A Not So Perfect Crime, by Teresa Solana

9781904738343
Bitter Lemon Press, 2008
286 pp
originally published as Un crim imperfecte, 2006
translated by Peter Bush

softcover



A Not So Perfect Crime is the first of three in a series of novels featuring twin brothers Eduard Martínez Estivill and Jose Martínez Estivill, the latter known as Borja Masdéu-Canals Sáez de Astorga to everyone but his brother, who knows him as Pep. Eduard hasn't even told his wife about the true identity of his brother, and the two of them constitute Frau Consultants, a private "detective" agency with false office doors and a secretary who's always away when their clients come to see them at the office.  They cater to the social elite of Barcelona, people with problems and a lot of money that insures that their problems are handled discreetly.  This series opener finds the two working for an MP who wants to know if the man who painted his wife's portrait is also having an affair with her.  While the book brought occasional smiles to my face because of the many crazy situations in which the two find themselves, the entire crime and its solution could have been achieved in half the space, as  there is much more emphasis on developing the characters, setting the social-class scene and keeping the gags going throughout the novel.  This isn't necessarily a bad thing -- the characters are fun and well established by the end of the story; I can sense this series is going to be interesting as time goes by.


MP Lluis Font calls in the brothers to find out whether or not his wife his having an affair with the man who painted her portrait.  While investigating the artist, they discover that there are a few things that Font hasn't told them -- namely, that he's having an affair of his own, one that literally crashes down onto them.  But when la Seňora Font turns up dead, Eduard begins to realize that perhaps this case is more than he and Borja are prepared to handle. 

A Not So Perfect Crime is a good mix of a mystery to be solved, well-developed main characters and a look at Barcelona society.   As the story begins to wind down, there is a decent solution to the crime, one that fits with clues gathered throughout the book. There are plenty of suspects to keep things lively and interesting and when the action is focused on the brothers' investigation, the story moves at a good pace.   The brothers are funny -- they're so different from each other that it keeps things interesting.  Borja is being kept in luxury by his mistress while Eduard often wonders how he and his wife are going to pay the bills. Montse, Eduard's wife, is also a well-drawn character, putting up with Eduard when his problems usually stem from the antics of his brother.   The scrapes that the two get themselves into (generally of Borja's making) are entertaining as is watching them escape their collective predicament.  The focus on Barcelona's higher-class levels of society are also interesting...it is a world where money can buy pretty much anything, where gossip or idle talk can kill careers or make things uncomfortable, where moral scruples are difficult to find, and where only the best will do.  This is, of course, contrasted to the world of the regular people -- where bills pile up and people have to make a living.  The author does a very good job of putting the two side by side so that the reader gets a feel for how the rich and powerful spend their days and how they're often able to manipulate others behind the scenes.

My issue with this book is that there is a lot of stuff in here that could easily have been left out, making for a tighter, less wordy and even at times rambling story.  I didn't care about Borja's adventures with Eduard's sister-in-law, for example; nor did it matter to me about Eduard's previous love affair in Paris. There's more of this kind of thing here, but lots of little things that are meant to go into character development sometimes divert attention away from the crime and its solution, making skimming seem like a good idea in some parts.  I will hopefully expect that when I get to Ms. Solana's next book, Shortcut to Paradise, that less backstory will be necessary and that more focus is placed on the brothers' escapades while solving whatever crime in which they become embroiled.



Overall, A Not So Perfect Crime turned out to be an entertaining novel, and a fine first foray into what I hope will turn out to be a very good crime-fiction series.  Definitely recommended!

crime fiction from Spain

The Burn Palace, by Stephen Dobyns

9780399160875
Blue Rider press, 2013
480 pp

arc -- my thanks to the publisher for my copy, along with apologies for being so abominably late to post about it

The Burn Palace has all the trappings of the paranormal about it, but once you cut through the supernatural red herrings found throughout this novel, what you have left is a story about crime. (There is one exception, which I'll get to later.) The plot winds through the book at a slow pace, but as you read, you realize that rather than focusing on the mystery at the heart of the story, the author is taking his time to examine life in a small town.  This is one of those novels you'll appreciate for the writing rather than the unraveling of the mystery and its solution, which is pretty obvious after only a short while.

The story is set in Brewster, Rhode Island, once flourishing with a cannery, fishing industry, farms, a quarry, a mill and a thriving downtown in its heyday;  now it's a another little town, a place where two-thirds of the people living there were born, attended school, have work and will probably die. The summer visitors pay the taxes that keep the town going; there's also a popular "holistic health alternative" called "The You Within You," shortened to "You-You," by most of the townspeople, and a casino 30 minutes or so away keeps many of the people employed.  It's not too far from Providence, making it easy for rent boys to come and ply their trade; hookers  find their way here from the big city as well. In this small town one night, a nurse who should have been on duty in the maternity ward of Morgan Memorial hospital was actually having a brief tryst with the chief resident in cardiology.  While she's busy having her fun, someone has taken the Summers baby, less than 24 hours old, and left a snake in its place. This act, combined with more bizarre occurrences than a town this size should experience, leads detective Woody Potter and his partner Bobby Anderson down some strange paths before they find out what exactly what's going on -- but not before a few people are killed in the meantime.

While the solution to the mystery itself was pretty obvious, there are many supernatural/paranormal red herrings in the way to solving it.  The main detective in this story knows that if he can just cut through the smokescreen that there's a perfectly logical explanation for  what's going on, that there must be a "single theory" to bring everything together.  As I said earlier, the mystery is not what makes this book -- it's the way Dobyns creates ambiance and lets his readers peek behind the closed doors of small-town America.  Mistrust of the unknown leads to violence,  a boy watches his stepfather spiral out of control and become a real-life monster because he refuses to take his meds, young girls are terrorized, and the town is saturated in an atmosphere of mass paranoia and mistrust.   What I didn't care for (the exception noted above) was that while the paranormal and supernatural elements are just a thin veneer to cover up the real crimes, Dobyns leaves in a 10 year-old boy who has a talent for telekinesis -- wrong.  This whole thing could have been left out and no one would ever have noticed.  No, No, NO!!!!

Overall, The Burn Palace turned out to be (for me) a kind of a mixed bag -- I liked the writing, I liked the way Dobyns gets into small-town life and the secrets people keep, and I liked the way the detectives shun the paranormal because they know that earthly terrors are behind the town's sudden venture into insanity.   On the other hand, the mystery is super easy to figure out, and presenting a telekinetic boy as a character in a book where there's really nothing paranormal going on was just kind of, well, ridiculous.  It reads quickly, so I'd say give it a try, and if you can, ignore the boy with the weird powers.

The Dance of the Seagull, by Andrea Camilleri

9780143122616
Penguin, 2013
277 p
originally published as La danza del gabbiano, 2009
translated by Stephen Sartarelli

softcover

And we're back in Sicily again with The Dance of the Seagull, #15 in Andrea Camilleri's excellent series of novels featuring Inspector Salvo Montalbano.  Having faithfully followed the series in order over the years, I've come to realize that picking up the newest, latest installment is like checking in on an old friend.  Unlike most crime fiction novels I read, in this series of books, plot has come to take a back seat to character, a big exception in my case. Now at age 57, Montalbano's self-doubt resurfaces, to be followed by a chaser of melancholy.  Luckily, at least in the short run, it's nothing that can't be handled by a plate of  Adelina's marvelous caponata.   

One of Livia's increasingly rare visits is interrupted when Montalbano is made aware that Fazio is missing, apparently going out alone on an investigation the Inspector knew nothing about.  On a tip, he searches in an area filled with dry wells (where once the land was green and arable until a cancelled highway project made a desert of it once more), and while there's no sign of the missing policeman, two bodies are found.  After Fazio reappears and is hospitalized, Montalbano has his hands full protecting his friend, trying to figure out the identities of the bodies, and acting on information given to him by Fazio, trying to get some answers.

As always, even in the middle of serious crime solving, there are some very funny moments in this book. For example, in trying to evade having to report to the Commissioner, Montalbano comes up with a whale of an excuse (a fake procedure that made me wince while reading about it) and then has to hole up in a room at Enzo's because the Commissioner is eating in the next;  Camilleri gives us a little meta moment as Montalbano tries to talk Livia into a different mini-vacation destination so as to avoid running into Luca Zingaretti who plays him on TV,  and recurring scenes with a nurse whom Montalbano refers to as "the Sing-Sing prison guard." But the series has been trending lately to focus much more on the Inspector himself and his doubts about his career -- and that path continues in this novel as well, sparked by the death of a seagull and Montalbano's growing awareness that he's become tired of all of the violence.  If you read these novels only for plot, you're missing out on one of the best-developed group of characters ever created by a crime-fiction novelist, and offering Montalbano an ongoing chance to voice his worries and anxieties makes him more genuine.  Unlike many crime novelists, Camilleri doesn't cripple his character by having him express himself in this way, leaving plenty of room for the humor that is so prevalent in this series. And unlike a few other crime novelists, the author is also able to give his readers his opinions on ongoing problems in his country without being preachy or in your face about it.

While it may not have been my favorite book of the series so far, it's still a winner. Do not let this be your first experience with Montalbano and the other members of his squad.  Even if you could care less about the ongoing changes in Montalbano, these are books you want to be in on at their start.

crime fiction from Italy

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

Brenner and God, by Wolf Haas

9781612191133
Melville House, 2012
215 pp
originally published as Brenner und der liebe Gott, 2009
translated by Annie Janusch

softcover

Talk about finding yourself in deep doodoo!

Ex-cop Simon Brenner, at a time when others at his age are starting to think about their pensions, has finally found a profession he actually likes and someone who "understands him better that most adults he's had anything to do with in his life."  Brenner works as a driver for the Kressdorfs, the parents of two year-old Helena, with whom he can discuss his problems and worries while he's driving her out on the Autobahn. It's a great arrangement, and according to the omniscient narrator who is telling the story, the two are "like-minded  souls," with a "kindred connection between them."  Helena's mom is a doctor who among other things in her practice performs abortions; her dad is known as "the lion of construction."   The parents are super happy with Brenner, especially because he is an ex-cop, and he is generally careful to make everything perfect prior to each trip of many hours on the Autobahn with Helena.  Despite his meticulous preparations before each trip, on the day the novel begins, he realizes he has forgotten to put gas in the car (likely due to the calming pills he takes since his last girlfriend moved out) and makes a stop.  After fueling, he moves the car over to one side to keep Helena (still in her car seat) away from the fumes while Brenner goes inside alone to pay, promising her an otherwise verboten chocolate bar when he comes back.   He also takes a minute to grab an espresso, and on his return to the car,  he discovers that Helena's not there. He stands there clicking the door locks open with the key fob to no avail (Helena's still not there); he goes into the gas station to ask about surveillance footage but he'd parked the BMW away from any of the cameras.    Instead of calling the police (maybe owing to the drugs or just plain shock), he waits -- and it's not long,  of course, until Brenner becomes the prime suspect and also (needless to say)  becomes unemployed.  Brenner decides that he will have to be the one to take on the case of the missing Helena; as he begins to look for potential suspects he  stumbles into some of the  Kressdorf's most carefully-guarded secrets as well as those of their associates and enemies, the whole lot offering up possible motives and possible kidnappers.  But there are people who don't want these secrets to be revealed at any cost and when Brenner starts getting too close  he finds himself literally in the shit.

What sets Brenner and God apart from just becoming another crime fiction novel is that unlike other crime fiction narratives, (with the possible exception of the previous six in the series**) there is an all-seeing, all-knowing narrator who not only gives the reader hints as to what may be coming down the pike for our erstwhile hero, but also warns the reader about mistakes people are going to make in just a matter of seconds, and even offers up some pretty funny and sometimes spot-on philosophical moments as the crime plot moves forward.  As an example, here the narrator is in the midst of adding an element of an important secret to the plot, then takes time out to discuss the nature of secret keeping, why he likes Brenner so much, and then makes a decision that the reader is trustworthy to hear it as well.    Brenner has just been asked if he can keep a secret and not let it get back to the police:

  " 'No problem. No one will hear anything from me.'

He would've liked to have said that with a little more conviction, but personally I think a dry promise isn't the worst, because how do you prove to someone that you won't tell someone else? It basically only applies to your best friend anyway, who'll probably tell his wife the very same evening, who'll solemnly swear not to tell anybody else, and her best friend will have to swear the same thing half an hour later.  The more adamantly a person vows to keep a lid on it, the more certain you can be that, come tomorrow, the entire world will know.  And you see, Brenner said it just that dryly, and he's probably the first person in the world who's never actually spoken a dying word of it to anybody.  These are the things I like about Brenner.  But since it's just us, I'll make an exception and tell  you what the doctor said."

I actually calculated that without these narrative moments which run all through the novel and which often include the phrase “my dear Swan,” the actual crime story per se  would take up very little space in the book.  Normally I would cry foul and complain about the fluff padding the author's doing, but not in this case.  Personally, I liked the way Haas set up the narration of this story (and I LOVED Brenner) although I do have to admit that by the end of the book  the wiggy style was beginning to grate and I was starting to need a respite.  In deciding whether or not to read this novel you might want to consider the following:  if you're more into the crime and less into style, you might want to pass because of all of the meandering asides that can be rather intrusive at times slowing down movement toward resolution.  On the other hand,  if you can just relax with the author's style and try to enjoy the humor knowing that the entire book is going to be like this in and around the crime narrative, well I think you'll find it quite funny, very well done.  I will definitely be wanting to pick up the next Melville House Brenner release The Bone Man, which I just noticed if you pre-order you get it 30 days earlier than the general release date. I do hope Melville House will plan a run of the entire series -- starting with book number seven kind of leaves readers at a loss wondering about what other kinds of messes Simon Brenner has found himself in in the past.

crime fiction from Austria

• **Brenner detective stories (adapted from wikipedia)
  • Auferstehung der Toten 1996, ISBN 3-499-22831-9
  • Der Knochenmann 1997, ISBN 3-499-22832-7 (Translated as The Bone Man, Melville House, 2013, ISBN 978-1-61219-169-0)
  • Komm, süßer Tod  1998, ISBN 3-499-22814-9
  • Silentium!  1999, ISBN 3-499-22830-0
  • Wie die Tiere (Vienna), 2001, ISBN 3-499-23331-2
  • Das ewige Leben  2003, ISBN 3-492-24095-X

A Grain of Truth, by Zygmunt Miłoszewski

 9781908524027
Bitter Lemon Press, 2012
(UK edition)
380 pp
  originally published as Ziarno prawdy, 2011

translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones

(Now also available in the US)


Continuing with the excellent writing, plotting and above all the characters he established in Entanglement , Zygmunt Miłoszewski has returned with the second novel in his series featuring state prosecutor Teodor Szacki.  Once again Bitter Lemon Press has delivered -- A Grain of Truth is yet another fine offering from this publisher specializing in the crème de la crème of translated crime fiction.   While sometimes the novel gets a little windy ("i" as in "eye") and frustratingly wordy sometimes, the devilish murder plot, the characters and Miłoszewski's infusion of  humor all make for an impressive read.  There is also a darker side to this novel as the author explores the historical interactions of Catholics and Jews in Poland, moving the subject matter into the Communist era and on into modern times where,  according to the author, the old legends, fears, guilt, and prejudices can still resonate.

 When the body, throat slashed and drained of blood, of a beloved member of the Sandomierz community is found in a ravine at the medieval walls of the town, in the middle of what used to be a Jewish cemetery,   Szacki is called in on the case.  He's no longer in Warsaw, having relocated to Sandomierz after an affair caused the breakup of his marriage; up to now he's found provincial life rather boring living in a city "which was in fact dead after six p.m" and wonders why he threw a carefully-built career in Warsaw away for a few dull cases.  But the murder investigation sets all of that aside for the moment.    Although he's still a relative newbie, it is Szacki who gets the case precisely because he will come into it with no preconceived notions -- the dead woman was a friend of his colleague, and according to anyone in the town, as near to sainthood as any mortal could possibly be.  What Szacki terms a "razor-machete" is found nearby, and it  turns out to be a knife used in the Jewish ritual slaughter of cattle.  This is problematic -- as fellow prosecutor Barbara Sobieraj notes,"Sandomierz is at the centre of the so-called legends of blood," ... "the capital of the universe for the idea of ritual murder." After two more vile murders are discovered, each with its own link to "ritual murder," the press has a field day, planting the idea of the old legends concerning Jews and the murders of Christian children into the minds of the public.  As Szacki notes, "They say that in every legend there's a grain of truth," but is that really the case here? 

While A Grain of Truth is an entertaining mystery that will keep you turning pages, the author also explores the ins and outs of the Polish legal system, and different aspects of Poland's history:  Catholicism, anti-Semitism, Polish resistance both to the Nazis and the Communists, the return of the Jews after the camps, and the effects of Poland's often-troubled past on its present.  Even if you're not a history-oriented person, here it makes for incredibly interesting reading and, in my case, spurred me to want to know more.  But the true star of this show is Szacki -- much more fully fleshed out here than in Entanglement, a man of wit and wisdom who

"didn't claim to be an amazing tough guy, but ... liked to think of himself as a sheriff, who instead of a conscience has the Penal Code, and acts as its embodiment, guardian and executor. He believed in it, and on this belief he had built his entire public persona, which over the years had become his uniform, his official costume. It had taken over the way he dressed, his facial expressions, his way of thinking, talking and communicating with people."

Szacki's opinions on topics that range from religion to the media reflect Miłoszewski's honed skills as an observer of reality, as do the author's chapter beginnings which look at individual days in 2009 (the year in which the novel is set), setting forth little tidbits of info that happened on that particular day from different parts of the world. These little blurbs range from the funny to the serious, are related in a kind of sardonic wit and generally have some sort of sideways bearing on the action occuring in the chapter.  For the most part, although not always in some cases, the dialogue he creates among his characters falls out naturally so that he sets a realistic tone,  and his sense of humor sometimes produces laughter that escapes from the brain to become an audible chuckle; all of these points also point to how great a job the translator has done here!  Once in a while, though, the author does trend toward the wordy, but this is such a minor niggle about a novel that is so well written that it's easy to set aside, one I heartily recommend.  Do NOT start this series here, though; you will get more out of  Szacki's character and out of Miłoszewski's writing by beginning with Entanglement.   Readers of cozy-type mysteries probably will want to pass; on the flip side, while it deals with dark subject matter, it's not as edgy as  noir, either.  If you're a fan of intelligently-written translated crime fiction, though, this one will definitely appeal to you.  The novel also proves that Scandinavian crime, which has been really hot for a long time, isn't the only game on the block and that perhaps it's time to expand crime fiction horizons in other directions. Thanks to Bitter Lemon Press, that's becoming easier -- keep up the great work finding these novels and bringing them to us.

crime fiction from Poland

and speaking of conspiracies....Thursday at Noon, by William Brown

kindle edition
sent by author (thanks!)





Thursday at Noon is one of three books written by William F. Brown, along with Amongst My Enemies  and The Undertaker.  While the action-packed thriller/suspense kind of story isn't my usual thing, I agreed to read the book and discuss it here. Actually he had emailed me back when I was in the middle of trying to read through this year's Booker Prize longlist when I really didn't have the time to read much of anything, so it got put on the back burner until a recent email nudge reminded me that I said I'd give it a go.  A promise is a promise, so over Christmas, while sitting on a hotel balcony overlooking the Gulf of Mexico,  I pulled out my kindle and got going on it. 

Set in 1962, CIA agent Richard Thomson has recently arrived in Egypt after having  screwed up bigtime in an operation in Damascus.  He's sort of persona non grata in Cairo at the moment, so he spends a lot of time in a bar drowning his sorrows.  One night while downing the booze he's approached by an Egyptian guy who has something to sell him.  It seems that this stranger was told to find help from another CIA agent,  but the instructions never said how to locate him.  Anyway, the man has an envelope filled with photos that he tries to sell to Thomson, who, suspecting a set up after his poor showing in Damascus, refuses to have anything to do with the guy.  The other man is frantic and highly agitated, and it isn't long until he is found dead. Now the police get involved, as does Egyptian state security and Thomson finds himself embroiled in  in a nightmarish situation.  When he starts putting two and two together and figures out that something really bad is going on, no one believes him -- not his fellow agents, not the ambassador, and especially not the police.  It is up to Thomson to try and stop a catastrophe that could affect the entire world.  He has until Thursday at noon -- and time is running out.

There is truly never a dull moment in this novel, and the book is aimed at an audience of readers  inclined toward the "what if" fast-paced, explosive political thriller/conspiracy genre.  I had to finish it to see what happens, and for a lazy day of  reading it was easy to get caught up in the story.  The premise is different and considering that it was set in 1962, with a few changes it might be set in our modern-day world, making it approachable to today's readers.  It also expresses the animosity felt by many living under the thumb of their British colonial minders prior to Egypt's independence; a point the author captures very well.  He's also established and evoked a realistic sense of time and place.   At the same time, it has more than its share of over-the-top moments -- Nazi scientists, the SS and  an improbable love affair are but a few that really made me do the inner eye roll -- which spill over the floodgates of anything remotely resembling credulity, so prepare to suspend any measure of disbelief while you're reading it. But I suppose that's the nature of the beast in these types of books and maybe what makes them sell so well.  I also wonder if we really need any more books about wayward Muslim brotherhoods and nationalist fanatics right now.

-sigh-

While it's an easy way to spend a day, and while I was engaged and had to know what else could possibly happen to this poor guy,  it was a little too over the top for my taste, especially incorporating the  Nazis and the SS.  I get why the author did this, but it's asking way too much. To be very fair, I think I'm just not the right audience for this book. However, people who are fans of this genre will probably really like it -- it has pretty much every kind of bad guy there is, lots of action and the inevitable hapless, Cassandra-like character who knows what's coming and can't get anyone to believe him.  It's a definite roller-coaster ride that should keep thriller fans entertained.