PETRONA

Book Review: The Screaming of the Innocent by Unity Dow

The Screaming of the Innocent

Unity Dow

Spinfex, 2002

This novel is one of the saddest books I have ever read. It’s a superbly told story of village life in Botswana. The first chilling chapters are from the point of view of Mr Disanka, a successful businessman at the village level. He has a wife and several children to whom he is outwardly devoted (so much so in the case of his youngest child that she’s obese from all the sweets, ice-cream and other “treats” she demands and receives), he has a mistress who has all the same things as his wife but not quite as good, and he has various liaisons. None of this is sufficient to satisfy a very dark desire, however. He plans how to achieve his malign goal with two other local “dignitaries”.

After this mesmerising, and menacing, start to the novel, the reader is plunged into life in this country of ignorance, poverty, superstition and extreme sexism. Attitudes to women and to the poor are deeply ingrained and maintained by long traditions, supported by those themselves who suffer.  The police, as well as other low-level “government officials” in their cosy jobs for life, keep everything under control and make sure any benefits are kept among themselves. The country is going through a period of positive change, typified by occasional poor children being able to attend school, and the odd inside toilet (greeted with derision for, from their perspective, very practical reasons by most of the villagers).

Five years after the start of the novel, a young woman called Amantle Bokaa takes up an internship at a remote health centre.  As she begins her duties assigned to her by the lazy, unpleasant nurses who run the centre, we read of her life-story. She’s the seventh child of a typical poor peasant family, the first sibling to be able to go to school, and wants to be a doctor. She’s a determined, brave woman who uncomplainingly accepts the menial jobs meted out to her by the nurses despite the fact she’d clearly be better both with the patients and in diagnosing their illnesses. One of her tasks is to clear out a storeroom, and there she discovers a box inscribed with the name “Neo Kakang”, containing some bloody clothes. Amantle remembers that this is the name of a girl who went missing, presumed killed by an animal or drowned, five years previously.

The rest of the novel describes what Amantle does about her discovery, involving a lawyer friend whom she’s met previously when unfairly accused of inciting a student riot. In the process, the reader learns many details of the entrenched culture of poverty and repression; and the lazy, smug attitudes of the (mainly male) people who have been lucky enough to be assigned government jobs. These details are seamlessly woven into the narrative, and add a tremendous power and authenticity to the novel.  One of the many aspects that I loved was the positive portrayal of young, professional women (and the occasional young man) who, helped by education,  are rising above the history and traditions of their tribal, superstition-ridden  society to strike out for independence and freedom of choice. The story is, however, unbearably tragic– the last chapter (which explains the title) is so terribly, pathetically upsetting that I could hardly bear to read it.

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The author, Unity Dow,  has been a prominent human rights activist and is Botswana’s first female high-court judge. This novel is a must-read, if you can bear it. It is an admirable book, and provides a searing perspective and portrait of life in a region whose impact and depth could never be matched by authors from elsewhere who try to reflect similar realities from the outside.

I purchased my copy of this novel, which is published by an admirable, small, independent Australian press, Spinifex.

Other reviews of this book are at: Shotsmag (Mary Andrea Clarke), Mixed Media, one of Michael Stanley's top 10 African crime novels (the Guardian), and  quotes at the publisher's website, 

From Griffith Review:

"The Screaming of the Innocent (2002), Dow's second novel, is based on a real case of a ritual killing of a child, a practice that has its roots in traditional initiation ceremonies. It is a compelling account not just of how a belief in the supernatural still exists in a society that has adopted many Western beliefs and practices, but also of how powerful figures in a small town – the village head, a school principal and a successful businessmen – can force their will on ordinary people and manipulate the local representatives of government. The novel vividly portrays multi-partner relationships, which have their roots in traditional attitudes to male-female relations and sexuality. The supernatural world again plays an ambiguous role, at worst allowing individuals to escape responsibility for their own actions. "Someone else is doing things to you," said Dow. "You might drink too much, have a car crash, and then blame witchcraft. This really becomes a problem when it's applied to AIDS." "

The best of times, the worst of times. Edition 17: Staying Alive by Peter Browne

Book Review: Hidden Depths by Ann Cleeves

Hidden Depths

Ann Cleeves

Pan, 2007

Hidden Depths is a classic crime-fiction story set in the small towns and villages of Northumberland (and, a bit, in the city of Newcastle-upon-Tyne), north-east England.  Inspector Vera Stanhope and her team are called out when a young teenager, Luke Armstrong, is found dead in his bath by his mother, Julie. Julie at first assumes the boy, who had learning difficulties, had committed suicide, but Vera and team quickly establish that he had been murdered. Soon after, the body of another young person, this time a woman called Lily Marsh, is found on the beach, having died in a similar fashion to Luke. Again, Vera’s team investigates.

The former case, that of Luke, has proved hard to tackle for the police due to a dearth of suspects, though Vera quickly picks up on the fact that Luke’s best friend Tom had drowned some time ago, and that although the death was accidental, Luke tried to save Tom and has since blamed himself for his friend’s death. Tom comes from a family of criminals, so Vera visits his father in prison and uncovers a couple of clues, or rather hints.

The second case, that of Lily, presents a richer crew of suspects. Lily is discovered by four men who are celebrating the sixtieth birthday of one of them, unpleasant Peter Calvert, a botanist. Calvert, in common with Cleeves characters in other novels, is both an obsessive birdwatcher and a failed yet pompous academic. Although he is a university lecturer, he has not reached what he considers to be his full potential, and has to suffer the indignity of having research papers rejected from journals, and so on. His smug wife Felicity is much younger than him. She does not work outside the home, spending her time looking after the couple’s youngest child James, cooking and keeping the house and garden beautiful. She enjoys flirting with her husband’s birdwatching friends Gary, a sound technician, Sam, a librarian and writer, and Clive, a museum curator.

Vera and her team search for a link between the two cases. Soon they find that they have almost too many connections, as more characters turn up who have or could have intersected with both victims. The charm and heart of this novel is the personality of Vera. She’s much more central here than she was in Telling Tales, her previous outing, so we learn a bit more about her background and relationship with her father, as well as her investigative methods and attitudes, and her relationship with younger policeman Joe Ashworth. Vera is not the kind of detective, nor Cleeves the kind of author, who is big on procedure and documentation. Rather, Vera goes to see all the characters in turn, gradually digging under their defences and working out how their past or present secrets might be relevant. Whether or not this approach is a realistic depiction of police-work, the result is a compelling, sympathetic and insightful account of the quietly desperate lives led by some people, on the edge of mental illness in some cases, and how they struggle to keep going in a hostile or indifferent world. The character studies here are acute, and while there are so many clues and connections that the solution to the mysteries does have an element of “select any person out of the list of suspects” about it, the novel as a whole is readable, absorbing and enjoyable.

My copy of this book was a gift from the publisher.

There are three books in the Vera Stanhope series: The Crow Trap, Telling Tales and Hidden Depths (links go to my reviews). The next installment,  Silent Voices,  is out in the UK early next year. Vera will also be a TV character early next year (UK), in which Hidden Depths is currently planned to be the first episode even though it is the third in the book series.

Among her other books, Ann Cleeves is the author of a Shetland Quartet. My reviews of these novels can be read at Euro Crime.

Read other reviews of Hidden Depths at: Euro Crime (Sunnie Gill), Musings from a Muddy Island (Juliet Doyle), Spinetingler magazine (Martin Edwards) and DJ's Krimiblog (Dorte Jakobsen). 

Book Review: The Siege by Stephen White

The Siege

Stephen White

Signet, 2010 (first published 2009).

 How does one write an original thriller in the crowded niche of books about terrorists/hostages? If the author had not been Stephen White, I would not have picked up this book on the grounds that such plots are usually 100 per cent predictable, with the only variations being location, cause of terrorism, etc.  Nevertheless, Stephen White is a reliable author, and after completing The Siege I think it fair to say that if you like his Alan Gregory novels, you’ll probably like this one, which although it features series regular Sam Purdy, a Boulder cop currently under suspension, can be read without any reference to the rest of the author’s output.

The Siege does not start promisingly, with a confusing opening chapter that plunges us into the main action,  told from the point of view of New Haven cop Sergeant Christine Carmody as she is dealing with an act of violence against a hostage being held in a ‘tomb’ at Yale University.  After this horrible yet confusingly described event, the author steps back to relate the story of the previous few days that led up to the crisis. Some of this build-up concerns the aforementioned Sam, who is attending an upmarket engagement party in Florida. He has been invited because his soon-to-be stepdaughter is marrying the son of the squillionaire Ronaldo Calderon and his geophysicist wife Ann. Knowing Sam is in law enforcement, Ann reveals to him that her daughter Jane, a student at Yale, has suddenly stopped communicating with her, and that she’s very worried as the two are usually in constant contact. She asks him for discreet help. Rapidly, Sam surmises that the reason for Jane’s silence is a dreadful one.

Chapters switch between Sam’s quest to find out more about what has happened to Jane, and Christine’s cop duties in New Haven. Luckily, Christine has a boss who is not very bright, so between explanations to him and Sam (who soon arrives at the location) scouting around, the reader is given a quick tutorial on Yale tombs (actually large, stone buildings), secret student societies (reminiscent of Donna Tartt’s novel A Secret History), “tapping” and so on, as well as a useful street map, so one can become geographically orientated about the act(s) of terrorism and other dramatic events in the immediate area.

A third story is being told in parallel – that of an odd couple of investigators, a female CIA agent called Dee, and her occasional male lover, FBI counter-intelligence specialist Poe. Poe is a victim of the Oklahoma bomb atrocity and has never really recovered. He and Dee between them are interested in “evolved terrorism” – where terrorism might go if it stopped being the provenance of fanatics and began to be financed by high-tech big business. They, too, home in on New Haven as soon as they hear news of the hostage crisis.

The Siege is very involving and exciting during the chapters about Sam, Christine, Dee and Poe, as they try to fulfil their various missions with honour and courage, as well as racing against time to second-guess (and hence try to foil) the terrorists. Where the novel falls down is in exactly in the usual failing of  “terrorist-hostage” novels:  that is, the terrorists are far too all-seeing, all-powerful, able to anticipate any move by the authorities and technologically beyond mere sophistication. Their motivation, when finally revealed, is logical but not that credible, and for me does not fully hang together with their actions towards their student hostages. So, I score the novel 10 out of 10 for the "good guy" characters and the exciting, tense events as told from their perspectives as they converge on New Haven– I particularly liked the geophysical subplot – but far less than that for the routine terrorists and the action-packed (equally routine) outcome and aftermath.

I purchased my copy of this novel. Thanks to Kathy for reminding me the other day in a comment that this book was on my "to be purchased" list.

The Siege at the author's website.

Read other, very positive, reviews of The Siege at: Mysterious Reviews;  The Novel Bookworm; and Seeing the World Through Books. (This last review, by Mary Whipple, is excellent both as a review and as a very informative piece about the setting of the novel.)

Crime fiction to give for Christmas

Give books for Christmas, writes Kerrie of Mysteries in Paradise, and who am I to disagree? Giving crime fiction for Christmas, though, seems slightly counter-seasonal. I am never quite sure how the generalist recipient (as opposed to a dyed-in-the-wool addict) really feels when presented with a dark tome.

Nevertheless, Kerrie has urged bloggers to make their recommendations for Christmas gifts from the titles they have read this year, so I'll give it a go. I've divided my selections into two:

Presents for crime-fiction addicts:

ShadowPlay by Karen Campbell (Glasgow, Scotland)

Kind of Blue by Miles Corwin (Los Angeles, USA)

The Last Fix by K O Dahl, translated by Don Bartlett (Oslo, Norway)

The Build Up by Philip Gwynne (Darwin, Australia)

Rupture by Simon Lelic  (London, England)

Needle in a Haystack by Ernesto Mallo, translated by Jethro Soutar (Buenos Aires, Argentina)

Water Blue Eyes by Domingo Villar, translated by Martin Schifino (Vigo, Spain)

I chose the above titles because they are not by standard, well-known authors in the genre, but are distinctive (and not nth in a series).

Presents for "generalists" or those new to the genre:

Witness the Night by Kishwar Desai (Julundur, India)

Winterland by Alan Glynn (Dublin, Ireland)

The Crossing Places by Elly Griffiths (Norfolk, England)

B-Very Flat by Margot Kinberg ("Tilton", USA)

Thirteen Hours by Deon Meyer, translated by K L Seegers (Cape Town, South Africa)

Thursday Night Widows by Claudia Pinerio, translated by Miranda France (near Buenos Aires, Argentina)

The Lying Tongue by Andrew Wilson (Venice, Italy, and England)

I chose these titles because they all tell a very good story, as well as involving a "crime". Some of them might not strictly be considered as "crime fiction" but I think any of them would encourage a novice to try a few more in the genre!

Do you have recommendations for Christmas presents? Visit Mysteries in Paradise to add your post of choices.

Book Review: The Burning by Jane Casey

The Burning

Jane Casey

Ebury, November 2010 (paperback).

Part police-procedural and part psychological suspense, The Burning is a very good crime novel. From the cover words, one would think that this book is about a serial killer who is attacking young women walking home late at night in south London, and burning them. Although this plot description would usually put me off reading a book, my experience of the author’s previous (debut) novel, The Missing, encouraged me to buy The Burning, and I’m glad I did as the serial killer element is very much a side-issue.

DC Maeve Kerrigan is part of the team working on the case of the murdered women. She’s called out at 3 a.m. one day when it is thought that the killer has been caught in the act. Simultaneously with the discovery that this is not true, the body of a young woman is found – presumed the fifth victim. Maeve and the head of the task force, DI Godley, have their doubts based on some differences in the fifth case from the previous four, so Maeve finds herself assigned to a 'sideline' investigation into the fifth murder. Godley wants to keep the possibility that there may be two killers within his squad and away from the media until he is sure one way or the other.

Maeve is a competent detective plagued by petty sexism and racism (she’s Irish) that never reaches the level of justifiying a complaint, but which is corrosive and unsettling for her. At the same time, she’s impulsively moved in two months earlier with Ian, a banker, and their relationship is not working out, to put it mildly.

Despite her personal insecurities, Maeve pursues her investigation into the “fifth” case with professional vigour, which involves investigating friends, family and ex-colleagues of the dead woman.  Most of the book is told from her point of view, but the chapters in Maeve’s voice are interspersed with short entries by Louise, the dead girl’s best friend. By these means, we gradually build up a picture of the woman and her life, as Maeve closes in on what must have happened.

Matters come to a head one night when the police, including Maeve, take part in a large undercover operation. Maeve, with the help of her sympathetic colleague Rob and DI Godley, works out the truth by a combination of deductive reasoning and instinct – but of course, not before she herself is endangered.

This novel is both readable and impressive. Although its context is that of the search for the serial killer, the author is much more interested in the life of the fifth victim and how her death came about, so rather than dominating the novel with clichéd accounts of murders, the serial-killer case is tangential to the main event – constantly threatening and creating pressure on the police team, yet insubstantial rather than in the foreground.  In my opinion, this makes the novel both stronger and distinctive. Although the solution to the “fifth” mystery is not much of a surprise, it certainly has impact, due to the reader’s involvement in the characters, particularly Maeve –a  determined and attractive protagonist whom I hope to meet again one day.

I purchased this novel on impulse as a half-price offer.

There seem to be no independent reviews of the book yet in the media or on blogs, apart from this very brief one by Cath Staincliffe at Tangled Web. There are some customer reviews at the UK Amazon website.

My review of The Missing, Jane Casey's previous novel.

Jane Casey at AuthorsPlace.

Book Review: December Heat by Luiz Alfredo Garcia-Roza

December Heat

Luiz Alfredo Garcia-Roza

Translator Benjamin Moser

First published in Portuguese 1998; first published in English 2005.

In the winter heat of Rio de Janeiro, a young homeless boy witnesses an insensible drunk being helped into a car outside a restaurant late at night. From his precious cardboard box, the boy watches as the man is wedged into his car by a woman and the restaurant’s doorman – tantalisingly, he sees a wallet sticking out of the drunk’s pocket. Unobserved in the chaos, he manages to snatch it. After the car drives off, he investigates his spoils but sees that the wallet contains a policeman’s ID. Terrified, the boy takes the cash and drops the wallet back in the gutter. He waits to see who will pick it up.

Later, retired cop Viera wakes up with a dreadful hangover and a severe memory lapse. Realizing his wallet has gone, he’s annoyed about the loss of his police ID card more than anything, as he’s been using it since he retired and can’t get another one.  He vaguely remembers that he went out the previous evening with his girlfriend Magali. He assumes that she has dropped him home and gone back to her own flat, so goes there to ask if she has his wallet. She is out, so he leaves his card. After returning to his apartment the phone rings. It is Inspector Espinosa, who has been called out to the scene of a murder – Magali’s. Espinosa’s only lead is Viera’s card.

The first half of this novel is a totally absorbing story of Espinosa’s teasing out of events before and after the crime. He soon discovers the existence of the homeless boy, and manages to make brief contact with him via a “street teacher” Clodorado. The boy is terrified though, as life on the streets is cheap and he has every reason to believe he is in danger.

As in the first novel in which he appears, Espinosa spends much  of this novel torn between two women, this time they are Flor, a prostitute who was Magali’s best friend and who takes up with Viera; and Kiki, a young artist who sells her paintings at a road junction and is a witness in the case. Espinosa’s musings over the two women are far less interesting than the case itself, which gradually unravels against a sympathetic and harrowing background of the many poor people struggling to survive in this huge city. About half way through the novel, Espinosa and Viera run out of leads, and for the rest of it, Espinosa is either searching for the same few people, or just missing them (this book was written at a time when communication was by answering machine not mobile phone), or pondering on the appeal of the two very different women characters. Perhaps I found this last aspect a little tiresome as Espinosa spent the previous novel, The Silence of the Rain, similarly torn between two women – neither of whom is mentioned here.

At the end, Espinosa does work out what is happening, but in a curiously detached way, separate from any organised investigation. There are various leads which are not followed up with any vigour, and the explanation, when it comes, is too full of supposition to be very satisfactory. Even so, the novel is an extremely atmospheric depiction of life in Rio de Janeiro which I very much enjoyed reading, despite its slight failings as a convincing crime novel. The perspective of the street people and of those struggling to escape the slums and shanty dwellings to make something of themselves are particularly moving. The translation seems sympathetic, but is in US, not English, English.

I purchased a second-hand copy of the Picador edition of this book.

Read my review of the first in the series, The Silence of the Rain.

Read other reviews of December Heat at: The Bookworm Wannabe (review in English of the original Portuguese version) and  January Magazine, 

The Silence of the Rain has also been reviewed at: Mysteries in Paradise and The View from the Blue House.

Southwesterly Wind, the third in the series, was recently reviewed at Reactions to Reading. 

New UK fiction for February

Feeling in an evil mood today, I thought I'd share some of the new books due to be published in the UK in February 2011, courtesy of The Bookseller (5 November issue, starting on p. 25). The Bookseller still has not got around to noting whether any of these are simultaneously published in e-format (or maybe the publisher is not providing the information), but it's worth checking at online booksellers or the publishers' websites, as an increasing number of books are being published electronically and in print at the same time - pricing and geographical restrictions permitting, sadly.

Between Summer's Longing and Winter's End, by Leif G. W. Persson (Doubleday, £16.99) seems to be the only translated crime novel due out this month. The novel, first published in Sweden in 2002, has already been reviewed by Norman of Crime Scraps. It concerns the web of corruption and treachery uncovered by Superintendent Lars Johansson of the Stockholm police when a man dies falling from a tall building. The author is a criminologist and psychological profiler who has advised the Swedish Ministry of Justice, according to the blurb.

Big news for fans of US crime fiction is the publication of Moonlight Mile by Dennis Lehane (Little Brown, £16.99), featuring his series characters, investigators Patrick Kenzie and Angie Gennaro, after a long gap while the author wrote other books. This time a 16-year-old girl is missing -again. She was kidnapped when she was 4, and Kenzie worked on that case. "The search will lead him to Boston's most dangerous streets", apparently. Another very popular US author, Elmore Leonard, has a new book out in February, Djibouti (W&N, £18.99), his 48th! This one is about a documentary film-maker who travels to the Horn of Africa to film pirates.

Other books that will be on my reading list are two series novels - David Hunter in The Calling of the Grave by Simon Beckett (Bantam, £12.99) - see this Petrona preview - and the new Vera Stanhope book, Silent Voices by Ann Cleeves (Macmillan, £17.99) - a Petrona preview is here. There is a new Tony Black novel, Truth Lies Bleeding (Preface, £10.99), a police procedural set in Edinburgh in which DI Rob Brennan, recently returned from psychiatric leave, investigates a violent death. And Sophie Hannah will I am sure do well with her latest, Lasting Damage (Hodder, £14.99), her sixth psychological suspense novel in which a woman sees a body in a house while browsing an online property website. Sounds intriguing.

On the thriller front, Simon Kernick offers The Payback (Bantam, £12.99), set in Manilla and about "two cops haunted by the past" - the titular payback being what's in store when they meet. Robin Cook's Cure (Pan Macmillan, £17.99) concerns biotech espionage as the death of a CIA agent is linked to companies dealing in stem-cell research; and Richard North Patterson's In the Name of Honour uses a court martial format to highlight the high cost of war- in this case the US army in Iraq, the case being about a soldier who shoots his commanding officer.

There are plenty of other novels: Sleep like the Dead by Alex Gray (Sphere, £12.99), a DCI Lorimer novel set in Glasgow; Blood and Ashes by Matt Hilton (Hodder, £12.99), in which Joe Hunter investigates a racist conspiracy; a geopolitical thriller End Game by Matthew Glass (Corvus, £12.99), a sequel to Ultimatum once again set in the Horn of Africa; The Case of the Man Who Died Laughing by Tarquin Hall (Hutchinson, £12.99) - a second outing for Delhi detective Vish Puri; and the inevitable "best sellers", in February's case The Confession by John Grisham (Century £12.99) about a man on death row, and Mortal Remains by Kathy Reichs (Heinemann, £17.99), the 13th case for forensic anthropologist Tempe Brennan if anyone is counting. (Which reminds me that the 32nd J. D. Robb novel, Treachery in Death, is out also (Piatkus, £16.99), a series that started well with a fresh idea, but which has long since become mere formula, twice a year.)

Book Review: The Water Widow by Ella Griffiths

The Water Widow

By Ella Griffiths, translated by J. Basil Cowlishaw

Quartet books, 1986.

First published in Norway 1977.

The second of Ella Griffiths's two novels that were translated into English, The Water Widow, is another engaging, brisk-paced investigation for detective brothers Sergeant Rudolf and Detective Karsten Nilsen of the Oslo police. The brothers were first encountered by English readers in Murder on Page Three.

The main plot of the book concerns Rudolf Nilsen’s investigation of the death of a man who was last seen complaining of bad toothache. The man, Georg Brandt, is in his 50s and lives alone – it is his elderly mother who reports his absence to the police after he misses a couple of regular visits to the nursing home where she lives. Rudolf spends most of the weekend asking Brandt’s colleagues in the mens’ clothes shop where he worked if they have any idea where he is, and questioning Brandt’s neighbours and landlord. He gets nowhere, but on Monday morning a dentist returns from a trip away and discovers a body in the treatment chair at his surgery.

Rudolf is in his 50s himself, an overweight policeman who is conscious of his age, his inability to climb stairs without getting completely out of breath, and feels guilty for shamefully ignoring his long-suffering wife while he works constant overtime.  He embarks on a diet and spends the entire book in a state of hunger. His younger brother Karsten is an alcoholic, having been abandoned by his long-term girlfriend Wendy. As the novel progresses, we realise there is a deeper side to Karsten, bought out by his unlikely partnership with a young rookie cop.

Aside from these personal factors, the novel is a crisp, well-observed investigation into the strange death of Brandt – the only real clue being that a couple of witnesses claim to have seen a person in full widow’s weeds leaving the dentist’s building in the relevant timeframe. By the classic methods of interviewing suspects, witnesses and following up all leads, Rudolf gradually realises that the crime must be connected to the drugs trade, and in particular a theft from a local hospital. The author is particularly strong on conveying the varied tragedies of drug addiction, which is not as embedded as in Sweden or Germany at that time (we are told) but increasingly has an iron grip on too many (mainly young) people.

The ending consists of too many events and hasty explanations, but as a whole the book is a classic police procedural, well-plotted and well-told.  I liked in particular in the characters and relationships of the brothers, and the author’s acute observations of several of the sad, pleasant and distinctly unpleasant people they encounter. What is more, this novel (and its predecessor) stand the test of time extremely well.

I purchased a second-hand copy of this novel.

My review of Murder on Page Three. 

Euro Crime post in which I first heard about this author.

When I posted my review of Murder on Page Three, the translator, J. Basil Cowlishaw, kindly left a comment. I reproduce part of it here as some fascinating background about the author. “It's years ago that I translated it [Murder on Page Three], along with The Water Widow and a handful of Ella Griffiths's short stories, one of which was adapted for television by Anglia. Ella was my first (but fortunately not my last) Norwegian girlfriend when I came here in May 1945 with the RAF during the Liberation. We lost touch in the intervening years, but someone gave her my name as a translator and we managed to get our act together and as a result she was published in the UK. She died about ten years ago.”

Ella Griffiths at Wikipedia (Norwegian)

Book Review: Raid and the Blackest Sheep by Harri Nykanen

Raid and the Blackest Sheep

Harri Nykanen, translator Peter Ylitalo Leppa

Ice Cold Crime, 2010, Kindle format

(first published in Finnish, 2000) 

Raid is a young, silent and mysterious enforcer who has been paid to accompany Nygren,  an ill, ageing criminal recently released after a long jail sentence, on a journey round Finland. As the odd couple meet Nygren’s ex-associates, it seems that the old man is wreaking vengeance on those who have betrayed him by keeping money that they owe him for his pre-incarceration “investments” into their shady businesses. Raid is a man of few (or, in public, no) words, but his increasingly ruthless methods are effective at extracting what is owed to Nygren even in spots so tight that there is no obvious exit. (Raid is a tad too superhuman for my taste, but even so he’s easy to like.)

Gradually, it is apparent that Nygren’s journey is more elegiac than it seemed at first. Some of the people he visits are people he himself has betrayed; others are lost family members. As Raid drives up and down the country, Nygren tells him stories of his past, and how he has come to this point – and eventually, we come to see why Nygren has chosen this particular companion. 

Interspersed with this story is that of some Helsinki police detectives, primarily Detective Janssen, an overweight, balding mid-50s cop who to his disgruntlement has been sent to a health farm for a couple of weeks to get fit. Although he’s been married for many years and has never been unfaithful to his wife (an absent but strong influence on him in this novel), he’s tempted to stray by his easygoing colleague Huusko and, in a different way, by Anna, one of the physical therapists. Soon, his colleagues back at the station contact him about Nygren’s activities, as Janssen has had previous dealings with both him and his mysterious companion Raid. Why is Kempas, the head of the undercover unit, an obsessed workaholic, so determined to find Nygren guilty of something? Unwilling to be pulled into what seems like a witch-hunt, Janssen decides to abscond from his ordeal by health and find out for himself what is going on, with the help of his previous relationship with Raid.

I very much enjoyed this book, which is an unusual mix of themes – police-procedural, epic journey, “mysterious hard man”, and ironic humour. By following Nygren and Raid’s journey, and Janssen’s low-key pursuit, the reader can experience quite a few Finnish locations and life – and appreciate the national sport of cracking jokes at the expense of the Swedes. I did not much like the violent coda to the novel - my favourite parts were about Janssen and his colleagues, whom I hope to encounter again.

The Raid series is very popular in Finland and has also been filmed. According to the bibliography in this novel, the first Raid book was published in 1992 and there have been at least seven in the series since – this one is somewhere in the middle. (There may be more, but as the bibliography is in Finnish, I am assuming that only titles containing the word “Raid” are relevant.)  It is great that Ice Cold Crime is translating this series (as well as books by other Finnish authors) for the US market and that this novel is available in Kindle format for UK readers.

I purchased my Kindle version of this novel.

Ice Cold Crime

About this novel at Ice Cold Crime

Other reviews of this novel at: Nordic Bookblog (where I first heard of the book, thanks, Peter!);  Scandinavian Crime Fiction (Barbara Fister).

 

 

Book Review: The Hunting Season by Elizabeth Rigbey

The Hunting Season
Elizabeth Rigbey

Penguin, 2007 (first published by Michael Joseph 2006)

Matt Selekis is a doctor at a large hospital in Salt Lake City. He specialises in endocrine and oncological surgery, and is something of a (lower case s) saint, having spent some years working in Eritrea after graduating from medical school, before returning home. One night, a terminally ill, elderly patient begs Matt to end his pain, and Matt obliges –without alerting the on-call oncologist first because Matt knows the man will be drunk. Despite having been asked earlier by the patient, Mr Zoy, and his wife, to undertake this course if Mr Zoy’s suffering became too great to bear, Matt finds himself and his hospital subject to an ethical lawsuit.

Matt has a self-questioning nature, and reacts to these events by losing much of his fragile self-confidence. He’s always been an outsider from the hospital’s medical establishment, disapproving of the money it makes from performing (as Matt sees it) unnecessary weight-loss surgeries, and in addition he is not one of the LDS (Latter Day Saints with a capital S) who are dominant in this city. Nevertheless he is blissfully happily married to Denise, and they have a young son. Both Matt and Denise have elderly fathers: Clem, Denise’s father, has been a leading LDS figure, now in a self-chosen nursing facility and in Matt’s view dominating his daughter (who has left the Mormon church); Hirsh, Matt’s father, lives in what was the family’s vacation house in the wilds of the Rockies. Matt and Denise visit their respective fathers often.

Elizabeth (formerly Liz) Rigbey is masterful at conveying slow menace. Someone is following Matt in a red car: he is convinced it is the Zoys’ son, but never sees him through the darkened windows of his car so cannot know for sure. The book is told from the point of view of Matt, who is clearly an unreliable narrator as he tries to remember key events from his childhood summers in the holiday house. His mother Hilly was a concert pianist who has died of cancer many years previously, but Matt has many conflicting memories about her last summer and in particular his family’s relationship with their neighbours, the Minellis. Mr Minelli, a real-estate agent, was a bully but seemed to have a hold over Hilly. He died from gunshot wounds, but who was responsible? Matt was best friends with Minelli’s youngest son, Steve, but has not seen him for 26 years since that last summer in the mountains when the tragedy occurred.  In the wake of the Zoys’ accusations, Steve suddenly re-enters Matt’s life, both at work and as a photographer of unsettling and questionable art. Steve is obsessed with his father’s death and persists in asking Matt to find out more from his own father, Hirsch. Matt and his father have a pretty silent relationship (Hirsch was a doctor and Matt has followed in his footsteps), and Matt is reluctant to confront the older man.

As well as all this ancient history, Matt himself seems to have secrets related to Denise, his wife’s, first marriage. How did Weslake, her first husband, die, and why is he a constant presence in Matt’s marriage? How is his business – selling a presumed fake slimming mixture – tied up with Matt’s family life and Denise’s father? Did Matt know Denise or Weslake while Weslake was alive?

The last part of this book is about a highly symbolic hunting trip that Matt and Hirsch undertake, in which it seems that many of these secrets may be revealed. That is, if the wild elements do not first defeat the pair, as Hirsch is pretty old and Matt inexperienced at wilderness survival.

There are many aspects of The Hunting Season that are extremely good. It’s a very well written book and particularly strong on the location both in Salt Lake City and in the surrounding mountains. The hospital, Matt’s friends, the LDS and its role in society, and the old locals who live near Hirsch are all portrayed with conviction. The plot is too drawn-out for my taste: the book is 500 pages long and I think that the air of creepy menace and false memories that provide the suspense can’t quite justify that length. Denise, Matt’s wife, is something of an insubstantial yet idealised figure, and though Hilly comes across in sharp relief (though she is only present in the novel in half-glimpsed fragments), Hirsch is slightly unconvincing as he switches from being a universally respected retired family doctor to insisting on an extremely demanding, survivalist and dangerous journey with his son, which seems out of character. The Hunting Season is a very absorbing read about a likeable if rather incurious protagonist (he never looks anything up to answer his doubts and insecurities). By the end of the novel, several mysteries are solved, but one is left slightly in the air, wondering how things will turn out for the characters after the last page has been turned. I'm very glad I read this book, and if the author writes another one (I hope she will), I shall certainly read it. 

When she was still called Liz Rigbey, this author wrote an original and distinctive debut called Total Eclipse, about an astronomer. If you can get hold of it, I highly recommend it as one of the novels I’ve read that really stands out in my mind. Her second novel, Summertime, is very good but like The Hunting Season, does not quite match the first. All three books are very well written indeed, with a haunting, involving quality that really conveys what it is like under the skin of some of the characters.

I can't find other (proper) reviews of The Hunting Season so here is the book on Amazon UK with a couple of brief reader comments.

My alphabet post about Liz Rigbey (which led me to discover the existence of The Hunting Season).

Interview with the author about her previous novel, Summertime, at the publisher's (Penguin) website.

Article by the author about The Hunting Season and its lack of Russian elements.

Book Review: A Capital Crime by Laura Wilson

A Capital Crime

By Laura Wilson

Quercus 2010

A Capital Crime is a great piece of storytelling. I am glad of my policy of knowing nothing about the content of books before I read them, as had I known that this novel is based on a famous real-life crime, I might not have embarked on it. And I would have missed out.

It is 1950, six years since the traumatic events in DI Stratton’s life that happened at the end of An Empty Death. Stratton and his trusty sergeant Ballard are contacted by the Welsh police because a man has confessed to them that he’s murdered his wife at their previous house, in London. Upon investigation, it turns out that not only has this 19-year-old, pregnant woman disappeared, but so has her 14-month-old baby. Soon, the worst is discovered, and Stratton has to relive personal traumas while managing this case. A man is sent for trial, and the case seems cut and dried.

The main strength of this novel is the author’s sheer storytelling ability. Having established the crime plot, she turns away from that and to the character of Diana Calthrop, from the first novel in this series (Stratton’s War). Diana is soon to be divorced from her weak husband, and intends to make a new life for herself in London. This she does, very capably, soon landing a job at a film studio as assistant to a director. While she is there, she meets Monica, Stratton’s daughter, who is a make-up artist and who is also a major character in this novel. Monica, like her father, is very conscious of the class divide between her and Diana, but again like her father, is attracted to her. Diana, however, with her unerring instinct for disaster, embarks on a course that will bring her into a very different life to the one with which she’s familiar. There is a contemporary resonance to the knife-edge on which Diana lives, and her story is told with real passion and depth.

A few years pass. Stratton and his colleagues hear of one or two disappearances of prostitutes, but cannot make any headway in finding them. Suddenly, a terrible discovery is made, and the policemen are presented with the worst, most upsetting case they’ve ever seen in their careers – careers that have seen plenty of horrors while serving in London during the recently ended Second World War.

Stratton is an attractive, introspective character, conscious of his weaknesses and uncomfortably aware of his inability to communicate fully with Monica and his belligerent son Pete, now doing his National Service. He’s hampered by the conventions of the day, yet sensitive in a way that many of his contemporaries are not. A chance meeting with Diana at the Festival of Britain sends him into a confused state, yet this experience is nothing compared with the circumstances when they next meet.

The middle section of this novel was a compulsive page-turner for me, reading about Diana’s life and about the people she knew while working for the secret service in the War. I was intrigued by Monica and the setting of the film studio. The last part of the book focuses more on the awful crime case, from the point of view of the police investigation. I found this less interesting than the interpersonal stories of the Strattons and their family and friends, together with Diana’s circle. Perhaps that is because I find the true-life case on which this novel is based both repellent and tedious.

Laura Wilson has written an excellent novel in A Capital Crime. Her invented characters, whether central or tangential, are completely realistic and of their time yet with a subtle overtone of present-day perspective. Her observations of the social mores of the day are acute, and her cast-list (with the exception of the criminal) sympathetic yet unsentimental. Her settings are beautifully detailed and convincing throughout.  I thoroughly enjoyed this novel and so much hope that it will not be too long before the next episode in the life of DI Ted Stratton.

I am very grateful to the publisher, Quercus, for my copy of this book.

About the book at the author's website - including a free download of chapter 1.

My reviews of the first two in the series: Stratton's War and An Empty Death.

Read other reviews of A Capital Crime at: The Guardian, The Independent, Financial Times, Book Geeks, and Tales of a Shirley Scribe.

Spring 2011 books from Pan Macmillan

I received the Spring books catalogue from Pan Macmillan the other day, and as well as one or two upcoming titles that have previously featured on this blog, there are one or two more new books due that I am looking forward to.

Silent Voices by Ann Cleeves (February) is the new Vera Stanhope novel, following on (after a gap) from The Crow Trap, Telling Tales and Hidden Depths. Here, Vera discovers a body in the sauna at her local gym (what can she be doing there? I haven't read Hidden Depths yet so maybe that is why it seems an odd place for Vera to be). The ensuing investigation sounds suitably challenging and intriguing.

Little Girl Lost by Brian McGilloway (May) is a standalone crime novel from the author of the Inspector Devlin series (Borderlands, Gallows Lane, Bleed a River Deep and The Rising). In Little Girl Lost, a small girl is found wandering at the edge of an ancient woodland. She's traumatised and does not speak, trusting only the person who rescued her, DS Lucy Vaughn. Lucy is rapidly involved in another case, and has some very interesting-sounding family problems. Definitely one to watch out for.

The Redeemed by M. R. Hall (April) is the third Jenny Cooper novel after The Coroner and The Disappeared. A psychiatric nurse is found dead, suspected of committing suicide. Of course, Jenny Cooper is going to find out that all is not what it seems. We are also promised some revelations about the mysterious trauma in her past - "her whole life has been governed by deception".

The Facility by Simon Lelic (January), author of the stunning debut novel Rupture (1000 Cuts), is about a government facility hidden deep in the countryside, and two people, a journalist and an anxious wife, who try to uncover its secrets.

There are several other novels in this catalogue that I might read, but these four are on my "definite" list. Unfortunately there is no Hakan Nesser due in the Spring, but I hope one might be forthcoming later next year. All the books featured here are said to be available in e-format as well as in printed versions.

Book Review: Kind of Blue by Miles Corwin

Kind of Blue

By Miles Corwin

Oceanview, 2010.

 Ash Levine quit the LAPD in a mixture of guilt and anger when a witness to a crime he was investigating was shot and killed. He’s very much at loose ends, though, stifled by his family and not enjoying the prospect of law school. He therefore jumps at the chance offered to him by his old mentor, Lieutenant Duffy, to return to the squad to investigate the shooting of a retired cop, Pete Revitch. Levine is full of energy and soon finds some leads which he pursues with vigour, while at the same time suffering some slings and arrows from old colleagues and superiors who are less than pleased that he’s back on the force.

Told in the first person, Kind of Blue (from the Miles Davis track) is a detailed yet fast-paced and absorbing police procedural with plenty of clues and leads to keep the reader on her toes. The author has previously written two non-fiction books about the LAPD, one as a result of shadowing two detectives for some months, and this deep and detailed knowledge is evident in every paragraph of this novel. The author does not fall into the trap of providing too much information, though. Levine is a man with a mission, and single-mindedly pursues the righteous way of investigation, not diverted by the politics of modern policing. At the same time, he has a somewhat troubled personal life: he’s divorced, a veteran of the Israeli army, and suffers nightmares as a result of his military experiences. None of this is dwelt on too much, so does not become a cliché; mainly the reader is caught up in the investigation of Revitch’s death as Levine pursues the few leads he has, re-interviewing witnesses and relatives, until he stumbles across the possibility that the dead man may have been on the take.

Even when the case appears to be solved, there are three or four more twists in the story, twists that address issues of police corruption, gang warfare in LA, and the extremes of rich and poor who live in this city of dreams. I very much enjoyed the book. Levine has plenty of problems and neuroses to cope with, and I think that some of these will settle down a bit so that future novels (of which I hope there will be some) will become more measured as a result. The ending of the book (or rather, the several endings) are to me less convincing than the main story, perhaps because Levine seems to be able to do anything (shoot people, be shot, etc) and be instantly back on the case, which does not seem to me all that likely. Even so, one wants very much for him to solve the current case as well as the old one which is haunting him.

It is likely that this book will be compared to the early work of Michael Connelly, as Levine could develop into a next-generation Harry Bosch. I think the comparison stands up well. Miles Corwin still has some way to go to develop the deceptively easy and mournful, elegiac style that characterises Connelly’s cleverly plotted novels, but on this evidence, he could certainly get there. I very much enjoyed my first encounter with Ash Levine’s life and his LAPD, and hope it will not be the last.

I thank the publisher, Oceanview, for so kindly sending me a copy of this novel.

 About the book at the publisher website (including endorsement from Michael Connelly himself).

An interview with the author about this book (PDF).

Author's website.

Other reviews of this novel are at: Mystery Maven, The Mystery Gazette,  Bookloons Reviews , Fresh Fiction and Suite 101.

My Euro Crime and Petrona reviews for October

My three reviews for Euro Crime during October were of very different books: the latest exciting journalism-crime case for Swedish reporter Annika Bengstrom; a detailed and (seemingly) realistic Scottish police procedural with a senior female protagonist; and a Jack Reacher adventure thriller set in Nebraska. From my reviews:

Red Wolf by Liza Marklund: I found the novel a completely absorbing read and continue to regard this series as second to none in contemporary crime writing. Annika is both a serious-minded, determined protagonist, and a brave heroine for our strange, mixed-up times. *****

Shadowplay by Karen Campbell: Of all the UK police series being written today, I think Karen Campbell's has rapidly become my favourite, mainly for its authenticity and for the character of Anna, a convincingly portrayed woman who is ambitious yet not prepared to sacrifice any of her own personal principles in order to smooth her path. For this reason, she's probably admired by her colleagues more than she realises. I think this series is so far impressively varied (each of the three books has had a very different focus) and well written. I am looking forward to more. ***

Worth Dying For by Lee Child: As usual, my verdict on this novel is that if you like Jack Reacher stories, you'll like this one. It contains all the ingredients that make this series such a success: tough hero adhering to his own moral code and standing up for the "true" American values that transcend officialdom; some exciting set-pieces; easy to read – the prose is not as simplistic as is found in some other bestselling novels but is pretty easygoing; a plot that provides a bit of mystery and suspense without taxing the brain too much; and plenty of wish-fulfillment concerning ethics and values that we'd all like for our society but which are unlikely ever to happen. Don't go looking for holes in the plot as there are very many of them indeed. *

At Petrona I posted 14 reviews, with a pretty good global spread. Some of these books I enjoyed more than others, but there were at least some things to like in all of them, and a lot of things to like in some of them! I've given them one, two or three stars here, to indicate my own relative favourites among this particular batch.

Never Look Away by Linwood Barclay (USA, Canadian author)**
Blacklands by Belinda Bauer (England)***
The Guards by Ken Bruen (Ireland)***
Cemetery Lake by Paul Cleave (New Zealand)*
The Reversal by Michael Connelly (USA)***
Kittyhawk Down by Garry Disher (Australia)***
Black Ice by Leah Giarratano  (Australia)*
The Build Up by Phillip Gwynne (Australia)***
Gone by Mo Hayder (England)***
Sister by Rosamund Lupton (England)***
Audition by Ryu Murakami (Japan)*
Let the Dead Lie by Malla Nunn (South Africa)**
Experimental Heart by Jennifer L Rohn (England)**
Silence by Jan Costin Wagner (Finland, German author)***

Although I very much liked many of these titles, my book of the month has to be Red Wolf by Liza Marklund, translator Neil Smith. Don't let this put anyone off from trying some of the others, though, as there are some very good novels in October's selections.

My reviews so far this year.
My Euro Crime review archive.
Archive of all my book reviews. 

Book Review: Our Lady of Pain by Elena Forbes

Our Lady of Pain

Elena Forbes

Quercus 2008 (review is of the UK paperback edition, 2009)

The second book about DI Mark Tartaglia is a jolly good read which I enjoyed far more than his debut outing in Die With Me. I had put off reading Our Lady of Pain for a while owing to its title, cover and "teaser" words, which I find less than inviting - as well as a slight ambivalence about the first novel (see my review). As it turns out, Our Lady of Pain is a classic police procedural with nothing to do with the picture (or teaser words). It isn't among the best crime novels I have read this year, but it is a good read, nonetheless.

Tartaglia is the grandson of Italian immigrants who settled in Edinburgh. He and his sister, the matchmaking Nicoletta, both live in London: she is a lecturer in Italian at London University; he is in charge of one of the murder squads based in Barnes, south-west London. He is single, rides a motorbike and is portrayed as very handsome and eligible. He’s called out to investigate the case of a woman who had been murdered while out running in Holland Park, and the bulk of the ensuing novel describes how he and his team carry out their work of interviewing witnesses, searching apartments and so on, to try to find the perpetrator – no easy task.

Rachel Tenison, the victim, was a loner, so it takes Tartaglia and his loyal sergeant Sam (short for Samantha) Donovan some time to find out much about her associates and her life.  At the start of their investigation, rather too much of the plot involves Tartaglia or Donovan having to re-interview witnesses who don’t seem to be entirely truthful, in order to get them to admit further details that they consider irrelevant to the investigation. I don’t find this a very satisfactory way of moving a plot along, but it is certainly better than the other genre standby of finding more bodies.

One of the unusual aspects of the case is the discovery of part of a poem by Swinburne on the body (hence the book’s title). This clue leads Tartaglia to a year-old, closed  investigation of the death of a woman who was a professor of English literature (including the works of Swinburne) at the university. Tartaglia and Donovan are convinced that the two cases must be related, but how? Their quest is complicated by the reluctance of the investigating officer, Simon Turner, to re-open the old case as it might make him and his recently deceased boss look bad if they failed to unearth any crucial information at the time. Turner reluctantly joins Tartaglia’s team for the purposes of combining the investigations; it is he who finds a crucial suspect, and Donovan who makes the link between the two cases.

Once the second case is uncovered, the pace of this novel picks up considerably. The author weaves in the social lives of the detectives and other police staff into her narrative, as well as a possible romantic diversion between Tartaglia and one of the witnesses to the Rachel Tenison case. There are a couple of twists to the tale, one of which I anticipated and the other I didn’t, but unfortunately the author did not resist repeating her “woman in peril” ending from the first book. The gradual realisation by a female character that she is on her own with a possible murderer is a cliché which renders the ending a bit flat and perfunctory. Another slightly disappointing aspect is that I did not feel that a great sense of location was conveyed, other than the occasional description of a traditional pub or a snowy park which could have been anywhere.

I don’t mean to quibble: this novel is a jolly good, solid police procedural with two characters, Tartaglia and Donovan, who are interesting and individual, if in need of development. I like the juxtaposition of the work and personal lives of the police, and will certainly read the next in this series. 

My thanks to the publisher for my copy of this book.

Read other reviews at: Curled up with a Good Book (very positive but gives away more of the plot than I do here); Curled up with a Good Book again (not so positive); Reviewing the Evidence (Sharon Wheeler), an excellent brief review which sums up perfectly in all ways my opinion of the book!; and Mysterious Reviews (positive).

Interview with the author upon publication of her first novel, Die With Me.

Profile of Simon Beckett in The Bookseller

The author Simon Beckett is subject of a one-page profile in the current (29 October) issue of The Bookseller (p. 24). Beckett is author of a series of novels about Dr David Hunter, a forensic anthropologist (a fairly popular profession in crime fiction these days). Having read and enjoyed the previous three in this series, I'm glad to read that there will be a new David Hunter novel in February 2011, The Calling of the Grave (Bantam Press in the UK and Random House in Australia).

As pointed out in the profile, one distinguishing feature of the David Hunter novels is that they are all in different settings, and setting is an important component of each plot. The first, The Chemistry of Death, was set in the Norfolk fens; the sequel Written in Bone took place on a remote Scottish island; and the third, Whispers of the Dead, around the Tennessee, USA "body farm". It was this last location, apparently, that gave Beckett the idea for the Hunter series. He had written three earlier novels but failed to get a publishing deal. (The novels were eventually published by Allison and Busby.) He became a freelance journalist, during which time he went to Tennessee to shadow a group of police officers as they learned about the decomposition of human remains. From this experience, David Hunter was born. 

The new novel, The Calling of the Grave, starts eight years in the past when Hunter is part of a team investigating a body buried on Dartmoor. The main part of the novel is about the escape of the person who was responsible.... "absolutely nothing is as it seems, and Beckett skilfully engineers plot twist after plot twist interwoven with the meticulously researched forensic science." The author says that he likes to tackle new ground in each novel to provide not only "elements that people come back to, but you want a sense of development in each one." Part of this process are the gradual revelations about Hunter's past as the series progresses. 

It's quite well known that Beckett's books sell better in Germany and Scandinavia than they do in the UK, which is a pity as he certainly knocks the socks off Patricia Cornwell (who covers similar themes) and the like. He says that the series is harder to write as it goes on, which he says objectively is a good thing. "I don't want to freewheel - I think the more you put in , the more the reader can get out of it. ....If I were finding it easy then it might not be altogether a good thing.... for the books, anyway."

 Reviews of Simon Beckett's previous three novels at Euro Crime.

Author website (in English and German)

The Guardian and The Times on Simon Beckett, the "unknown crime writer". 

Archive of articles by Simon Beckett at The Guardian website.