER: Bonnie Brody
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Jussi Adler-Olsen
EXTRAS: Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: Read our review of:

Bibliography:

Q series:

 

]]> BAD INTENTIONS by Karin Fossum /2011/bad-intentions-by-karin-fossum/ Wed, 10 Aug 2011 13:53:49 +0000 /?p=19995 Book Quote:

“How quickly it can change, the life we think has been marked out for us. We start the journey with good intentions, the gift our parents bequeathed us. And then, someone snaps their fingers and we find ourselves sidetracked; we end up in a foreign country.”

Book Review:

Review by Eleanor Bukowsky AUG 10, 2011)

Karin Fossum’s Bad Intentions is about three friends, now in their twenties, who have known each other since they were six. On the surface, Axel Frimann is by far the most successful. He is well-spoken, good-looking, nicely dressed, and drives a Mercedes; his job at an advertising agency pays well. Philip Reilly, on the other hand, is disheveled, has long, stringy hair (“he looked like a troll from a fairy tale”), and spends a portion of his small salary as a hospital porter getting high. The third member of the trio is Jon Moreno.

As the story opens, Jon is with his two buddies at a cabin near a lake ominously called “Dead Water.” Reilly and Frimann have taken Jon out of the hospital ward where he is being treated for depression and anxiety; the doctors hope that the change of scenery will speed Jon’s recovery.

The three men share a dark secret, one that would land them in deep trouble if it came to light. Their transgression preys on Reilly and Moreno, while Frimann’s chief concern is how to keep his pals from blabbing and ruining his life. The dynamics of control—self-control and the control of others—drives the story. Some men are leaders and others are followers. For certain individuals, it is easier to let someone else make the decisions than it is to take a stand. Fossum is keenly aware that any of us, in certain circumstances, can do something that we will forever regret. Certain people rationalize their actions and blithely carry on as if nothing has happened, while those who possess a sense of morality may become mired in guilt. They can escape only when they unburden themselves and try to atone.

Inspector Konrad Sejer and Jakob Skarre are called in when one of the men goes missing. Sejer interviews the victim’s family and acquaintances, but although he has his suspicions, he has little hard evidence to go on. The inspector thinks, “I’ve developed a profound skepticism and it follows me everywhere. I don’t trust anyone.” When another body turns up, Sejer’s suspicions deepen, and soon matters come to a head in an unexpected manner.

Karin Fossum demonstrates that justice comes in many forms and is often meted out in unlikely ways. In addition, she poignantly touches on how two grieving mothers find a measure of consolation after they lose their beloved children. Bad Intentions, translated capably from the Norwegian by Charlotte Barslund, is a subtle and heartbreaking tale of psychological suspense in which Fossum explores not only the nature of good and evil, but also the power of guilt to insidiously destroy a person from within.

AMAZON READER RATING: stars-3-5from 36 readers
PUBLISHER: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; 1 edition (August 9, 2011)
REVIEWER: Eleanor Bukowsky
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Wikipedia page on Karin Fossum
EXTRAS: Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: Read our review of:

 

Bibliography:

The Inspector Sejer & Inspector Jakob Skarre Series:

Other:

  • The House of the Insane (1999)
  • The Nightmare of November 4th (2004)
  • Broken (2006; August 2010 in US)
  • The House of Fools (2008)
]]> THE HYPNOTIST by Lars Keplar /2011/the-hypnotist-by-lars-keplar/ Wed, 10 Aug 2011 13:28:05 +0000 /?p=19950 Book Quote:

“Oh, my God! He cried out. “They’ve been slaughtered . . . Children have been slaughtered . . . I don’t know what to do. I’m all alone, and they’re all dead.”

Book Review:

Review by Bonnie Brody  AUG 10, 2011)

The Hypnotist, written by Lars Kepler (a pseudonym for a husband and wife team writing together in Sweden), was tauted by Janet Maslin of The New York Times as “The summer’s likeliest new Nordic hit.” The writing is compared to that of Steig Larsson and Henning Mankell. Other than the novel taking place in Sweden, I observed little or no similarities to either of these two writers.

The novel opens up with a bloody, horrific murder scene. An entire family has been hacked up with an axe, knives and scissors. Body parts are strewn everywhere. Arms and entrails are mixed in with the blood. Only the fifteen year old boy, Josef, survives. As he lies in a hospital bed, a detective, Joona Linna, is called in and takes the case. There are two things that Joona detests. “One is having to give up on a case, walking away from unidentified bodies, unsolved rapes, robberies, cases of abuse and murder. And the other thing he loathes, although in a completely different way, is when these unsolved cases are finally solved, because when the old questions are answered, it is seldom in the way one would wish.” Joona is a detective well-respected by his peers and someone with an instinctual sense for the underlying truth of things. He is also known for never giving up on a case.

Despite Josef being on extremely strong pain killers and having been stabbed all over, Joona wants him to be hypnotized. He calls in Erik Maria Bark, a hypnotist and trauma specialist who has sworn ten years ago never to practice hypnosis again. Despite this promise, Joona talks him into hypnotizing Josef. During the course of hypnosis, it turns out that Josef himself is the murderer. The wounds he has are all self-inflicted

The novel deals with Josef’s escape from the hospital, serial murders and kidnappings. All is told in full graphic detail. Not one drop of blood is left to the reader’s imagination. This is not a book for the weak of heart or squeamish.

The novel also deals with the troubled marital relationship of Erik and his wife, Simone, as they struggle to hold their floundering marriage together. Erik is addicted to several medications that he keeps in a special “parrot and native” box. He uses multiple sleeping pills, pain killers, uppers and downers in order to numb himself from the world.

Unlike the works of Steig Larsson, Arne Dahl and Henning Mankell, this book is mainly about external actions rather than existential and internal reflections. The book is written in short chapters and follows several cases of murder and mayhem. The middle section of the book is about Erik’s history as a hypnotist and the reasons that he decided to give up the practice of hypnosis.

The book falters in many ways. Characters are not fully realized, the ending is too pat, and though the beginning of the book alludes to secrets in Joona’s past, these are never fully revealed. Perhaps this is because a sequel is in the works. The reader is also left without knowing what happens to some of the characters, especially Evelyn, Josef’s sister.

For a first novel, this is an extraordinary tome at 503 pages. Some of it works and some of it just didn’t keep me entranced. I must admit that at times I found it to be an effort to pick up the book and keep reading despite the action sequences which I usually enjoy a lot. The book tries hard to belong to the Swedish genre of existential angst and lost souls but doesn’t quite find its way. I think it would make a fine book for the airplane or beach but unlike some of Mankell’s work, it won’t stay in my mind for a long period of time. The book would have been better served if tauter as an action-packed mystery with graphic descriptions of mayhem, severed body parts and bloody corpses throughout.  (Translated by Ann Long.)

AMAZON READER RATING: from 262 readers
PUBLISHER: Farrar, Straus and Giroux; First Edition edition (June 21, 2011)
REVIEWER: Bonnie Brody
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Wikipedia page on Lars Keplar
EXTRAS: Reading Guide and Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: Read our review of:

Bibliography:

]]> MISTERIOSO by Arne Dahl /2011/misterioso-by-arne-dahl/ Wed, 13 Jul 2011 16:00:48 +0000 /?p=19144 Book Quote:

“Not much had been said during the meeting, no new progress had been made. They were now working from the theory that the killing spree was over and that the deficit for the Swedish business world was going to stop at three and only three entries: Kuno Daggfeldt, Bernhard Strand-Julen, and Nils-Emil Carlberger.

They were wrong.”

Book Review:

Review by Bonnie Brody (JUL 13, 2011)

Misterioso by Arne Dahl is a unique and wonderful book. It is part mystery, part police procedural, part existential philosophy and part comedy. There is something so distinctive about this book that it resists categorization. On the surface, it is a mystery but so much of the novel lies below the surface, getting into the characters’ minds and thoughts as they live their lives and work at trying to catch a serial killer.

The title of the book comes from a piece of music composed by Thelonius Monk, a famous American jazz pianist and composer, now deceased. There is a serial killer on the loose in Sweden who is killing very rich and powerful men. The killer waits for his prey in the victim’s living room listening to Monk’s Misterioso on the stereo and when the victim arrives he is shot in the head two times. The killer views the music as “a pantomime, a peculiar dance of death.” The Swedish police put together what they call an A-Team to find this killer.

Paul Hjelm is one of those chosen for this select group. It is ironic for him as on the afternoon he was picked, he expected to be fired. He was with his colleagues that morning and there was a hostage situation in a building near police headquarters. An Estonian immigrant, here illegally, was holding a group of people in the immigration office hostage. Paul decides to take matters into his own hands and he goes into the office and shoots the man holding the others hostage. Paul feels very badly about doing this and expects Internal Affairs to fire him for his impulsive action. He acted on his own without waiting for back-up. Instead of being fired, he becomes a national hero.

The group gathered to form the A-Team is very original. There is a singer – a man who used to be Mr. Sweden when he took steroids; there is a Chilean who is called black-head because he is not blonde like most Swedes; there is a woman who also sings and likes to masturbate in her office; there is a Finn who has a secrets from his past life prior to coming to Sweden; there is a pedantic idealist who loves to give his political views. The reader sees how the team interacts and gets to know one another. Hultin, the team leader, always enters the room through a mysterious door that no one knows about. Where it comes from and where it leads to is a mystery.

As the team works together, there are four victims dead. The A-Team checks out all kinds of leads including the Russian and Estonian mafia, the victims’ businesses and personal lives, and they find out a lot of information. One of the victims is a pedophile, together the three of them tried to rape a woman who later committed suicide, and some of their businesses are involved in mafia corruption. “An amphetamine-babbling proprietor of a video store with private viewing booths in Norrmalm had cheerfully offered them some child porn films with Russian subtitles, even though they had shown him their police ID. He was arrested.”

Paul is in the midst of a marital crisis, an existential aloneness where he and his wife of many years, Cilla, can no longer communicate and find themselves totally separate. Paul has this “dreadful, unbearable feeling that we can never really reach anyone else. Never ever, not even those closest to us. The horrifying sensation of absolute existential aloneness. And now he saw this same emotion in Cilla’s eyes.”

We learn about the Palme murder that is a huge deal in Sweden. It is mentioned several times in this novel. Olof Palme, the Prime Minister of Sweden, was assassinated in 1986 and the murderer was never found. The A-Group does not want to be seen as ineffective like the investigation of the Palme murder turned out to be. It is very much in the back of their minds as they search for the serial killer. When they do not have luck finding the murderer after a month “either they were doing something fundamentally wrong, or else they were dealing with another Palme murder.”

We also learn about the prevalence of xenophobia in Sweden. The term black-head refers to anyone who doesn’t have blond hair as do most of the Swedes. There is a great deal of prejudice against immigrants and looking like a Swede is considered very important.

“The more they got to know each other, the harder it becames to understand each other. As always.” This background of existential ennui reminded me of Sartre and Camus, especially Sartre’s book Nausea. Paul becomes obsessed with a mark on his cheek, most likely a common pimple. However, he worries it’s melanoma and the mark takes on different shapes depending on his mood and the different crises he is facing.

Much of the dialog is tongue in cheek and I found myself laughing at the oddest moments. Tiina Nunnally did a wonderful job of translation and the book flows throughout. There is not a dull moment. It seems like the Scandinavians are having a true renaissance in crime writing and Arne Dahl is right at the top with this first in a 10 book series finally available to US readers.

AMAZON READER RATING: stars-4-5from 18 readers
PUBLISHER: Pantheon (July 12, 2011)
REVIEWER: Bonnie Brody
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Wikipedia page on Arne Dahl
EXTRAS: Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: More Scandinavian mysteries: 

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

The Shadow Woman by Ake Edwardson

The Snowman by Jo Nesbo

Bibliography (translated only):

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