The Wolf and the Watchman, by Niklas Natt och Dag

9781501196775

Atria, 2019

originally published as 1793, 2017

translated by Ebba Segerberg

370 pp

hardcover

Now I'm only two weeks behind; I finished this book some time ago and I have to say I hardly moved while reading it. 

Scandinavian crime novels are no strangers to my shelves. I've been reading them a very long time, well before they became all the rage at some point with the publication of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.  They can be bleak, dark, and in the hands of some Scandinavian authors, downright disturbing (a la Jo Nesbø's serial killer novels like The Snowman).   In more than one case Scandinavian crime  writers have also taken their characters delving into the past to understand what is happening in the present, and The Wolf and The Watchman follows this pattern.  As the back-cover blurb from Kirkus Reviews notes, it

 "examines the effects of a brutal murder on those who investigate it - and explores the psychological causes for the crime..."

The story  is set in 1793, which also places it into the category of historical crime novel. while there's more than just crime here, it's not at all pretty -- the author goes all-out grisly in the telling, which sort of detracts from more than one of the underlying themes the author tries to bring out. More on this soon.

Set in Stockholm, the discovery of a corpse floating in what is known as "The Larder" (once a lake, now a dump for waste of every sort) brings watchman Mickel Cardell to the scene, and what he finds is that the body has been dismembered, with eyes and tongue gone as well.  When the body is more closely examined, Cardell understands that this was no afterthought -- it seems that these mutilations have been done over a long period of time, while the poor victim, who has now been named "Karl Johan" because he was once a human being,  was still alive. With only a couple of actual clues to go on, the chief of police asks attorney Cecil Winge to investigate, knowing that he will do so drawing on his "strength of mind."   The problem is that Winge is suffering from a horrific case of consumption, and his time is ticking down.  Along with Cardell, he starts by examining what little they have on the case, but some questions either get no answers or a door slammed in the face, as people in the know aren't talking.  As Winge worries that the two have "encountered a dead end," the story takes a turn backwards, and the solution to the mystery unfolds slowly in two parts --    first in the account of a young would-be medical student who has come to the city to study but who instead gets caught up in the world of amusements and entertainments until he hits rock bottom, only to find that he hasn't even scratched its surface;  the second told in the story of a young woman who ends up in a woman's workhouse, who faces her own horrors (and those of others), and thinks only of escape -- before returning to the present.

Reading through this book, I couldn't help but notice that there are a number of similarities between the way 1793 Stockholm is portrayed and what's happening in our own modern times; it's certainly not hard to guess that the author had this comparison in mind while writing this story. There is also an underlying thread running through this book that looks at the clash between Enlightenment  thought and the chaotic realities of life, both social and political.  But  reader beware -- while the ideas underpinning this book may offer the reader a lot to consider, their value is somewhat muted at times because it is hard to get beyond the gruesome events that happen in this book.  I've  actually seen this novel labeled as "horror," and in the case of one goodreads reader, "torture porn."  EEK!   Personally, I read a lot of horror but it's on the more cerebral side, meaning that I don't want to read about the gory details or go into any sort of suffering; I feel the same about crime reading.  Having said that, though, I made my own focus on the search for the killer and the  ideas here rather than the violence, reading through the more gross stuff very quickly; the story also has a plot that is not the usual predictable thing I can figure out long before I get to the ending, it's claustrophobic, atmospheric and to be honest,  there are many moments where the excitement had me on the edge of my chair.  Quite frankly, I couldn't help being sucked into this story, even while being repulsed by the grotesqueness of it all.

I sort of get why it's being compared to The Alienist, but this book is definitely not that, so don't go there. This book is darker than dark, it's not cozy material, it's not murder light, there is no happiness or light shining through anywhere here, and it's not at all for the faint of heart.   As far as a recommendation goes, some people seriously detested it while others really loved it. so it's one you'll have to judge on your own.

three from the beachbag

My most recent reads are not from the distant past, but rather more contemporary books.  From time to time I do detach myself from yesteryear to keep up with what's out there right now -- rare these days but it does happen.

9781782271970
Pushkin Vertigo, 2017
originally published 1952 as La Pelouse
translated by Louise Rogers Lalaurie
paperback, 154 pp

I love Frédéric Dard's books, and have bought everything of his that's been translated and available.   The King of Fools, while in my opinion not his best book, is still quite good, and definitely one not to miss.  This story is narrated by the main character Jean-Marie Valaise, a sales rep for an American firm that sells adding machines in Europe. As the story opens, he is on the off side of the on again/off again relationship with his girlfriend Denise -- the two were supposed to have been on holiday on the Côte d'Azur, but rather than cancelling his trip, Jean-Marie decides to go anyway.  He's not sad exactly, but as he notes, he's experiencing "a feeling of intense disenchantment," which has left him "weak and vulnerable." I knew the minute I read that phrase that something would happen with him, and I wasn't wrong.  While inside of a restaurant, he notices a young woman, Marjorie Faulks, getting into his car, rushes out and confronts her.  As it happens, she's made an honest mistake -- her car is nearly a twin of his.  She leaves, but they meet again at the roulette table of a casino, and then again when she comes to his hotel to pick up the beachbag she's left in his car.  He can't help himself -- while nothing happens, he finds himself irresistibly drawn to this woman and after learning that she'll be in Edinburgh alone for a while before her husband is able to join her, decides that he'll go too.  He explains what's going on in his head to Denise, who's recently arrived; after four days together he makes his move and rushes off to Scotland to find Marjorie. What happens after he arrives is the meat of this novel, and makes Jean-Marie realize that he had "followed the path of madness at every turn."

A definite noir page turner for sure, but the thing is that I figured out (in part) what was going to happen, so it was a bit of a letdown. That's certainly not Dard's fault; you can blame it on my years of crime fiction reading.  At the same time, there were still a couple of surprises in store, especially with happens at the end of the story, which actually made me laugh.  Clever? Indeed. 

Next up is The Shadow Killer by Arnaldur Indridason, which is the second book in his new series following The Shadow District, and for me, it's another really good book by one of my favorite Scandinavian writers.

9781250124043

St. Martin's/ Minotaur, 2018

translated by Victoria Cribb

356 pp, hardcover

The Shadow Killer and its predecessor The Shadow District, are both what I call historical crime fiction, and while it's true that The Shadow District starts out as a contemporary read, it is a blend of both present and past, and I've come to realize that this is a hallmark of pretty much all of Arnaldur Indridason's books. It was true in his Inspector Erlendur novels, and it's certainly the case in this newest one, which continues the series featuring Detective Flóvent of Reykjavik's CID ("the only detective...") and Thorson, an MP who is a West Icelander from Manitoba whose parents had migrated to Canada.  Whereas in the previous book the two had already been working together, Flóvent and Thorson meet for the first time here, as they team up to solve the case of a murdered traveling salesman found shot in the eye.   As Flóvent muses, "Murders didn't happen every day in Reykjavik," so he wants to do things right.  Set during the American occupation of Iceland, Thorson is put on the case since the bullet which killed the salesman had come from a Colt .45, "the standard-issue sidearm carried by American servicemen."  There are already enough problems with "the Situation" (in Icelandic ástandið) between Icelandic women and the military; now, Thorson's superior needs him to stay on the investigation just in case it turns out that the killer is an American.  As he says, "Not all of the locals are happy about our presence here."  As the case progresses, a darker, uglier side of history raises its head; but the book also examines change, especially in terms of the impact on the Icelandic population from the presence of foreign troops in a previously closed society.   I have to say that I'm a bit flabbergasted by the 3.3 average rating given to this book by goodreads readers, because a) it deserves so much better, and b) it is so rich in history, something  that anyone who reads Indridason's work should have known before even turning the first page, since as I said, it's sort of a hallmark of his in all of his work.  Oh, and don't miss the reference to the subject of Hannah Kent's excellent Burial Rites found here.  

And finally, book #3, Tangerine by Christine Mangan.

9780062686664

Ecco, 2018

388 pp

hardcover

Well, as much as I try to find books that I think I will enjoy, I have to admit that this wasn't one of them.  Have you ever read a book and come to a certain point where you say to yourself "I've read this before?" It's not even that I figured out the plot with this one -- it's that I'd actually read this before.  Change the sex, change the location and no matter what, it still comes out like a version of Highsmith's The Talented Mr. Ripley, so much so that at one point I considered putting it down because I just knew with certainty how it was going to end. I hung on through the end, and I was so right.  Mix that with some of the elements of a Victorian gothic/sensation novel and well, that's this book.  It wasn't all bad, though ... the backstory of the two main characters was very nicely done and had the author proceeded along a different path than Highsmith's, it could have been right up my alley.  Sadly she didn't and it wasn't.  Not one I can recommend, really, and I feel bad about that, but it is what it is. 

The Shadow District, by Arnaldur Indridason

9781250124029
Thomas Dunne/Minotaur /St. Martin's Press, 2017
originally published as Skuggasund, 2013
translated by Victoria Cribb
344 pp

hardcover

I will never, ever pass up the chance to read a novel by Arnaldur Indridason, so when I saw that this one was being published, I hit the pre-order button so fast I may have broken a nail.  Okay, that may have been an exaggeration,  but I was rather excited to pick it up.

one stack of the Indridason novels on my shelf (yes, I know keeping them on their sides is a bad thing, but shelf space is an issue at my house). 

  Long before Stieg Larsson seems to have prompted the whole "Scandinavian noir" thing, books by   Indridason and other Scandinavian writers were already fixtures in my home library.  His books are among those which have stayed on my shelves while those by others that I didn't enjoy as much were given away, and there was never any doubt of their status as keepers.   What I enjoy about these books the most, aside from his Inspector Erlendur and the rest of the cast, is Indridason's way of rooting modern-day crime in events in the past, and that is precisely what he's done once again in his newest book, Shadow District.  Here though, he's done something a wee bit different.  Not only has he once again dreamed up a contemporary crime that sets the stage for the past to come barging into the present, he has also made us privy to the ongoing investigation from the past as well.  It is a very clever set up indeed.

It all begins when the police do a welfare check on an elderly man whom his neighbor hasn't seen for a while.  Letting themselves into the man's apartment, they discover his body laying on the bed.  While the "death was not being treated as suspicious and no police inquiry would be judged necessary," there is still a post-mortem.  The pathologist goes into her work assuming that he'd died of cardiac arrest, but it seems that's not exactly the case, as she discovers when she pulls something out of his throat.  Turning the page expecting to see what it is that has caught the pathologist's attention, instead, we find ourselves back in 1944  during the occupation of Iceland.  It is a "chilly evening in the middle of February," and a young couple out walking in the wind come across the body of a young woman behind the National Theatre.  The man doesn't think it's a good idea to call the police, so they leave the scene.  Page turn, and we're back in the present, where a retired detective named Konrád becomes interested in what is now being called a murder investigation  when the lead detective tells him about some newspaper cuttings found in the dead man's apartment.  It seems that the deceased had been looking at articles about a "girl found strangled behind the National Theatre in 1944," a case which for Konrád has interest because of a personal angle, and it is a case that, for some reason, was never brought to court.  He gets permission to work on the old case while detectives are working on the murder.  We don't really get too much about the present case as far as an active investigation goes (although Konrád does keep the detectives informed of his findings when relevant), but while Konrád is digging for answers, his discoveries are paralleled with the investigation into the 1944 killing by the two officers on the case, Thorson and Flóvent.   In both past and present, things take more than a few strange twists and turns before all is said and done.

As the blurb says, Shadow District is a "deeply compassionate story of old crimes and their consequences," something Indridason is known for in his work. It's also of historical interest, since not only does he get into the occupation of Iceland, but Iceland at that time was on the edge of independence, a situation that is clearly explained here.  There's also quite a bit here about Icelandic folklore and folk beliefs which I found quite interesting and which fit nicely into the plot, and if you want to get a bit more into what's happening underneath the main mysteries involved here, just take a look at how Indridason gets into the changes on several levels brought about by the war.   And then, of course, there's the team of Thorson and Flóvent who will hopefully reappear soon in another novel.

 When it comes down to it,  there are a number of reasons that I'm happy to have read this book, but I do have to say that I had figured out the basic scenario just shortly after page 100.  The actual perpetrator by name, no, but I did have an idea of where this story was going to lead and as it turned out, I was completely right.  I can't say how I knew without bringing in spoilers but I just did.  Now here's the thing, and it's the reason my husband hates watching crime shows on TV with me, and to be fair, it's probably not the author's fault:   I've read so many mystery/crime/detective novels over the years that it's getting easier and easier  to start reading a book like this and have a general outline in my head of how things are going to play out before I get too far into it.  Seriously -- it's like something goes "ding!" in my brain and I just know.  It's excruciatingly frustrating at times, as it was for me in this book, but I have to say that since this happens so often, I have learned that I have to look beyond the anticipation of the solution to the writing and to the journey.   Here, the joy is in the interplay between past and present, following Konrád as he tries to piece things together in the present following the same path as the investigators in 1944. And then there's that central question here, which is this: why was the dead man so interested in the case before he died? 

Count me in on the next Indridason novel.  I'll make shelf space for it somehow.

returning to the present with Faithless, by Kjell Ola Dahl

9781910633274
Orenda Books, 2017
originally published as Kvinnen i plast, 2010
translated by Don Bartlett
265 pp

paperback

It's not all that often any more that I pick up a Scandinavian crime novel by an unknown-to-me author, and it's certainly way out of character for me to read a book that is seventh in a series without having devoured the other books beforehand. I'm actually quite OCD about series order, but I thought I'd take a chance with this book after  being offered a chance to read it by the publisher (thank you!!) and so not knowing what I was about to get myself into, I spent most of yesterday reading this book.  The first thing I did after finishing it was to pick up a Kindle edition of the author's first book in the series, Lethal Investments, because of what happens at the end of Faithless.  While I obviously can't say exactly what that might be, I felt this need to go back and see why the author would choose to end things in the way he did here, and I figured that it must have something to do with all of the things I'd missed by not reading the previous novels.  The first three books have been translated, as has book #5, so I have a bit of catching up to do. 

What drew me into this story wasn't so much the actual crimes and crime solving here (although I have to admit that I do like when the cops figure things out before I do)  but rather the dilemmas faced by a couple of the main characters that play a huge role in how this story plays out.  While there are a few different crimes under investigation here, the biggest one opens the novel with the arrest of a woman, Veronika Undset, whom the police have under surveillance because of her connections to a known criminal they are watching -- a "teflon" crook, meaning that nothing has ever stuck with this guy, so he's able to continue his operations.  While searching Undset's bag, Detective Frankie Frolich finds a quantity of heroin hidden in her lighter, but she is eventually released.   It's not long afterwards that Frankie is invited to the birthday party of an old friend he has not seen for years and gets the surprise of his life not only when he sees Veronika there, but when the friend introduces her as his fiancée.   He gets an even bigger shock when later Veronika turns up dead.  Because of his past history with her fiancé, he tries to get himself taken off of the case but is refused, and while he knows that no good is going to come of his involvement, he has no choice but to stay involved.   

What comes shining through in this book, and very nicely so, is the old cliché that the world is a very small place, and that it really is impossible to escape one's own history.  It can be buried, maybe, but it's always there, and it definitely has an influence on the present. While  this idea is reflected in several characters in this novel, it is best exemplified in Frank's role in the murder investigation.   While he tries to remain professional, he comes to realize that the past is not really past -- and the choices he makes throughout the case may not exactly be limited to his role as a police officer.  And while his own  demons certainly play a role in the police investigation, he is also portrayed as being very human as he tries to keep them under control.  The same is true of his colleague Lena, whose own circumstances lead her to make some very bad decisions.   There's much, much more, of course -- the disappearance of a young woman recently arrived in Norway, a horrendous, unsolved murder from the past -- but for me it's all about the people and the author does it right.

Faithless moves toward the dark end of the crime fiction spectrum in a hurry, as we watch how people deal with not only their own inner anxieties but also how forces that just may be out of the reach of human control have to the potential to play a role in unleashing the darker aspects of human nature.  I have to hand it to this author -- I have had enough of thriller-type crime novels to last me a lifetime, but in this book, he has put his writing energy into getting into his characters' heads, which is very much appreciated on my end. 

* The Rector of Veilbye, by Steen Blicher

9781500384753
CreateSpace, 2014
25 pp

paperback

"Oh, what is man that he shall dare to sit in judgment over his fellows! God alone is the Judge. He who gives life may alone give death!" 

One would think that a book of only 25 pages would be a no-brainer, easy read with not much to say, but that's just not the case here. First published in 1829, this little pamphlet-sized story kept me up well past two a.m. this morning thinking about what I'd just read.

The Rector of Veilbye  has often been touted as "the first crime novel,"  and is based on real events.  According to the back-cover blurb, "The trial of Pastor Søren Jensen Quist of Vejlby took place at Aarhus in 1626," and involved the disappearance of a farm laborer in 1607 employed by the rector.  Evidently, over a decade later, bones were dug up on the rector's land that were believed to belong to the missing man and the rector was blamed. Also noted on the cover is the fact that this little book was "selected for inclusion in the Cultural Canon of Denmark," and that one official noted the "elegiac pain and discomfort in an eerily intense drama."   It may actually be the first Scandinavian crime novel -- obviously I can't say that for sure, but 1829 is still quite early in the crime fiction game so it's entirely possible.  The story is revealed through journal entries from two different people -- District Judge Erik Sorensen, who outlines the main events of the case as well as his own involvement and how it affects him personally, and then a pastor from Aalso, who lets us in on a most harrowing aftermath some 21 years later.  Sorensen has a role here other than just district judge -- he happens to be betrothed to the daughter of the titular rector of Veilbye, Soren Quist, who has been accused of murdering one of his servants "in a fit of rage," and then burying the body in his own garden.

To tell is to spoil, especially in this very short but powerful work, so I'm not going to give away any plot details other than what I've said above.   At the same time, a note to readers: don't be fooled by its size -- there is a lot going on in this little book.   Not only is it a no-frills story of a crime (and I'll leave it to readers to decide which acts here are actually criminal),  but it also provides a great argument against capital punishment,  while also examining the links between religious beliefs and the law.  It's also, I'll argue, a book that puts the reader in the unhappy position of judge -- considering the evidence as it's given here,  it's simply impossible not to find yourself trying to make up your mind one way or the other, just as Sorensen had to do.

For readers entrenched in modern, fast-paced, violence-laden crime fiction, this book may seem to be a nothing sort of work. That certainly wasn't my reaction though -- it actually became an incredibly sad and thought-provoking story as I considered  the moral implications vs. the legal, and as I said earlier, it kept me awake long after having finished it.  Considering that it's not even thirty pages long, well, that's power. I have to wholeheartedly agree with the Danish official noted above who said that "the story is difficult to shake off" -- there is definitely a lot of truth in that statement.

Anyone who is at all interested in the history of crime fiction needs to read this book, but really, given what happens in this story, well, it's actually a book for everyone.  Amazing.

gritty doesn't even begin to cover it: Clinch, by Martin Holmén

9781782271925
Pushkin Vertigo, 2016
originally published 2015
translated by Henning Koch
316 pp

paperback

The direction of Scandinavian crime has just changed with Martin Holmén's Clinch, and that's a very good thing.  There are two more books to come from Martin Holmén, and that's a very good thing as well.  Like Harry Kvist, the former-boxing champ who is the star of this show, Clinch delivers a serious gut punch that will leave its readers reeling. I loved this book. Absolutely.

Let me say this right up front: this is not your standard Nordic crime novel.  Clinch would be right at home on a hardcore noir reader's shelf.  It's a very physical novel, a book where the term "gritty" doesn't even begin to cover how dark it is. It's also a story that takes its readers into the streets and alleyways of Stockholm in the early 1930s where people are just trying to survive however they can, be it by pimping, prostitution, thievery, whatever.  And even when the story moves into the better neighborhoods, even there things don't become any brighter.

Harry Kvist is just trying to make a living like everyone else.  A former boxing champ, with two stints in prison, he's now a debt collector.  As the story opens, he's at the home of Zetterberg, who had bought an old Opel but didn't make the full payment.  Harry's job is to convince Zetterberg that he needs to pony up with the cash -- if Zetterberg pays and Harry gets the money to his client within five days, Harry's share is fifteen per cent. In this case, the outstanding debt is 2,100 kronor so it's definitely a debt worth collecting.  When he finally makes contact with Zetterberg, it ain't pretty -- things get very physical and Harry gives him until the next day to pay up.  He's tempted to really give Mr. Z. a "proper working over," but as he notes,

"A dead bloke doesn't pay his debts, a badly injured one ends up in a hospital."

However, when he comes back the next day to collect, not only is Zetterberg dead, but someone's set his place on fire ... and the cops really like Harry as the culprit.  He's picked up and later released, but with a warning that he's not "been ruled out of the investigation."  Harry just laughs it off but decides that he's going to clear his name and that he'll find the one witness who can clear him. Easier said than done, but Harry's determined, and he's also eager to stay out of prison -- they can easily throw the book at him for being gay, which is a crime at the time. From there the story moves in some very strange, dark and twisty directions that had me quickly turning pages to see how things were going to come out, gut clinched in suspense all the way.

I offer major kudos to Mr. Holmén for bringing something new to the table and new to the genre. First of all, the 1930s setting is viable and leaps off every page; his descriptions of the Stockholm slums and social/political tensions are beyond outstanding.   Second,  Harry Kvist is not meant to be your average crime solver -- he is sensitive, loves animals, cares about other people, is generous when he has the money.  On the other hand, as I said earlier, this is a very physical novel, and Harry's sexuality both with men and women is writ large here, as is his propensity to violence.

When it comes down to it, Clinch is an explosive novel, best enjoyed by readers who are at home with  gritty noir that packs a major punch.  There is absolutely nothing cutesy here, no angsty detectives, no hints of the sort of Scandinavian crime fiction that is on bookstore shelves -- this is something very, very different and well, frankly, it's time for that to be happening.  Highly, highly recommended.  I will have to try to remain patient until the next book comes out but after reading and loving Clinch,  that's not going to be easy.

the final chapter of the Öland Quartet : The Voices Beyond, by Johan Theorin

9780857520067 
Transworld Publishers/Doubleday, 2015
originally published as Rörgast
translated by Marlaine Delargy
462 pp

paperback

For now, it seems that if you live in America and you want to read this book, you'll have to order it from the UK like I did or sit patiently and wait for it to be published in this country.  The second choice wasn't even an option for me -- as soon as I'd heard it was available, I had to have it; it went on vacation with me where I read it stretched out in a long lounger chair from which I didn't move while reading.   I have really enjoyed all of the books in Theorin's Öland Quartet up to this point, and I have to say that for a final entry, The Voices Beyond is an absolute page turner.  Despite the fact that there are nearly five hundred pages in this book, the story moves very quickly, but what I loved about this book is that it moves back and forth in time, revealing that the past most definitely has a strong hold on the present.  And as always, Theorin here is a master of atmosphere that just doesn't quit.  If you have to end a series, this is definitely the way to do it.  

It's tough not to get sucked into the story from the beginning.  If you've followed Theorin's Öland Quartet series so far, you will definitely remember Gerlof Davidsson.  When Gerlof was young in 1930,  he was part of a group of people digging a grave in the churchyard for Edvard Kloss. Once the body was lowered into the grave and covered up, the small group of gravediggers hears noises coming from where they'd just put the coffin --  a series of knocks that Gerlof Davidsson never forgets over the course of his lifetime.  Flash forward to the present and we find Gerlof back on the island of Öland for the summer holidays, staying at his home with his grandchildren.  In the middle of one night when he is sleeping in his boathouse, he is awakened out of a sound sleep by pounding on the door where he discovers a young boy, Jonas Kloss, wet and terrified.  It seems that Jonas has had a horrific encounter on what he calls a "ghost ship," and has managed to escape.  Because of Gerlof's own past, he has no trouble believing Jonas' account, and after he calms him down a bit, Gerlof starts asking questions.  What Jonas tells him lands Gerlof smack in the middle of a mystery that will take the reader back in time, moving ever slowly into the present where the past still exists in some minds.  It is a dark story that gets darker as the book (and the Swedish summer) moves along, revealing not only a modern-day mystery but also the failed dreams of a young boy who gets caught up in a situation not of his own making.  

Unlike my usual cautionary self, I have nothing negative to say about this novel which (with apologies for the old cliché) kept me glued until I turned the last page.  It is a fine story, difficult to read at times because of the sheer cruelty and inhumanity that Theorin so deftly reveals here, but perfect for someone like me who is very much into the darker side of human nature.  Cozy readers or readers of tamer Scandinavian crime fiction beware -- this is an incredibly dark and at times bleak novel, nothing at all cutesy here. It's an example of Scandinavian crime at its best.   One more thing -- even though it's #4 in Theorin's quartet, it is very possible to read this book as a standalone, but my advice is to take each book in its order of publication and to not let this one be your introduction to the series: read Echoes from the Dead, The Darkest Room, The Quarry all before you tackle The Voices Beyond -- there is a lot of history here of some of the characters that you won't want to miss.  

Super book -- I'm just sorry that it isn't widely available in the US right now so that more crime fiction fans can read it.

"Snow noir?" Sheesh! The Winter of the Lions, by Jan Costin Wagner

9780099546436
Vintage (first published in English -  2011 in the UK)
originally published as Im Winter der Löwen, 2009
translated by Anthea Bell
266 pp

paperback
arc from IPG; thank you, Shannon!!



Well now, here's a moniker I've never seen before: the short blurb by the Financial Times calls this book "snow-noir."  There seems to be a noir for everything these days, a concept that doesn't really sit well with me but that's another story so we'll save it for another time or I'll just get myself all worked up.  The Winter of the Lions is third in a series set in Finland, featuring Detective Kimmo Joentaa whose wife has passed away and who finds it hard to move away from his grief. There are two central mysteries in this book having to do with a series of crimes that hits close to home for our grieving detective and a third, more peripheral puzzle which centers around a strange woman who latches on to Joentaa shortly after meeting him at the police station on Christmas Eve.  When all is said and done, The Winter of the Lions turned out to be a dark, haunting read that kept me turning pages during an all-day readfest.

Just briefly, because it's difficult to talk about this book without giving too much away,  Joentaa and his colleagues are called to the scene of an horrific crime, involving someone close to the squad.  The forensic pathologist has been brutally murdered while out cross-country skiing. While coming to terms with his death, the detectives soon find themselves with another victim on their hands, a man who makes puppet models of corpses for television and movies.  In both cases the clues are virtually non-existent; it is only through a chance remark that Joentaa reveals that both victims had been together as guests on a popular TV talk show.  After reviewing a DVD of that particular episode, Joentaa and colleagues are no closer to finding the killer, but it does give our angsty, grief-stricken detective a line of inquiry to follow.  Mystery number two, which is written quite well, involves an unidentified someone known only as "She." Her story is revealed slowly until the full weight of what's happened to her comes down on the reader like a ton of bricks. Mystery number three is, as I said, sort of peripheral to the main events of this novel, involving a young woman who first encounters Joentaa on Christmas Eve while reporting a rape. She refuses to give up any details except the name of the guy who did it and eventually walks out of the station in frustration, only to show up at Joentaa's doorstep the next day, basically moving into his house.  All three of these plotlines weave together into a very slow-burning mystery which, once things start to unravel, turns into a dark and haunting story that examines the effects of grief and loss, also pointing to the ways in which people cope.

One reader review of this novel notes that he/she didn't understand why Joentaa didn't figure things out earlier than he did, a question I normally find myself asking in many a mystery novel, but this time I'm going to disagree with that opinion. The pacing in this book is slow for a reason, and in my opinion, very well executed.  Even though his wife has been dead for some time, Joentaa continues to exist in a sort of haze, reminded of her last days at every turn.  Not only that, but our detective has other things to worry about -- the strange young woman staying at his house, a colleague who is up to his ears and in denial about his gambling problem, and a few other distractions.  There are many other things about this novel that, in my opinion, speak highly in its favor, but the high believeability factor (okay, I know that's not a real word but I like it) of the characters and the slow-paced investigation and final reveal combine to make this book pop.  I will say that I am a wee bit tired of angsty cops -- does every detective in Scandinavia have emotional/mental  issues?

Confession time: normally I'm a series purist, and while I do own Wagner's first two novels in this series Ice Moon and Silence, they've sat unread on my shelf for a long time due to a personal need for a Scandinavian crime reading hiatus. The thing is though that the author does such a good job in covering Joentaa's backstory here that it is unnecessary to have read the previous books. Obviously, I would have preferred to have been more prepared characterwise, but not reading the other series entries wasn't detrimental to my understanding  and appreciation of  this book.  Actually, the truth is that even with the angsty detective, The Winter of the Lions turned out to be a fine read -- something very different than its competitors in the world of "snow-noir," and one I'd definitely recommend.

Crystal Nights, by Dorte Hummelshoj Jakobsen

Candied Crime, 2015
ebook, sent to me by the author (thank you!)

First, a major apology to Dorte for taking so long getting to her book. With every intention of starting it right away, a LOT of life's little obstacles have recently manifested themselves, limiting my time for reading this book and for reading in general this month.  Second, another note to Dorte -- after finishing this novel, now you've made me want to read your North Sea Cottage, so I bought a copy.  And so grows the TBR pile. 

Crystal Nights is the type of crime novel I just love, where there are mysteries in the present which have their roots in the past.  I'm certainly not spoiling things when I say this; the minute you open this book you're in 1938 following a Jewish family as they are preparing to leave Berlin. Leaving behind her very life, Sara follows her husband who has decided that leaving at that time is probably a very good idea.  The family makes its way to an entirely new existence and tragedy strikes.  Fast forward now to Denmark in 1967 where a little boy disappears from the small village of Kalum.  At first, his mother tries to tell police that he went off with her ex-husband and is staying with his family, but neither Lars-Ole's father or his wife have even seen him. A few suspects are looked at but there is nothing concrete that Lars-Ole's disappearance can be tied to, so little by little the case goes somewhat cold. The only one keeping the hope alive is a friend of Lars-Ole, Niels Haugaard.  The two boys were best friends, and shared a number of entertaining adventures together, their latest pretend-fest centering around the world of spying.  Right after the boy's disappearance,  Niels makes his way to one of their hideouts and discovers Lars-Ole's little notebook in which he leaves coded messages.  However, even after he's figured out what Lars-Ole has written, he still isn't quite sure of its meaning.   Using this little notebook as his only guide, he stays with it while other matters take up the attention of the police.  But when things take a very sinister and rather unexpected turn, the cold case of Lars-Ole's disappearance begins to heat up once again.  
As she explains, the author has set this book in "the northernmost part of Jutland" with her inspiration "the tiny village" of Em where she was born.  It is filled with woods, brooks, farms and as I read, I could envision this small little place in my head.  But beyond the setting, what really comes through in this book is how the past can continue to haunt certain people and become so deeply rooted in their minds so as to twist their perceptions,  augment their fears, and eventually control their very lives.   And another thing that I enjoyed immensely in this novel is the author's examination of the people in this small village with its hidden-away secrets.  At one point when something serious occurs, and everyone seems to think they know who might be behind it, the lead investigator notes that

"...  All these well-meaning neighbors were ever so well-informed when the harm was done. Then they were quick to interfere and get their bit of attention, but would they dream of reporting a neighbor's son to the police before he was seriously out of line?"

 I think that Ms. Jakobsen really understands the point that crime fiction should be used to examine people -- and that she shows this deftly throughout her book.  I will say that I was a little iffy about the story when Niels started looking for Lars-Ole, because I was a bit worried about where this story was going to go. Would Niels be the little crimesolver here? -- in which case I would have been really put off.   I'm happy to report, however that there's a good balance between the story of a boy searching for his very best friend, the police investigation, and the darkness that lives in this small village so I ended up having nothing to worry about.  

As I said at the beginning, reading this book made me want to read yet another novel the author's written, so obviously I liked it; I think others will find it very good reading as well. Not as intense as my usual fare, but the story hung together quite nicely and there's more than enough in here to satisfy my need to understand the darkness that lives within people. I'd say it's too dark for cozy readers and a little too light for those drawn to deep noir, so readers who find themselves between those two extremes ought to be very comfortable with this novel.  Recommended. 

Man maybe, book no: The Beige Man, by Helene Tursten

9781616954000
Soho Crime, 2015
310 pp
[originally published as En man med litet ansikte, 2007]
translated by Marlaine Delargy

hardcover

I've been a fan of Tursten's work from the first book of this series, Detective Inspector Huss, and my favorite of all of her novels will always be The Torso, book #3 in the series order. The Beige Man is book #7 and frankly, much better than the last 2 or 3 books that Tursten's produced.

As usual, Tursten captures the reader's attention within the first few opening pages. This time two officers waiting for fast food get a radio call about a stolen BMW.  As they wait, the stolen car flies right past them at top speed, so they take off after it.  While trying to keep up, the officers watch in horror as they see "something fly up in the air, then land to one side of the car."  One of the policemen realizes that the driver of the BMW has just hit someone -- who later turns out to be a retired policemen. Not too much later, the stolen, empty and now torched car is discovered in the vicinity of a holiday village in the forest, and while looking for the drivers, the police bring in the dogs, who make a horrific discovery in an old root cellar: the body of a very young, half-naked girl, who has been physically and sexually abused. However, the driver and passenger of the BMW seem to have just vanished.  As the dual investigation proceeds, the police discover that the little girl may have been a victim of sex trafficking; the only good news is that the cops have a line on the man who may have brought her into Sweden.  All of this happens within the first few pages, so of course, solving these crimes is not going to be that simple, as Irene and the other members of her group (along with the reader) quickly discover.  

There's a very thoughtful blurb on the back cover of my book from The Denver Post which says in part, 

"For decades the Swedes have excelled at crime fiction, which is often as gloomy as their long winter nights, filled with philosophical asides on life and politics."

This time around, the dark world of sex trafficking/sex slavery  is the main focus, and Tursten doesn't shy away from showing her readers exactly how horrific this "trade" really is. First of all, she informs her readers that

"...human trafficking today turns over more money than the narcotics trade."

The girls involved rarely make it out; and those who manage to do so often suffer from severe physical and mental damage. She also notes that most men who pay for sex with a "sex slave" do so likely for reasons of power, and because they see these girls as objects -- not real people. Tursten also reveals that the majority  of men who participate are "socially well-established men with families." What's even more eye-opening here is that there is even a market for killing these poor victims after they're no longer of any use --  pimps sell these girls to people who take money for getting rid of them.  And as an example of an even worse reality, Tursten also reveals that in some cases, the sex-slave trade is protected by politicians and overlooked in terms of the law because of the potentially huge amounts of money involved.  So quite frankly, it boggles my brain when I read an Amazon review of this book where the reader reviewer says the following:

"Maybe I am a bit weary of the crime of sex trafficking so this one was not as good as her others."

Weary of the crime of sex trafficking? I ask you. How does anyone get "weary" of hearing about something that needs so much public awareness?  Not only that, but hello ... the subject of this novel is right on the dustjacket blurb so caveat emptor. Duh.

What I like about Tursten's novels in general is that she doesn't have to resort to the now-standard trope of the badass heroine, but instead focuses mainly on the procedural side of police work. She situates Irene Huss in a workplace which is very much a male-dominated environment where there's no escaping from a couple of misogynistic jerks as colleagues, which is probably a more realistic situation than we non-police people realize.  The down side of this series as a whole is that while I get that the author wants to portray a woman who must juggle work with home and personal life, I'm just not a huge fan of the continuing story of the dog (and I have two dogs of my own) and the issues with the twins, especially now that they're what -- 20? 

While The Beige Man is not my personal favorite of her novels, I must say that the story is much better than the last couple of books Tursten's written and this time around I was pretty much hooked right away and stayed with the story until all was revealed. I will also mention that I had some things figured out early on which is pretty bothersome for me as a crime/mystery reader -- I'm one of those people who wants only tiny little clues to work on until the end so that everything is a huge surprise. That didn't happen here, but that's okay.  I stick with these books because I happen to like Irene Huss as a character, and as long as Helene Tursten keeps writing them, I'll keep buying them.   

from the top: Reykjavik Nights, by Arnaldur Indridason

9781846558122
Harvill Secker, 2014
originally published as Reykjavíkurnætur, 2012
translated by Victoria Cribb
294 pp

hardcover (read earlier this month)

As a rule, I'm generally not fond of surprises, but last month when I opened an email from Amazon UK and discovered that Arnaldur Indridason had another Erlendur novel out, I almost figuratively fell out of my chair.  After Strange Shores I figured "this is it - another one of my favorite series has come to an end," and went into figurative mourning. Now I am happy to report that Erlendur is back -- albeit as a young patrolman on the night shift -- in a prequel to the entire series.  A little online searching also reveals that there are two regular series novels left untranslated & unpublished (the two preceding Jar City) and one more prequel called The Match  set in 1972, two years before the setting of Reykjavik Nights.  I have to wonder  why we're getting the second  prequel before the first, meaning, who made that decision -- but the fact that there is possible potential for three more Erlendur novels to come out in translation makes me a little hopeful for the future. Obviously I am a huge fan -- no, that's not quite it  -- I actually love this series. 

On his regular shift one night, young patrolman Erlendur receives a report that takes him to the scene of the drowning  of a homeless man who went by the name Hannibal.  Since it didn't seem to investigators that there had been any foul play, CID assumed that Hannibal's death was an accident, and the case goes cold. After all, the man was known to be a tramp, CID  "had other fish to fry," and basically "no one seemed interested." Erlendur, however, had known Hannibal prior to his death, having crossed paths with him now and then, and just shortly before Hannibal's death, had listened to Hannibal when he'd claimed that someone had set fire to the cellar where he was living. Like everyone else, Erlendur didn't believe him.  Now, a year later, while Hannibal is just a name on a file tucked away somewhere in police archives Erlendur can't forget him. Flying under the radar of his superiors, he decides he has to find out what really happened to this lost soul  that night.   But Hannibal's case is just one of two cold cases Erlendur can't forget.  The case of a missing wife from the proverbial other side of the tracks in one of Iceland's better neighborhoods haunts him as well.

People who dismiss crime fiction and sneer at "genre" fiction in general obviously haven't read Indridason. Aside from his ability as a crime novelist who creates intriguing plots and characters who grow and develop throughout a long-running series, he is also an incredibly strong writer.  As just one example to highlight his talent in this area, there is a brief scene that caught my eye  in this book where Erlendur wonders why he's so "fixated on the fate of some poor tramp:"

"Whatever it was, something about Hannibal's sad story had captured Erlendur's imagination. His fate, yes, but also his dogged determination to withdraw from human society. Where had this need come from? What had caused it? Erlendur sympathised with his loneliness and mental anguish, and yet there was some element of his character -- the uncompromising fact of his existence -- that was also strangely alluring.  The way he had set himself against life and stood, alone and untouchable, beyond all help."

 Now, I ask you how often do you run across writing like this in your standard crime fiction novel? Rarely.

The very best element of Reykjavik Nights, however,  is not found in the crimes, in the idea that true evil doesn't discriminate between the best and worst neighborhoods in any city, in the social issues, or even in Erlendur's clandestine investigations.  It lies with Erlendur Sveinsson himself.  Even though he's very young and hasn't yet started on the career path as a detective ending up with the dream team of colleagues Sigurdur Oli and Elinborg,  the Erlendur whom readers know from the regular series novels is all anchored right here -- the loner, the traditionalist, the seeker of lost souls. Since I know how things are going to turn out for him later, I found myself, for example, actually upset when he started dating future ex-wife Halldora, because well, as everyone knows, that's just not going to turn out well.  It hit me while reading this book just how very much I've ended up investing in Erlendur over several years -- that may sound kind of stupid since he's a fictional character, but I suppose it  means that Indridason has created a character whose life I actually cared about. I can't honestly say that about most the characters in most crime fiction novels I read.

Personally, I think this book works best for people who've already read the entire series (at least the ones that have been translated), although it can most definitely be read as a standalone. It's much more simplistic  than the other novels, and I'm inclined to believe that the author did that on purpose to keep the  focus on Erlendur himself, rather than on the crimes.  I appreciated the obviously slower pace for that very reason.

I bought my copy in the UK; I'm looking at Amazon and I see that as of right now,  it's not slated for American publication by Minotaur until April of 2015 (9781250048424) . That's so long from now, but trust me -- if you can't pick it up sooner, it will definitely be worth the wait! 

back to the north: Spring Tide, by Cilla & Rolf Börjlind

9781843915157
Hesperus/Nova, 2014
originally published as Springfloden, 2012
473 pp

paperback, copy for review - thank you, Shannon!

I have to offer kudos to the authors for their opening chapter -- I think they designed the first few pages totally for shock value and it worked.  There is one of the most god-awful crimes going on in that chapter, and seriously, I couldn't help but to be drawn in just to see who could have committed such a terrible deed. Eventually all is made clear, but in the meantime, a number of other things are going on that the reader must work through before getting to the big reveal.  On the whole, it's not a bad book -- there are a number of twists and turns throughout the story that keep things interesting and then there's that need to figure out who could have committed such an atrocious opening crime and why that kept me reading -- but on the flip side, there are definitely issues that keep it from being a much better book.

The story begins in 1987 on the west coast of Sweden, on a night of a spring tide.  While the tide is out, three people bury a woman in the exposed sand, leaving only her head exposed, knowing that within fifteen minutes, the waves would be rolling back in with the high tide that would raise the water level about 50 centimeters. They do the deed, not knowing that there is someone else on the beach watching them. As the tide starts to come back in, we are told that not only is this poor woman pregnant, but that her water has broken.  Nearly a quarter of a century later, in 2011, young Olivia Rönning, a police-college student, is just about to start her summer holidays.  One of her instructors has a file of cold cases in his hand, and offers them a "voluntary" summer project: they are to choose one case, make an analysis of the investigation, and see if they can find anything that have been done differently - "a little exercise in how cold cases can be tackled." Olivia chooses one that her father, now deceased, had worked on as a DCI in the national crime squad.  As it just so happens, it's the murder of the pregnant woman that occurred in 1987 in Hasslevikarna, on the island of Nordkoster. Olivia really gets into this murder study, mainly because the woman's identity had never been established  - and comes up with all kinds of ideas.  The first thing she does is to look for the original investigating officer, Tom Stilton, only to find out that no one seems to know where he is. Later she will discover his whereabouts and they will team up, but first, she decides to go to Hasslevikarna herself and find out what she can there.

While Olivia is off playing girl detective, the streets of Stockholm are in a bit of turmoil. Some very nasty people are attacking the homeless on the streets, beating them up,  filming the violence on their cell phones and then sending the video to a website called Trashkick.  The police haven't seemed very interested in getting to the bottom of things, but when a woman is killed, one roughsleeping man in particular decides he needs to find out who did this, only to find out that the problem is even worse than he'd imagined.  Then there's a storyline regarding a minerals magnate who maintains his interests through some pretty unsavory methods, but who will do anything to save himself and his fortune when someone from the past pops up, threatening to reveal a shared secret.  The book encompasses all of these plotlines, along with running social commentary,  mainly on the lack of a safety net for the not-so-fortunate in Stockholm.

from hem.bredband.net

So - while I enjoyed the basic whodunit solving of the story as well as  some surprising twists that kept cropping up that appealed to my need to play armchair detective,  I think the authors were a little overambitious here.  If the story had been reined in a little more, more tightly controlled with a lot of extraneous stuff edited out,  it would have made for much better reading.  Second, I just couldn't help noticing the number of  coincidences that play a huge role throughout the book, some of them just too fluky to be credible. Then there's main character Olivia -- while she becomes embroiled in this particular cold case for her own reasons, sometimes she comes across as a less-serious heroine than one would expect. It's almost as if the authors felt they needed a young-adult component to reach a wider reading audience.  Teaming her up with the inwardly-tormented Stilton was a great idea, but even there, he's definitely the one in control. And finally, while I think crime fiction is an excellent venue for exploring social issues, it has to be done in moderation and in the context of the story to come off in a very good way -- here, it's just a little overdone for my personal taste.

So far, from what I can tell, reader reviews have been positive, with a number of people eager for Spring Tide to branch out into a series.   If that happens, I would likely give a second book a read -- while the Börjlinds may be seasoned television scriptwriters, this is their first attempt at novel writing, and they wouldn't be the only newbie novelists who were a little overambitious initially but who came back stronger in their next attempt.

Nesbø in the news AND his new book, The Son

I'm sure everyone probably already knows this, but I was delighted to see (according to this article ) that Jo Nesbø's book The Snowman is slated to become a movie.  Personally, that's a movie I'd actually pay to see, but of course, that's if it doesn't get screwed up in the translation from page to screen.  I understand the limits of adaptation but let's face it: many a good book has been totally messed up after becoming a movie.  Maybe if Larry (my spouse) goes to see it when it comes out, it will make him want to read not only Jo Nesbø, but other Scandinavian and foreign crime.  Right now, no matter how much I go on about a crime novel I really liked, he won't pick up anything but home-grown or British books, saying that the foreign names confuse him.  I'm sure he notices the eyeroll I give him in return.   So anyway, the movie is something to look forward to.

And now, for Nesbø's newest venture:

 

9781846557392

Harvill Secker, 2014

487 pp

hardcover (UK)

 (US edition slated for release May 13, Knopf)

As so often happens, I can't wait the extra time for a book by a favorite author to be released in the United States, so I turn to the UK. More expensive, yes, but I've had this bad boy pre-ordered for months. I love  Jo Nesbø, started reading his books way before he became popular here, and I'm still miffed about people comparing him to Stieg Larsson. Not even close! I liked Larsson's books, but Nesbø is in a class of his own. There are only a handful of Scandinavian writers whose books I still read and Nesbø is definitely in the top tier.  Does his new book match the level of awesomeness of his others? Why, yes it does!

For one thing, Nesbø is the master of twist. He is also the best at keeping my innards tied up knots while I'm reading, hoping everything is going to come out okay for the characters I've grown attached to.  In this newest book, that trend continues. He's one of the very few authors who can write a nearly 500-page book and make it go so quickly that I surprise myself after each day's reading as to how far I've gone.  He's also one of the very few authors that can take a bad guy and before the book is through, have me rooting for him all the way.  Well, at least that's the case in this newest book, The Son, which, in case anyone is wondering, is not another installment of  the Harry Hole series.  This one is a standalone which means that if readers haven't got through Nesbø's  series books, it's okay -- relax -- no need to rush. But do read them if you haven't.

The Son is a fast-paced tale about justice, revenge, redemption, and longstanding secrets that find their way into the present. The story  begins in a prison cell, where prisoner Sonny Lofthus is doing time for a number of crimes he didn't commit.  He has an arrangement: he confesses to crimes in return for heroin to supply his drug habit, his way of coping with the suicide of his father, policeman Ab Lofthus, whom he admired very much. Sonny is  a man with a "blissful Buddha smile," and someone to whom the other prisoners can turn to for "confession," preferring Sonny over the prison chaplain:

"It was the silence. the beckoning vacuum of someone who simply listens without reaction or judgment. Who extracts your words and your secrets from you without doing anything at all."

When the chaplain enters Sonny's cell one day to tell him about another murder that he'll be taking the rap for, Sonny's on board. But things change in an instant when another prisoner, dying of cancer, enters Sonny's cell and tells him that his father's death wasn't a suicide, but a murder. The prisoner tells Sonny that the suicide note left by his dad was a deal he made with his killers: in return for leaving the note, Sonny and his mother would live. Now Sonny wants revenge, and after escaping from prison, sets out to take it.  However, the murder of the prison chaplain and the murdered victim whose death Sonny was ready to take the rap for of course cause the police to intervene -- and when other people start dying, Chief Inspector Simon Kefas and his trainee Kari Adel of the Homicide Squad in Oslo start looking for connections between the deaths, and ultimately find them. That's all I'll give way for plot because I don't want to wreck it, but the story takes a number of strange twists and turns until ultimately old, long-buried secrets slowly rise to the surface leading to some incredibly gut-twisting moments and tough choices to be made throughout the novel. 

I am one of the pickiest crime readers I know, and  I absolutely loved this book. It's one of those stories where I found myself rooting for the bad guy even though he leaves several bodies in his wake. At the same time, the actions of the "bad guy" in this book have to be measured against others who are truly evil -- and as always, Nesbø manages to create some absolutely nefarious, totally repugnant villains.  But the motivations of pretty much all of the main characters come under scrutiny at some point, even the so-called protectors of the peace, proving that there are some matters that cannot be measured in categories of black and white, good or bad. As the novel progressed, I couldn't help but want Sonny to make it -- to escape the cops, to do whatever it takes not to end up back in prison, or worse.  I don't normally take a killer's side, and I do like to see justice done, but as readers will discover, here  it's all a  matter of relativity. I can't explain it without giving things away,  but justice becomes sort of a floaty term in this novel.  There is definitely a lot of violence here but  Nesbø fans will probably be expecting this; there are a couple of personal relationship subplots that do not interfere with the overall action but rather enhance it, and overall, it's just a super terrific novel that I hated having to put down each time real life called.  My only real niggle has to do with Nesbø's decision to insert a character who lives across from Sonny's family home ... the scenes that this character were in just didn't do it for me.  Even though it is through him the reader gains some valuable insight, I think things could have been handled better and differently.  But even so, although this caused  a slight flow issue for me, overall the book is one that any serious Nesbø fan should definitely not miss --the action, the mystery at the very heart of it all, and Nesbø's excellent storytelling all win the day and come together in a truly outstanding crime novel. 

I cannot recommend this book highly enough -- I'm just sad that people here have to wait another two weeks to get their hands on it!

The Fire Dance, by Helene Tursten

9781616950101
Soho Crime, 2014 (January)
336 pp

arc -- tons of gratitude to Paul at Soho Crime for my copy.

I know I should probably wait until January to post my discussion about this book, but it's close enough now, and just maybe someone might be thinking of pre-ordering this book for a Christmas gift.  What the hey, right? I feel so lucky having received an advanced copy of this book! When the word came down that Soho was publishing this book, I was happy; when I got an email for the review copy, I was ecstatic.  Helene Tursten has long been one of my favorite Scandinavian crime writers, and Irene Huss one of my favorite Nordic police detectives.   To be honest, I've given up on a lot of Scandinavian crime writers but she's one of the few authors whose books I pick up as soon as they hit the shelves. 

The Fire Dance splits time periods -- the first, from 1989-1990, when Irene has been with the department only a month.  Her girls are very young, and  husband Krister is grateful for his 30-hour/wk part-time job. A difficult case found its way into her lap when after three months, a young girl named Sophie Malmborg, possible witness to a fire at her home that killed a man, has been unwilling to speak for three months. Despite the best efforts of professionals, Sophie will not talk.  Irene's boss, Sven Andersson, figures that since Irene is a woman with small children, she might have much more luck getting Sophie to say something.  She gets plenty from all of the other people in Sophie's life, but Sophie still isn't talking.  With no further clues, and with other cases coming up, the case goes cold, and life moves on.  Flash forward to 2004 -- fifteen years after the house fire, Sophie is dead, after having disappeared for three weeks.  Irene now has only very meager clues, but several suspects, and as was the case fifteen years earlier she's needed on another big case and time is growing short.    In the meantime, things are happening on the home front that will require her attention.

Helene Tursten is always able to provide her armchair-detective readers with a solid mystery to ponder, and that is certainly the case in The Fire Dance.  Irene must rely on the fifteen-year old unsolved case to make any headway in the present, and the way Tursten sets up this up case gives it kind of an eerie turn. She also does a fine job in conveying Irene's devotion both to the job and her family, and does so a way that never seems forced.  I could do with less of the dog (I think I say that about every Irene Huss novel) and the emphasis on the food choices made by the vegan daughter, but otherwise, I appreciate this aspect of Tursten's series.  While I didn't find it as edgy or as solid as her book The Torso, my favorite of the series, The Fire Dance still very much pleased my picky crime-fiction reader self.  All I would say in the negative zone is that I would have loved to have seen less cute and more edge. But that's a personal thing.

Regular followers of this series will not be disappointed; probably not a good read for hardboiled, noir or cozy  crime readers; more for those who enjoy solid police procedurals with a personal twist.  As my list of favorite Scandinavian crime writers is dwindling, I'm am so happy to have found this series, and I'm even happier that Soho continues to publish them for American readers. 

Police, by Jo Nesbø

9780307960498
Knopf, 2013
436 pp
originally published as Politi, 2013
translated by Don Bartlett

hardcover

Police is #10 in Nesbø's wonderful Harry Hole series, and by golly, it's a winner. I have read all but The Bat and Cockroaches from this series, but I don't know whether or not my guts have ever been so twisted  while reading any Nesbø novel prior to this one.  The suspense tempted me so many times to turn to the end, but to my credit, I didn't cheat.

From the very outset, the author delights in playing with your head.  In a guarded hospital room, a man is laying in a coma.  While he's hovering between life and death, someone is luring members of the Oslo police force to their deaths.  The victims seem to be connected to old, unsolved cases, and they die in extremely terrible ways on or near the anniversaries of the crimes.  Harry's old friends on the Oslo police force are stymied ... there is very little in the way of clues or forensics left behind, and the police are under a great deal of pressure to do something about these murders before any more policemen get killed. They're also under pressure from Harry's nemesis Mikael Bellman, the current police chief, to get the cases solved because he has ambitions, and taking credit for solving these murders will help him move up the political ladder.  The team goes behind Bellman's back to try to stop the killer from striking again, but things get really ugly when when a particularly brutal murder hits very close to home.

Around this central plot, which ultimately focuses on the search for justice, there's much more going on.  A particularly nasty suspect gives the police a run for its money; police burner Truls Berntsen and his crony Mikael Bellman are up to their old dirty tricks once more and through it all, things get really twisty as the book comes to a startling conclusion.  I swear -- for once it was me, rather than the characters, who became angst ridden over how this was all going to play out -- my insides were churning waiting to see a) who the killer was and why he/she did what he/she did and b) how much nastier Bellman and Berntsen could possibly get while continuing to manipulate things behind the scenes.  And through it all, you will be kept wondering and guessing.

I don't care what anyone says, I LOVED this book! I know I say this a lot about Nesbø's books,  but this just might be my favorite of the entire series. It is  twisty and turny, frightening and unrelenting in the tension it managed to produce in my insides, and it is truly Nesbø at his writing best.  If you're new to the most excellent work of Jo Nesbø  you may wish to start at the very beginning and make your way forward through the series, as each book builds on what comes before;  if you don't want to take that much time, at least read the novel prior to this one, Phantom.  Highly, highly recommended!

Erlendur returns! Strange Shores, by Arnaldur Indridason

9781846557118
Harvill Secker, 2013
originally published as Furðustrandir, 2010
translated by Victoria Cribb

296 pp

hardcover

"...part of him would forever belong to this place, a witness to the helplessness of the individual when confronted by the pitiless forces of nature."


Each time a new novel by Arnaldur Indridason is published, I refuse to wait until it's been published in the US and so I go straight to Amazon UK to get my copy. Expensive? Yes. Do I care? No.  Arnaldur Indridason is among the few Scandinavian crime fiction writers I still read since a lot (not all) of what's been coming out lately in that area seems to be a mix of crime, romance and badass chick-lit; he's also up there on my list of favorite all-time crime writers as well.  I've been following the series since it started, well, at least since book three, Jar City, which was the first of the Erlendur series novels to be translated into English.  There are two before Jar City, and according to stopyourekillingme.com, there are two more to come after Strange Shores: one, The Match, listed as a prequel, set in 1972, the other with the title Reykjavik Nights.  Strange Shores is easily one of Indridason's best books in the series, and at the same time, perhaps one of the saddest of them all.

If you've followed the entire Erlendur saga, the last time anyone in Reykjavik saw him was during the events of Hypothermia, a case that had stirred up Erlendur's memories of his brother's death in the mountains of Eskifjördur, near to where they'd grown up.  The end of that novel reveals that Erlendur had returned to the "derelict farm that had once been his home;" as Strange Shores begins, he's still there, camped out comfortably in the old croft at Bakkasel.  It's a place he's returned to now and then, "when he felt the urge."  It's a place where he can relive his memories about the day he lost his brother and the reason for the guilt he's carried with him ever since.  As the novel opens, Erlendur is out  walking one day and  runs into a farmer who's an expert on foxes. While they're talking, the farmer tells Erlendur that he had been part of the search party who'd gone to search for Erlandur's brother,  who had gone missing in a blizzard after becoming separated from Erlendur.   He also happens to mention that during the war, a group of sixty British soldiers had also become caught in a storm on the moors, an event that people still remember. What people don't seem to talk about any longer, however, is the disappearance in the same storm of Matthildur, a young woman who had supposedly gone off on foot across the moors to visit her mother in a neighboring town, and caught in the storm,  was never seen nor heard from again.  Talking to her sister  Hrund, Erlendur notes that he has a personal interest in "stories about ordeals in the wilderness,"  and wants to know more about what had happened. As he gets wrapped up in  Matthildur's story,  as his curiosity morphs into a private investigation, and as he continues on his quest, he begins to realize that perhaps there are some people who would rather that he stop dredging up the past. Even as he questions his decisions to move forward, wondering why he should "rake up what was better left undisturbed," he knows he's not going to stop:

  "his sole intention was to uncover the truth in every case, to track down what was lost and forgotten."

As in many of Indridason's Erlendur novels,  Strange Shores dwells largely on the past, and in this book, the Inspector's quest to "track down what was lost" leads him not only to uncover information about Matthildur, but about his brother and himself in the process.  And while regular fans may not like the ending of this novel at all, imho,  it is quite fitting in terms of Erlendur's character -- and offers a sense of completeness to what he's been looking for throughout most of his life.  

Even considering the feelings I have about the ending of this book, it is truly one of Indridason's best, a book no crime fiction reader following this series should miss.  It is the most poignant of the entire series, the most beautifully written, and trust me, one you will not soon forget. Regular readers of Indridason's series know that Erlendur has always been more comfortable with tradition, and that as things have changed around him he's been less than willing to embrace the new and frankly, in some cases, really doesn't understand it. Here, he's in his element, as he is enveloped by the past. At the same time,  Indridason continues his critique of social and other changes, this time regarding the advent of new industry, the building of a new and controversial hydroelectric dam, and work going to lower-paid immigrants, giving voice to his concerns through Erlendur:

"He couldn't understand how on earth an unaccountable multinational, based far away in America, had been permitted to put its heavy industrial stamp on a tranquil ford and tract of untouched wilderness here in the remote east of Iceland."

Do not, under any circumstances, let this be your introduction to Erlendur.  Start with Jar City, and make your way through the series slowly, savoring every second. This isn't a series even remotely close to thriller-ville like a lot of crime writing, nor is it filled with fast-paced action or badass women.  If that's what you want in your Scandinavian crime, go for it, but you won't get that here.  This series is highly intelligent, sophisticated, and is one to be savored.

crime fiction from Iceland