My Annihilation, by Fuminori Nakamura

 

9781641292726

Soho Crime, 2021

originally published as Watashi no Shometsu, 2016

translated by Sam Bett

257 pp

hardcover

My Annihilation is yet another book I'm reluctant to label as simply crime fiction -- there are layers upon layers to unfold during the reading, and as the author himself notes in an afterword, in this novel he is exploring 

"questions about what it means to be human, and what it means to exist in the world,"

as well as the question "what is a self?"  

It doesn't take too long to become completely immersed in this novel, which begins in "a cramped room in a rundown mountain lodge," where our narrator is considering the "various forms of identification" in his bag, all belonging to someone named Ryodai Kozuka.   In a corner of the room is a white suitcase which he did not bring there, and on the desk is a manuscript, which he believes just might be Kozuka's life story.  As he begins to read, he finds a warning:

"Turn this page, and you may give up your entire life," 

but the narrator reveals that he has "no intention" of giving up his "old life;" all he wants is Kozuka's identity.   Noting that while Kozuka may have left some "unfinished business" behind, he assures himself that "it was no business of mine."    It's at this point (and we're only on page four) that I realized that it may have been a smart thing to heed that warning, but on into the manuscript he goes.  

What he discovers within is unsettling, at best.  It begins with Kozuka's narrative about his childhood experiences, about which after only one-third of the way through, the narrator observes a similarity to his own story.  Reading on, he comes to a passage where Kozuka, looking back, notes that 

"... It doesn't even feel like this is me. It's all so blurry, like something shrouded in a distant fog.  But evidently somebody is going to take my place. Someone willing to take over for me, accepting all the horrors ... I'm going to be saved."  

This bit obviously disturbs the narrator, but only momentarily;  continuing on he comes to the story of  real-life serial killer  Tsutomu Miyazaki,  "one of the most infamous criminals in Japan."  And while the narrator asks himself "What was all that about?"  we know that there are certain things that link both Miyazaki and the author of the manuscript, which I won't mention to avoid spoilers.  Yet for our narrator, nothing seems more important at the time than opening that white suitcase, until he is interrupted by the ringing of a bell to his room.  That's when things, if not weird enough already, start to take the reader far, far down the rabbit hole.  

Without spoiling things for potential readers, what actually emerges here is a sinister plot for revenge,  and I must say it's one of the creepiest I've encountered, with the actual mystery behind it all taking a number of  surprising twists and turns before all is revealed.   Underlying this novel is the answer to the question of "what is a self,"  to which the author responds that  "Under a particular set of circumstances, it becomes impossible to tell."  Using various forms of textual material throughout the novel, the author runs with this idea, revealing just how easy it is "to get inside a person's head," an idea at the very heart of this story.  He raises questions of identity and memory, especially the ways in which they might be changed or in this case, even created. With that then comes the question of what happens to the original self that must somewhere continue to exist; this sort of philosophical/psychological underpinning  is why I noted my reluctance at the outset to define My Annihilation as just another crime novel. At the same time, it moves this book well and deeply into the literary zone, and as the back-cover blurb notes, "into the darkest corners of human consciousness."   In short, it's right up my alley.  

I love to try to solve mysteries as I read them, but My Annihilation is  one of those books where just when you think you have a handle on things, there's a shift and you realize you're completely off base.  As quickly as things change here, for me it became a matter of just giving up, going with the flow and letting things reveal themselves.   I'm not sure I'd recommend this one to all crime/mystery readers, but it's definitely for people who like their reading on the darker side.  

coming soon to a bookstore near you: Smaller and Smaller Circles, by F.H. Batacan

9781616953980
Soho Crime, 2015
357 pp

hardcover (thank you, Soho!!)

In the acknowledgements section of this book the author writes

"The first time I wrote this book -- in 1996, when I was in my mid-twenties -- I was angry: angry about my job, about the state of my country, about the callousness, complacency and corruption that had dragged it there.

The second time I wrote this book -- in 2013, in my forties, having moved back home with my infant son -- I found myself even angrier"  about the state of my country, which seemed even worse than it was in 1996, and about the callousness, complacency and corruption that kept it there."

I'm here to tell you that a lot of that anger shows up in this novel.  And that's a good thing. Let's face it...serial killer novels these days are a dime a dozen, so there has to be something to differentiate the good ones from the ho-hum and the same old same old.  Author F.H. Batacan has found the way to do it.  Her  book Smaller and Smaller Circles (out August 18th)  is not your average hunt-for-the-serial-killer story, but rather a look at how politics, corruption, the church, and the desire for power all get in the way of getting to the truth.  It also examines failure on the part of officials to take action because of the view that some lives aren't as valuable as others and just aren't worth doing anything about.  Heck, I got angry reading this book, and I don't even live in the Philippines.

Luckily, in this story, someone actually cares.  It's 1997, and the body of a young boy is discovered in the dump of Payatas, a place which, according to the blurb is  "northeast of Manila's Quezon city...one of the poorest neighborhoods in a city whose laws enforcement is already stretched thin, ... and rife with corruption." The boy has been eviscerated and the face peeled off. As it turns out, the discovery of this boy raises the body count of similar dead boys to six, a fact noted by Father Gus Saenz, a Jesuit priest who is also a leading forensic anthropologist.  Saenz, along with his partner and protégé Father Jerome Lucero, have been asked to help end this series of killings by Director Lastimosa of the National Bureau of Investigations (NBI). The director understands that the police are not very thorough, that "life is cheap in that part of the city," and that  "little police effort ... is expended toward following up" if the victims are not "wealthy or influential."  If the killer is to be stopped, it will have to be done a different way. However, the Director finds himself at times at political odds with the people around him, some of whom had been hoping for a different man for the position and who are antagonistic toward their boss.  Nevertheless, the Director is adamant that if anyone can help, it's Saenz and Lucero, but they too have their problems, including funding to keep their small laboratory going and the fact that those who head up the police departments refuse to believe that there are any serial killers roaming around. But Lastimosa, Saenz and Lucero have no time to waste -- once they've established a profile of their killer and determine a pattern based on death dates, they know that another killing is just on the horizon.   Saenz is also fighting the Church because of its refusal to sideline a child-molesting priest; the Church refuses to give the man over to authorities to face punishment for his crimes.  Smaller and Smaller Circles is the story of the efforts made to catch a killer despite all of the official (and other) obstacles thrown in the paths of the small handful of people who actually care.  

The story is told via third-person narrative, interrupted every so often with the thoughts of the killer,whose identity remains hidden throughout the story.  Truth be told, this is the gimmicky part of this novel, but fortunately, being inside the killer's head only lasts for a short time here and there. Most of the book centers on the ongoing investigation, but the author manages to weave a great deal of social commentary into her story -- the lackadaisical attitudes of the police; the corruption which has been endemic to this country,  the crimes committed by the highest authorities and politicians in the country, the rampant poverty and extremely poor, often deplorable social conditions faced by many who live there, the connection between Church and secular politics, and much more.  In my opinion, Batacan has very deftly used the medium of crime fiction to give us her take on what's kept her angry enough to write this book.   I will say that for me, the discovery of the "who" was sort of an anti-climax, almost as if the author got to the point of having to tie the various storylines together but wasn't quite sure about how to do it.  On the other hand, it really didn't matter because like most novels I really like, it's much more about the getting there than the actual solution of the crime. I'll also say that Ms. Batacan writes very well, lifting this novel well above most serial-killer novels that are on bookstore shelves as we speak.  

Smaller and Smaller Circles is, for serious fans of crime fiction, a book not to be missed.

new from Soho: Innocence; or Murder on Steep Street, by Heda Margolius Kovály

 9781616954963
Soho Crime, 2015
originally published as Nevina, 1985
translated by Alex Zucker

256 pp

arc -- my super huge thanks to Paul at Soho for sending me my copy.


"... life just glides along, until all of a sudden one day everything goes off the rails." 

First things first. I bought a hardcover copy of this book, so if anyone in these here United States would like my advanced reader copy, let me know and it's yours. Free, gratis, and I pay postage. It really needs a new home.  

While reading this book, it didn't take too long to realize that the author had much more on her mind than writing an ordinary crime novel.  There's way too much going on around the plot and the action that would lead anyone to believe this is just another mystery story.   If you read the introduction to this book written by her son Ivan, he notes that 

"Several personalities in the book see acts like lying, misrepresenting, informing, and betraying confidences as inconsequential, trivial matters, thus diluting the difference between guilt and innocence. Even murder is perceived as an accident for which no one is to blame."

He also calls the story an "intensely complex psychological drama," and this is much more the reality of this book than the "Chandleresque mystery" it's advertised as. It's true that the author loved Chandler, and as the intro goes on to say, like Marlowe, the main character of this novel "struggles" ... "to make her existence worthwhile in an environment devoid of respect for human life."    What the author has given us here, I think, is much more of a fictionalized picture of an historical reality in a totalitarian society -- where people live knowing they are under surveillance, where informing is sometimes a way just to stay ahead of the knock on the door in the middle of the night, and where the fact of who you are can often determine your fate.  All of what I'm saying here is important because if you pick up this novel expecting a standard crime-novel plot trajectory, you're reading the wrong book. As I said, it didn't take me long to figure out that Kovály was writing a somewhat-disguised version of her own story, and I absolutely had to know more about this woman so I picked up her memoir Under a Cruel Star: A Life in Prague 1941-1968.  If you have the option, either read Under a Cruel Star just before or right after reading Innocence -- as I noted in my own post about that book, it is (in part) an examination of human nature and the moral choices people make under some horrific and appalling circumstances.  And if you read carefully in Innocence, you'll notice the same thing goes on here in the "fractured incarcerated society" that was 1950s Prague under totalitarian rule.

 Just briefly, Helena Nováková works as an usher at a theater.  This is the best job she can get now because her husband has been imprisoned, and she herself is also under surveillance, as the powers that be believe she must have also been involved with her husband's activities against the state.  Not only does she have a low-paying job, she is poison -- anyone seen talking or socializing with her may also come under suspicion; informants are everywhere.  Of course neither Helena nor her husband are guilty, but it didn't take much  at that time to fall under the purview of the state.  The theater where she works becomes a crime scene with the discovery of a dead boy, and now it is not only Helena who is being watched, but the others who work there. The story really centers on this small group of people -- their secrets, their personal interactions with each other and their lives outside of the theater --  and of course, more murders follow. 

As I said earlier, the focus of this book isn't so much on the crimes; instead, it's more about the choices the main characters make as they find themselves becoming caught up in various situations.  It is a bleak book, one that really gets across the sense of the existing fear and paranoia of the time and one that reflects what ordinary people had to endure under this regime. But the bottom line is, it is also one woman's very personal (albeit disguised) story, and Heda Margolius Kovaly is a woman whose true story is worth knowing.  A beautiful book -- maybe not so much a great mystery novel, but once you're into it you start to realize that the crime component truly is not  the important story here. Even if it turned out to be something I wasn't really expecting,  I loved this book. It won't be everyone's cuppa, but it most certainly was mine. 

Once again, my sincere thanks to Paul at Soho.  

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.   

Peter Lovesey rides again with The Stone Wife

9781616953935
Soho Crime, 2014
355 pp

arc, from the publisher (thank you!)

I have an entire room devoted to crime from the UK, and several shelves right in the center of that room hold volumes of Peter Lovesey's work. I first discovered his books when I found an old Penguin edition of Wobble to Death at a used book store, and from there I made a point of collecting every mystery/crime novel he's ever written. The Stone Wife is the fourteenth Diamond entry, and while it may not be as lively as some of Lovesey's previous novels, it's still a good light read. 

The story begins in an auction house where there's a bidding war going on. The fact that a couple of the bids are coming by phone is somewhat surprising, because normally the auction sale consisted of the "disposal of old bits brought in to the Bath office for valuation, many of them bric-a-brac or tat."  Obviously, there's something of value that's being auctioned off in lot 129, and whatever it is must be worth quite valuable.  The bidding started at five hundred pounds, rising  to an amazing twenty-four thousand when suddenly,  three masked men with guns come in, determined to take lot 129 for themselves.  This draws the ire of the winner of the bid, who becomes irate when the masked men start to cart off his prize, and in the process of trying to take it back he gets shot and killed.  The would-be thieves flee, leaving very little in the way of clues behind.  When lot 129 is uncovered, it turns out to be a medieval carving of Geoffrey Chaucer's "Wife of Bath," one of the pilgrims in his Canterbury Tales.  The dead man is identified as John Gildersleeve, a professor of Medieval English Literature. As Diamond and his team start to delve into his past, questions begin to surface, but the biggest one is this: was the shooting of this man a random act perpetrated by thieves, or had someone set up  some "Byzantine" plot culminating in Gildersleeve's murder?  While Ingeborg goes undercover to see if she can track the source of the guns, the rest of the team get busy trying to figure out exactly what happened by focusing on Gildersleeve himself. 

As with many of the Diamond novels, The Stone Wife reaches into Bath's historical and archaeological past; since Chaucer figures prominently in this novel there is also some discussion about the author's life, history, and works as well. The plot is not at all complicated and very easy to read -- this is definitely crime light, in a good way that brings out some of Diamond's little trademark eccentricities while he and the team solve a most baffling case with a wide array of potential suspects.   There are also a few scenes that draw the reader to the plight of modern development  impinging on historical or natural landscapes, and the powerlessness of locals who try to stop it.  On the other hand, the liveliness that exists between Diamond and the other members of his crime-solving team just isn't there this time as it has been in the past and I missed it.  Another point: there was much more going on than I felt necessary in terms of Ingeborg's undercover work -- imho, that part took up more space and reader attention than it really needed to, and sort of drew away from the main thrust of the story.    

If you haven't read the Diamond novels before, you could still read The Stone Wife as a standalone, but you'll have a much better grasp of the intrepid Inspector if you start from the beginning of the series. This is a good novel for readers of crime light -- not that there's anything light about a murder, but there's no major character angst, no gratuitous violence or sex, and it really is a good old-fashioned murder mystery that you can just curl up and escape with for a few hours. While it's not my normal thing, I will always make time to catch up on what Peter Diamond and his crew are up to.  Recommended, especially for those who like their crime and crimesolvers on the the tame side. 

Herbie's Game, by Timothy Hallinan

9781616954291
Soho Crime, 2014
400 pp

arc from the publisher - thank you!

Junior Bender is back in a fourth episode, following Crashed, Little Elvises, and The Fame Thief but still going strong.  I've been binge watching every season of Game of Thrones lately trying to be ready for season five,  but I gave up several very late nights of watching to read this book -- and it was well worth it.  That actually says a lot, because Game of Thrones is deep in my blood right now.  

Moving right along, Herbie's Game begins as our burglar hero Junior Bender is asked by a "contractor" named Wattles to retrieve some property of his that had been stolen. Wattles, whose memory is "not what it used to be," would 

"arrange anything, from a cautionary faceful of knuckles or a modest supermarket fire all the way up to a whack, for the right fee." 

Someone hired Wattles to do a hit, and he'd written down the chain of "disconnects" that were to be involved.  He stashed the list of names in his safe and now it's been taken. Wattles wants it back. Signs point to Junior's old mentor and surrogate dad Herbie Mott as the thief, but when Junior goes to see him, Herbie is dead after being tortured in a not-so-very-nice way.  Junior is brought low by Herbie's death, and as he continues to track down the chain of disconnects, he not only reflects on Herbie's importance to him in his life, but finds out more about Herbie than he's ever known. He also runs up against someone who seems to be a step or two ahead of him each time, someone who leaves behind dead bodies but no clues.

If you've lived in Los Angeles for any length of time, then you're aware that Hallinan knows not only the area, but the people who live there.  I have seen pretty much all of his archetypes on the streets and on the beaches there, and his characters are spot on.  In Herbie's Game he's added a new one that just cracked me up -- Ting Ting the lovable Filipino houseboy who may have gotten the better of Junior, but who for some reason is very attractive to the criminal element of both sexes.  He also adds a couple of teenaged hacker girls who make much more than Junior ever will (one of whom is planning to use the money to go to MIT later),  an over-the-top attorney with mirrored shades, a killer who got religion and a clairvoyant who runs The All-Seeing Eye by the name of Handkerchief.    It is this ensemble of  characters, along with a host of others,  who make these books work and work well -- because despite the fact that they're all pretty much involved in some form of crime or another, they come off as realistic people you grow to care about. They all see their worlds through a very different perspective, and as all these lives unfold, with Junior at the center,  the result is that you might actually find yourselves rooting for their success.

Each and every one of these books has had their laugh-out-loud moments, and this one is no exception. At the same time, Herbie's Game has its somber moments as Junior works through his grief over the loss of Herbie, which brings his mind around once again to his feelings about his father, which makes him ponder the kind of father he is to his teenaged daughter Rina.  And in the midst of the comedy, Hallinan's characters will take a few moments to ponder social and economic injustices, a trait  which elevates this book, and indeed the entire series, to something well beyond being just  another "caper" novel.

I have to say that I get nothing but pure pleasure from reading  these books, and I highly recommend them. Do not, I repeat, do not start with Herbie's Game, but read them all from the start. Junior Bender is not your typical crook -- he's got a heart, a conscience, and frankly, he's a downright decent guy, but to get the most of his character and of Mr. Hallinan's  quirky, extremely cool writing style, you have to start from the very beginning.  I love this series and as long as the books continue to be written, I'll be reading them,  hot off the press.

and now, back to Game of Thrones. 

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. 

On a Bender x3: Crashed, Little Elvises and The Fame Thief, by Timothy Hallinan

After spending a LOT of time on all of this dark crime, it's time to lighten up for a while with the added pleasure of discovering a previously-unread (by me) author.   Timothy Hallinan is a snarky writer who, among all of his other talents, has totally captured Los Angeles in his three novels Crashed, Little Elvises, and The Fame Thief.    I know -- I worked there for some time and lived pretty much next door to the Valley for what seems like eons, and he's nailed it.  You  meet all kinds of people, see all sorts of bizarro-world things that are perfectly normal there,  and well, he's somehow managed to capture that feel of LA that's pretty much indescribable to people who've never lived or spent major amounts of time there. 

Hallinan's antihero main character is Junior Bender, so-called because his father's name was Merle and, not wanting to saddle his son with the same name, his dad officially named him Junior.  His education consisted of reading through The Recognitions, by William Gaddis, a book that led him on to other books where he learned a host of other important things.  Junior is divorced from Kathy, and has a wise-beyond-her-years newly- teenaged daughter named Rina whom he absolutely adores.  Junior, however, is not like other dads -- he makes his living as a burglar, a career he started at the age of 15, and sometimes does favors for less savory people who have no other avenues and who know Junior will  get the job done. 

In the first installment of this series, Crashed,
 

9781616952761
Soho Crime, 2012
356 pp
 paper

career-burgler Junior Bender has picked up a gig from a  "facilitator," whose client wants Junior to steal a Paul Klee painting from some people who are currently on vacation.  She has provided the layout and other info Junior will need to know -- but what she doesn't know is that there's a video camera that is tracking Junior's every move.  Sadly, he discovers it too late...and the guy who monitors the stored recordings has him in a corner. He will either work for Trey Annunziato, "a third-generation hood," "heir to the Valley's most diversified crime family," and "Mount Rushmore with hair," and do the job right, or his face will be the one the painting's owners see on the recording when they come back from their vacation.  Trey is planning to go straight and has decided to make one last porno movie "to finance everybody's transition to the straight life," meaning all of those people involved in her criminal enterprises.  The star is going to be a former child actress, Thistle Downing  who captured everyone's hearts on her own television show some years earlier but now is a drug addict having trouble making it through the day.  While Trey's plan to exploit Thistle is already in progress, there are people who don't want to see the film made, and there have already been problems.  Junior's job is to make sure Thistle is ready to work, and to see that the film gets made at any cost.   As Junior soon finds out, this won't be easy -- and when one of his friends ends up dead, it becomes personal.

It sounds kind of like a cut-and-dried kind of mystery, but no. There are multiple laugh-out-loud moments and the author's totally nailed LA and the Valley here, along with the various personality types you find living there.  No one is safe from his snark here, most especially  the media vultures and the film industry.  Crashed is a book that is hard to dislike -- and I don't really have anything on the negatory side to say about it.  It's good for all crime readers, especially when you want something on the lighter as opposed to edgy side, although it does have its moments of blood, guts and wisecracks.  As an anti-hero, Junior's one of the best -- he has a conscience and a very clear sense of morality with lines he tries not to cross unless absolutely necessary.  In his own burglar sort of way, he's a wonderful dad, and has made a promise to himself to never lie to his daughter -- who has her own very cool personality as well.   Definitely a first-rate series starter, and after I finish this series, I'll be off to find others by this writer.   I LOVED this book, and I think my enthusiasm must have bubbled over, because now my husband is reading it. We never agree on crime novels, but I think this book may prove to be the exception.

Moving on to the second book in this series, Little Elvises

9781616952792
Soho Crime, 2012
347 pp
paper

has one of those very cool storylines where the past returns to bite people in the butt in the present.  As in the previous book, Junior is once again being blackmailed into something he doesn't particularly want to do.  A Detective DiGaudio tells him that the cops can make him for a crime that could put him away for twenty years, even though he and Junior both know he didn't do it.  Even though he has an alibi, the people Junior was with at the time of the crime have been already intimidated by the cops so he can't hope for any help in that arena.  As it turns out, diGaudio's uncle Vinnie, who lives with an ex WWF wrestler named Hilda the Queen of the Gestapo and now goes by Popsie, is on the edge of being arrested for the murder of tabloid hack Derek Bigelow.  Vinnie's on the hook because people have heard him say he was planning on offing the guy, but actually, some unknown person beat him to it.  The detective wants Junior to get his uncle's name cleared ... or Junior goes down.

Back in the 1950s/60s, Vinnie, who has a long history with the music industry,  promoted "Little Elvises," who were all the rage on an American Bandstand-type program -- there for their handsome looks rather for any musical talent.   They filled a vacuum between the "raw" -- Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard, for example, and the Pat Boone types.  These "handsome Italian kids with tight pants and big hair,"  as Junior's daughter told him in a report she did for school, were "churned up to the surface in the wake of Elvis Presley" in Philadelphia.  The "most pathetic" of the little Elvises was named Giorgio,  and one of the better ones, Bobby Angel, just disappeared one day.  Having no choice, Junior has to take this case seriously, but it isn't long until Junior realizes that someone's after him --  after his first visit to Uncle Vinnie,  someone's already shooting at him.   Hiding out at the North Pole Motel in the Blitzen room, he enlists the help of Louie the Lost, his friend who gained his name when as a getaway driver he got lost in a Compton neighborhood with a trunk full of diamonds.   With the help of his daughter Rina, Junior blazes his way through a very strange case; however, he's actually in for more than he bargained for when Bigelow's widow cozies up to him and when Marge, the North Pole's owner, asks him to find her missing daughter. 

You just have to appreciate Timothy Hallinan's whacked imagination in these books.   Once again, he's done an excellent job in evoking LA's craziness and its overall atmosphere, which really is like nowhere else if you really get to know it.   Junior's character has definitely become a bit more complex since Crashed, especially in his interactions with his daughter and his ambivalence about his ex-wife, especially now that she seems to have a new boyfriend.  Like the other book, his interactions with the other characters are often hysterical, but in this slice of the world Hallinan has created, make perfect sense.  And what characters they are -- crazy as loons some of them.    The author notes that he wanted to "play with the idea with the idea of media imitation" here, but there's also a theme that carries over from Crashed -- namely, the idea that fame can destroy someone who's not prepared for it. Once again, I'm floored by how good this book is -- while it may seem a bit complicated at first, as the few initial "aha" moments are reached, things begin to fall into place easily. Underneath the laughs, there is a sad and rather human human story here. Recommended.

Moving on to the third and newest book in this series, with grateful thanks to Soho,  Junior's back in The Fame Thief, another story that has its roots in the past and in the entertainment industry.

 

9781616952808
Soho Crime, 2013
324 pp
hardcover,

ARC from Soho Crime (thanks!)

The Fame Thief might be considered an ode to "all the beautiful and not so beautiful girls everywhere who lose their way in the world without stumbling over anyone kind."

We're back in Hollywood territory once again as Junior takes on a sixty-plus year old mystery.  This time he's not being blackmailed, but he's been summoned and hired by Irwin Dressler, a career mobster who pretty much controlled everything that went on in Hollywood for years.  Dressler is in his 90s, and is taken care of by two thugs named Tuffy and Babe, but he is still one of the most dangerous old men around and someone to whom no one says no.  Junior has been picked up by Dressler to find out who destroyed the career of Dolores La Marr, an actress who was once known as "the most beautiful woman in the world," and a Life Magazine cover girl way back when.  One night in Vegas, 1950, the cops raided a party and everyone was picked up and tossed into jail, but everyone was bailed out within a couple of hours.  Everyone, that is, except Dolores.  A picture taken through the bars of her cell --"no sleep, no shower, no hairbrush, " makeup everywhere from crying -- turned up "everywhere," followed by more stories leaking pictures of Dolores with known criminals.  As Dolores notes, 

"One day I was the wide-eyed innocent from Scranton who was hitting it big in the sticks, and a week later I was the Whore of Babylon, I was a gun moll, I was a paid companion, I was a prostitute...I was over."

Dressler wants to know who set her up back then, and Junior starts looking into Hollywood's past, which is more than connected with the mob. But when he starts digging, people start dying.

The Fame Thief is another fine entry in this series, and like the other two,  filled with that sarcastic, snarky humor that sets this series apart as well as that insider view of Los Angeles. There are a couple of diversions here not found in the others, though -- first, a step back in time to get the picture from Dolores' point of view, cool because I love when the past meets present in any novel;  second, well, let's just say it's an element that took me by surprise and one which I was not so keen on, but I won't spoil it.  I think all in all, this book may have been my favorite as far as storyline (without the final chapter), and I'll definitely look forward to the next installment. 

The Golden Calf, by Helene Tursten

9781616950088
Soho Crime, 2013
340 pp
originally published as Guldkalven, 2033
translated by Laura A. Wideburg

hardcover

I've been a huge fan of Helene Tursten's Irene Huss novels since I picked up the first book in the series.  My favorite of the series is her third book, The Torso, an excellent novel that not only satisfies in terms of the crime and its twisted solution, but also because it is extremely well written.  Now here we are at book six (fifth to be translated), and I have to say I'm a wee bit disappointed, most decidedly because of the ending.  Up to that point, she had me hanging on to the story's every word and then out of nowhere comes this ending that did not at all fit.

Together with friend and partner Tommy Persson, Detective Inspector Irene Huss is on the scene of a particularly brutal murder in a magnificent home overlooking the bay.  The dead man is Kjell Bengtsson Ceder, a restauranteur who is also in the hotel business. Shot at point-blank range, he leaves behind a beautiful young wife, Sanna, and a baby.  Kjell's name has come up with the police before in connection with a tragic boating accident which led to the death of his first wife. There is enough to link the killing of Ceder with a double homicide under investigation as well as to another unsolved missing persons case the police have already worked on. When the detectives put their heads together, the common denominator of all of these incidents turns out to be Sanna, via an earlier  IT business that crashed when the bubble burst. The problem is that Sanna is not being exactly up front with the police, and nothing the detectives do can persuade her to tell all she knows.   Hopefully, the police will be able to convince her before someone else is found dead.

Aside from the already-known crew of detectives and Huss' family, Tursten has done an especially fine job in building the key player Sanna.  She comes across as a spoiled,  pampered, newly-rich but clueless person, and her character remains consistent throughout the book.  Another quality I admired in this novel was the pacing.  It was plotted carefully so as to continue to add layer upon layer of suspense, so that the reader is very much drawn into the story and can't wait to find out all of the answers and get to the big reveal.  At that point is where I started having problems.  Here I am, majorly invested in this story, and it all goes a bit sideways with the rather (imho) flimsy ending that I thought sort of came out of left field.  The ride was both fun and kept me completely involved while it lasted, but really, I think she could have done much better in bringing  the mysteries to a close.

The book is being well received by many readers, with many 4 and 5 star ratings, and had the ending been stronger, I probably would have rated it up there as well.  As happy as I am that Soho Crime is publishing Tursten's previously-untranslated novels,  Helene Tursten's work is so much better than this book might acknowledge.  I would love to see her get back to that same level of  intensity that gave me so much pleasure in the first three translated novels   -- Detective Inspector Huss, The Torso, and The Glass Devil.

 crime fiction from Sweden

The Thief, by Fuminori Nakamura

9781616950217
Soho Press, 2012
originally published as Suri, 2009
translated by Satako Izumo and Stephen Coates
211 pp
(hard cover ed.)

It's always interesting to see how different writers around the world do crime fiction; recently I reviewed two books by Paulus Hochgatterer in which I  noted the idea that perhaps it's time to reconsider my own approach to reading in this genre.  If ever there was a case for this idea to be put into practice, it's here in this book, The Thief, by Fuminori Nakamura.  Glancing around at reviews after setting down my own thoughts, many people in cyberspace noted the lack of action or the lack of a compelling hook to draw the reader in and keep him or her interested.  Not so, I counter... it seems a shame that readers get stuck on particular formats or (let's get real here) similar formulaic constructions in their crime fiction reading.  Is there a lack of open-mindedness going on or what's the story? If it doesn't read like a "normal" mystery, suspense or crime story, is it any less readable or enjoyable? Or is it that readers are getting lazy and don't want to read books that are designed to make you read between the lines?

The Thief is a very good read, intensely satisfying with a great deal of psychological depth to go along with the crime elements of the novel. The central character is a pickpocket named Nishimura (whose name is only stated once) who has sharpened his skills to an elite level over the years to the point where he can easily remove a wallet, sift through its contents and sometimes return it to its owner, all without the victim's knowledge. He takes money and leaves the rest of the contents, always clever enough to avoid holding onto anything that would attract police attention.  He plies his trade in crowded places,  subways, trains, etc., possessing an uncanny ability to blend in well no matter where he finds himself; conversely, he lives anonymously and has very few human ties.  He had a girlfriend once, and he has a friend, Ishikawa, who was wanted in connection with fraud.  Avoiding the warrant issued for his arrest, Ishikawa left for the Phillipines, Pakistan (where he officially "died")  and Kenya before returning to Japan to assume the identity of a dead man.  Complicating matters, our narrator becomes involved with a mother and son whom he first meets in a supermarket, where they make an inept attempt at stealing food.  Even though he is a complete loner, he begins to feel a bond with the boy, whose path he crosses more than once since the boy is often sent out on shoplifting missions by his mother, a prostitute and drug addict.

With Ishikawa back in Tokyo, the narrator is drawn into the darkest circle of Tokyo's underworld scene, where he comes across a sociopathic crime boss for whom power seems to be the acme of earthly existence. He gets caught up in a home robbery which goes very badly, not solely  for the owner of the item the narrator and his cohorts are recruited to steal, but also for some of the criminals involved.  As a result of his participation, the narrator finds himself in an impossible situation with an untenable outcome:  either he faces a nearly-impossible challenge of his criminal lifetime or he loses the one valuable thing he has.

While the crime elements are all neatly in place in this book, it works on a deeper level as well, touching on the notions of psychological and social isolation (ongoing themes in many other Japanese crime novels as well as literary fiction),  as well as the machinations of power and fate. Always present in the narrator's life is a tower, looming ahead, just out of his reach; a metaphorical construct quite possibly relating to a life he might once have had, although its meaning is really up to the reader's interpretation. 

The Thief is an intense read, although it may disappoint some readers because of its lack of clear-cut standard formulations to which people have become accustomed in their crime fiction.  There is a wonderful "story-within-a-story" segment within the novel dealing with both power and fate, turning the reader's attention to issues beyond the crimes committed in this book.  It does take some getting used to, but once you get into it, the author amps up the pace without using any gimmicky literary devices, letting the suspense build until you have to keep turning pages just to find out what's going to happen.

Nakamura's work may not be everyone's thing, but if like myself you aim for intelligent crime fiction that sheds light on what makes people who they are, or that reflects issues that seem to be common among people all over the globe, you might actually enjoy it.  Kudos to Soho for bringing this book to the reading public.

The Glass Devil, by Helene Tursten

9781569474891
Soho Press, 2007
originally published as Glasdjävulen, 2003
translated by Katarina E. Tucker
311 pp
(trade paper ed.)

The Glass Devil  is the final translated installment of Helene Tursten's series to feature Detective Inspector Irene Huss; fortunately, according to stopyourekillingme.dot com  she has another five books already written, hopefully waiting to be translated. (Dear Soho Press: hint hint wink wink.)  This is a most excellent series; while the previous book The Torso  was my favorite of the four, The Glass Devil is also quite good, and here Tursten takes a bit of a different tack in storytelling, focusing much more on the work of Irene Huss and less on the usual Göteborg team effort or on family life than in her previous novels.

On a cold March night, a young schoolteacher, Jonas Schyttelius, drives up to his cottage, removes his gym bag, lunch box and groceries from his car, and walks into his house. Out of nowhere, a shot rings out and he's dead. Not far away, his mother and father, the rector in a church in the small community of Kullahult, are also killed in the same way.   At both crime scenes a pentagram, painted with the victims' blood, is left behind on the victims' computers.  The Violent Crimes Unit is called in on the case, with very little to go on.  They interview a circle of people acquainted with the pastor, unearthing very little in the way of motive but quite a bit in the way of nastiness as the competition heats up for the dead pastor's job; Irene also encounters a cantor whose spirituality takes more of a new-age format.  What she manages to find out is that Jonas has a sister, Rebecka, living in London, to whom the family had once turned for research on Satanists; now Irene wonders if Rebecka is also in danger since the murderer seems to have focused his attacks on the Schyttelius family.  Even if she  is not, she may be able to shed some light on the killer's motives, which remain unknown.   The problem is that Rebecka has had a nervous breakdown and is unable to come to Sweden.  Irene decides that she must go to London to get any help she can in the hope of solving this most baffling  case.

The story moves along at a brisk pace, with very little going on in the Huss homefront. The biggest problem facing Irene and her family this time is the death of a neighbor's cat by their dog.  On the work side, the team is caught up in other crimes, leaving Irene to work mainly by herself on the Schyttelius case until she reaches London, where she meets her counterpart Glen Thompson. There are also some tempting red herrings scattered here and there, but what it comes down to are two very intriguing mysteries:  first, who killed Jonas and his parents and why, and second, why is Rebecka's business colleague trying to thwart Irene's attempts at talking to her? 

As intense a read as this book is, as chilling and bleak as the ride is to the end turns out to be, there is a moment when the show is practically given away, or at the very least, where anyone following along closely enough might be able to figure out what's going on.  Although this may be a bit frustrating, it's certainly not a deal breaker because there is enough left for the reader to still try to put it all together.  What comes out of this story is so heartbreaking that this early nod  toward the solution doesn't even scratch the surface of the ultimate revelations to be found in this tragedy. 

There are some books where the author asks you to consider certain underlying questions, and this is one of those. First there is the nature of justice;  second, the workings of fate; but most importantly, the blinding nature of evil in its most fundamental form.   Irene Huss says it all here:

"A glass devil is a person in whom evil becomes transparent. People simply don't see it, despite the fact that it's there all the time."

Another of Tursten's novels that is decidedly not for weak hearts or fitting fare for people who need an uplifting ending,  I definitely recommend The Glass Devil, as well as all of the books in the Inspector Huss series. I just love these books!

The Torso, by Helene Tursten

9781569474532
Soho Press, 2006
originally published as Tatuerad Torso, 2000
translated by Katarina Emelie Tucker
341 pp (trade paper ed.)

The Torso is to date my favorite book in the Irene Huss series; it is much darker in tone than either of the previous two novels (Detective Inspector Huss and Night Rounds), the plot is very well constructed, and the investigation takes center stage, with little else to distract from the main storyline. Frankly speaking, I couldn't put this book down.

Tursten captures the reader's attention within the first three pages with the discovery of a human torso inside of a garbage bag.  Already busy with two major cases, the police in the Göteborg Violent Crimes Unit have their hands full, and adding to their burden is the fact that the torso yields little in the way of clues to help them out. All they have to go on is a strange tattoo which ultimately leads them to Copenhagen, where their counterparts in the police there are also dealing with a similar crime. Irene Huss also takes on the case of a friend's missing daughter; her trail also leads to Copenhagen, so Irene goes looking for her while she's  there. After returning home, various events lead Irene to believe that she's being followed, and that her presence in the two police investigations has led the unknown murderer to strike again.  This is no ordinary murderer, but rather someone who takes great delight in not only killing, but dismembering and disemboweling the victims as well.  The focus in this book is on the two-pronged investigation, with the two police teams pulling together to chase down a vicious killer.  Huss is, however, wary of sharing too much information with her Danish colleagues after a source in Copenhagen reveals that there might possibly be a cop involved. Aside from the police investigations, Huss has to deal with her teen daughters, a colleague whose work may be leading him toward alcoholism, and the personal aspects of her investigation into her friend's missing daughter. Tursten also uses the opportunity to examine attitudes toward homosexuals, women who work in prostitution and the sex industry in general. 

If ever there was a book not for the faint of heart, this is it.  There is a great deal of description involving decapitations, dismembering, removal of inner organs, and necrosadism which may lead you into wanting to put the book down after a while. But don't. First, while some parts are incredibly graphic, they're not written in a sensationalistic fashion, nor is there anything in these descriptions that doesn't belong in terms of the story line. Second, although the nature of the crimes may be abhorrent, what elevates this book is the police investigation -- this is one of the best police procedurals I've read this year. It is well conceived and well plotted, taking unexpected twists and turns along the way, topping anything Tursten has done in the previous two series novels.

I heartily recommend The Torso with zero reservations -- definitely a must for Scandinavian crime fiction readers, for crime fiction readers in general and for people who like their crime on the darker side.  What a good book!!!!

Two by Tursten: Detective Inspector Huss and Night Rounds

9781569473702
Soho Press, 2003
originally published as Den krossade tanghästen
translated by Steven T. Murray
371 pp
(trade paper ed.)

I bought this book nearly three years ago; now there's another Soho edition out with a spiffy new cover which is more modern than on my edition, much more hip and more up to date than the one I have:

  But a book is much more than its cover, and that is definitely the case with Detective Inspector Huss. 

This book  is the first in a series of nine books, only four of which so far have been translated to English: this one, Night Rounds, which just came out but which is actually book two in the series; The Torso, book three and The Glass Devil, book five. Book four, Cold Murder or Kallt mord has not yet been published in English, so hopefully with the continuing surge of  interest in Scandinavian crime fiction, Tursten's readers will not be kept waiting long.   I'd put this book up against any good Scandinavian crime fiction novel -- it's got a credible plot with a good mystery wrapped around it, believable characters, and as always, concerns about contemporary issues are embedded within the story.  It falls within the category of police procedural, and although I might disagree somewhat with the blurb on my cover calling the book "Sweden's Prime Suspect,” there is very little fault for readers to find in this novel.

Detective Inspector Irene Huss works in the Violent Crimes division of the Göteborg Police.  She is married to Krister, a chef in a popular and trendy restaurant in the city and has twin daughters.  Irene is a martial arts expert, a 10-cup a day coffee drinker and seasoned police officer, who lately finds herself trying hard not to become "jaded or cynical."  Her current home worries center on her daughter, who has a new boyfriend who convinces her to play in a skinhead band and to shave off her hair. But her home situation has to fade into the background for a bit while she investigates a new case: a very prominent financier has plummeted to his death off the balcony of his building. At first glance, it seems likely that it’s a suicide, but the medical examiner finds evidence that points to murder.  While starting their investigation into the death of Richard von Knecht, the 8-person investigative team soon finds itself  in the middle of another crime: someone has bombed the building where von Knecht had his office, and a dead and unrecognizable body has been found there.  With a multitude of suspects from which to choose, and possible links into the shady and violent world of the drug trade, the case seems to grow bigger as time goes on.  As the detectives seem to get closer to a solution, not only is their case thrown into a frenzy, but a series of clues lead some of them into a potentially deadly situation.

The novel's good points outweigh any negatives in the narrative. Its merging storylines provide an overall plausible plot which is easy for the reader to follow.  There are several red herrings scattered here and there throughout the story, keeping the reader guessing while the detectives do their work.  Irene Huss is a most believable character, a woman who tries to juggle home and work life, not always successfully, especially when her cop instincts take over at home and are resented by one of her daughters. Luckily she's got a great husband, and the home routine runs smoothly even though they often have working hours that don't match.  Tursten's portrayal of Irene Huss allows for inner angst over her daughters without letting it spill out in too many places in the story and not interfering too much with police work.  The other characters, especially those working in the Violent Crimes division, are also credible -- while they work together well for the most part, there are sometimes personality conflicts and friction between some of the team members. Within this framework, the author sets up room for discussion regarding sexual harassment in the work place, as well as the response of the higher-ups who do not exactly condone this harassment but who also do not set it as a high priority to be taken care of in any meaningful way. Tursten also explores the issue of illegal immigrants, looking at it from both sides, leading into a meaningful examination of why teens in general are attracted to gangs like Skinheads, which the author sees as a symptom of the ills of modern society.  And finally, she tackles the heartbreaking subject of AIDS, weaving it seamlessly and intelligently into the story.

The only major drawback I found in this book was that it wasn't long until I figured out the who in one of the crimes; from the clues it's really not that difficult to figure it out. The other I never had pegged, and trying to get to the solution made it impossible to put the book down.

Considering that Detective Inspector Huss  is the introduction to a series, it's very well done, ultimately very satisfying and intelligently written.  Tursten hits the ground running, and I can say that I've now finished the second novel Night Rounds, the pace doesn't let up in the next installment either. I would recommend this book very highly, not just for readers of Scandinavian crime fiction, but for crime fiction readers in general, as well as those who like credible and strong women characters in the lead role.

*****

9781616950064

Soho Press, 2012

originally published as Nattrond

Translated by Laura A. Wideburg

326 pp

(hard cover ed.)

Although this book has just recently been published in English, it is actually number two in the Irene Huss series, and was originally published in 1999.  I have to admit that my interest level rose off the scale having only read the prologue of this novel, with the following bit of conversation:

" ' ...It was that nurse I saw' "

" 'Oh, for ...!' He swallowed the curse. 'The woman in this photo has been dead for fifty years!' "

" 'I know. But it was her!' "

Cue dramatic, ghostly music. Cut to the next chapter, in a hospital in the middle of a complete power outage, where the night nurse is on the way back to her station after helping the doctor on call with a patient whose alarm has gone off in the darkness. Sadly, the lack of power to the patient's respirator leads to his death.  Technically the ICU nurse should have taken charge, but she seems to have gone missing.  Looking through the window of the ward door, in the available moonlight, the night nurse sees a woman dressed in an old nurse's uniform, and recognizes her as the ghost of Nurse Tekla, who hanged herself in the attic some fifty years earlier and has supposedly haunted the hall ever since.

When the police and emergency services are called, a horrifying discovery is made: the missing nurse is lying dead in the electrical room, the victim of human, rather than spectral hands.  As the investigation gets rolling, another nurse goes missing. Are the two events connected? Where is the missing nurse? And what, if anything, does a suicide fifty years earlier have to do with this crime? When the Violent Crimes Division gets down to work, Irene Huss ultimately realizes that there are many interconnected and complicated relationships involving people in and around the hospital, and that sorting through all of them to get to the solution to current events may require an investigation into the past.

There are some good qualities that are brought out in Tursten's writing here.  First there is the balance between Irene's home and work life; having two teenaged daughters is not easy for any mom, let alone a mom whose job takes center stage. This time she must deal with one of the twins who goodheartedly takes on the cause of animal rights, only to discover that she's fallen in with a crowd that prefers violence as their method of communication.  How Irene rises to the occasion is an interesting story in and of itself.  There is also the author's focus on issues she obviously feels are important scattered throughout the novel: the ongoing sexual harassment issue at the police station, the perception towards immigrants, and a bit about the problems of the homeless and the mentally ill.  As in the previous novel, Tursten brings these issues to the fore without dwelling on them for any length of time that is not appropriate to the story, so the reader never gets the feeling that she's being preachy.  Finally, the whole ghost thing was a good hook to draw the reader in, whet his or her appetite and then get on with the story.

There is, however, one very glaring flaw (imho) in this story, and it has to do with a key piece of evidence that the police had all along that is obviously ignored at the time it's presented to the team. The detectives did not act on it until much later, even though the reader knows it must be important.  Had Huss and her team  been as quick to jump on it as they did with other evidence in their possession, they probably could have progressed much further in the case sooner than they did. This time I figured out much of the story early on, but then again, watching how the police unravel this complicated plot in an intelligent manner is why I read these books anyway.

I liked this book, although truth be told, probably not as much as the first book in the series, which is a bit unusual for me. So far, I'm liking this series, and I'm really bummed that I'm gearing up to read The Torso and will have to figure out what I missed in the hole between that book and The Glass Devil by the time I get to it. I hope this series does well in translation so that the other books will be published as well.  I can definitely recommend Night Rounds to readers of Scandinavian crime fiction, police procedurals and crime fiction in general.

Frozen Assets, by Quentin Bates

9781569478677
Soho Press, 2011
330 pp.

Frozen Assets is both the author's first novel and the first entry of a new series featuring Gunnhildur Gisládottir of the Hvalvik police in Iceland.  Gunna is in her mid-thirties, a widowed mother of two, and used to dealing with small town crimes like speeding and the occasional uncooperative drunk. But things change when the body of a drunken stranger is discovered floating in the water of a small boat dock with no ID except an odd tattoo.  In trying to identify the dead man, her investigation leads her to a company called Spearpoint, a PR firm headquartered in Reykjavik which just incidentally happens to have an interest in a development project in Hvalvik. The inquiries remain pretty routine until one of the staff at Spearpoint reveals to Gunna  that some time back, a friend of the dead man had been killed in a car accident.  Gunna begins to wonder if there is a link between the two deaths, and the investigation takes off from there, with Gunna setting her sights on catching a killer and not letting up until the job is done. 

But wait...there's much more. Interwoven into the main story are entries from an anonymous and elusive "Skandalblogger," a muckraker who seems to have his or her finger on the pulse of what's happening in government circles and in the private lives of connected others, such as the owner of Spearpoint, Sigurjóna Huldudottír and her randy sister, two of the blogger's favorite targets.  The blogger's mission is to expose high-level government corruption and personal greed that affects the average tax-paying citizen, while simultaneously spilling personal secrets that embarrass and enrage the already high-maintenance Sigurjóna,  who wants the Skandalblogger's head on a platter.  As things heat up, the author also  builds on the environment and Iceland's banking crisis of 2008 to add another dimension to the story. All of the various threads are eventually linked together, with enough of a hint of a series yet to be at the end.

Considering that this is the author's first novel, Gunna's character is quite well developed. She's down to earth, common sensical and follows her nose, despite unwanted interruptions from superiors.  She's to the point, often brash in her role as cop, but at the same time, the reader senses some vulnerabilities within her on a personal level.  And she's not a stick-figure gorgeous detective like so many authors insist on having as a main character but more on the bigger side, and is often referred to as the fat cop or even once "a big fat lass with a face that frightens the horses." It is downright refreshing  to have a strong female lead character who isn't too overly concerned with her love life or lack of one, who is built like a real person and in her mid-30s and one who speaks her mind and follows her instincts and her nose.   The author also does a great job with the people you come to dislike in the novel as well -- Sigurjóna, the histrionic owner of Spearpoint whose employees cringe when anything goes wrong knowing they're going to hear about it; the bad guy who has a personality as cold as glacial ice, government officials who don't care about the average citizen, and others as well.

You won't find any romance or silliness here (yay) but what you will find is an intriguing story that is well paced, with a sense of place that adds to the overall atmosphere of the story.  It's definitely not in cozy league, but  it's not quite as edgy or dark as an Indridason novel.  What you get is  something a bit lighter in overall tone that picks up as the story moves along.  The author continues the trend of adding in the political and economic woes of the system, a trend I happen to like,  but I know of many other people who can't get past it and want only the action of the crime and its solution. Personally speaking,  I think incorporating these various elements only adds to the overall sense of place and time, creating something more realistic in the long run.

 It's  difficult to believe that Frozen Assets is the author's first novel. I think this one will appeal to crime fiction readers in general because of the strong lead character, and regular readers of Scandinavian crime fiction will also find it to be a good start to another ongoing series.