New Reviews: Brightwell, Gerhardsen, Indridason, Miller, Nickson, O'Brien

Here are six new reviews which have been added to the Euro Crime website today.

Check back tomorrow to see what is the favourite overall Euro Crime read of 2013, plus who are the team's favourite authors and translators of 2013.

NB. Keep up to date with Euro Crime by following the blog and/or liking the Euro Crime Facebook page.

New Reviews

I review Emily Brightwell's The Inspector and Mrs Jeffries which has recently had a (very belated) UK release;

Rich Westwood reviews The Gingerbread House by Carin Gerhardsen tr. Paul Norlen, the first in the Hammarby (Stockholm) series;

Michelle Peckham reviews Arnaldur Indridason's Strange Shores tr. Victoria Cribb;

Amanda Gillies reviews Norwegian by Night by Derek B Miller;

Terry Halligan reviews Chris Nickson's The Crooked Spire, set in fourteenth-century Chesterfield

and Lynn Harvey reviews the latest in Martin O'Brien's south of France set, Daniel Jacquot series, The Dying Minutes.


Previous reviews can be found in the review archive.

Forthcoming titles can be found by author or date or by category, here along with releases by year.

New Reviews: Anderson, Black, Blake, Bruce, Gerhardsen, Jardine, Lackberg, Peacock, Wood

Here are this week's 9 new reviews which have now been added to the Euro Crime website:

Lynn Harvey reviews Just Business by Geraint Anderson, who has written "a fully-fledged thriller around the Cityboy character of Steve Jones";

Mark Bailey reviews Tony Black's Murder Mile the second in the DI Rob Brennan series set in Edinburgh;

Terry Halligan reviews the first of Nicholas Blake's Nigel Strangeways books, A Question of Proof which has been recently been republished by Vintage;

Michelle Peckham reviews Alison Bruce's The Calling the third in the DC Goodhew, Cambridge-based series which is now out in paperback;

I review Carin Gerhardsen's The Gingerbread House, tr. Paul Norlen the first in the Hammarby (police) series set in Stockholm;

Susan White reviews Quintin Jardine's Grievous Angel in which Bob Skinner looks back at his early career;

Maxine Clarke reviews Camilla Lackberg's The Drowning, tr. Tiina Nunnally which is now out in paperback;

Lizzie Hayes reviews Caro Peacock's fifth Liberty Lane mystery, Keeping Bad Company set in 1840

and Terry also reviews Tom Wood's The Enemy the second in the Victor hitman series.

Previous reviews can be found in the review archive.

Forthcoming titles can be found by author or date or by category, here along with releases by year.

Review: The Gingerbread House by Carin Gerhardsen

The Gingerbread House by Carin Gerhardsen translated by Paul Norlen, April 2012, 254 pages, Stockholm Text, ISBN: 9187173239

THE GINGERBREAD HOUSE is the first in the Hammarby (Stockholm) series and features DCI Conny Sjoberg and his team.

The book opens with a scene from nearly forty years earlier involving a six-year-old boy, Thomas, being bullied terribly by his classmates. Thirty-eight years later Thomas is living a quiet and friendless life when he spots the chief culprit in the bullying, Hans, and follows him to his home and then on to a deserted house.

Sjoberg is called in when the home-owner returns from a long stay in hospital to find a dead man in her kitchen. The man is soon identified as Hans and the police investigation begins its thorough look at Hans's life. The reader knows more than Sjoberg and that this is only the first of the murders and soon more forty-four-year-olds are dying unpleasantly but their geographical distance apart means that the trend is not picked up until very near the end.

As well as the main murder enquiry, one of Sjoberg's team, Police Assistant Petra Westerman is carrying out her own investigation into a personal matter - after she wakes up in an unknown bed after a drinking session.

In addition to the two police cases, there are chapters from Thomas and from the 'Diary of a Murderer'.

THE GINGERBREAD HOUSE is an intriguing police procedural which also looks at the issue of childhood bullying and the long-lasting impact it has. The outcome to the story is somewhat unexpected and the author does well with her misdirection of the reader. Sjoberg, with his loving wife and large brood of children (including two adopted twins) reminded me somewhat of Dell Shannon's Lt. Mendoza and makes a refreshing change to the often troubled/alcoholic/divorced protagonist. I look forward to reading more about the Hammarby detectives especially as Petra's mystery looks set to continue into the next book.

The translation into American English is by Paul Norlen (who is currently translating Leif G W Persson's trilogy). I did raise my eyebrows when something cost "ten bucks" rather than ten krona however this may not be in the final version.

THE GINGERBREAD HOUSE is available in both print and electronic (Epub, Kindle* and Nook) versions and is one of several new and welcome releases from Stockholm Text.

Read another review of THE GINGERBREAD HOUSE.

*The Kindle version has (temporarily I presume?) disappeared from Amazon.co.uk but is still on Amazon.com. It is also available as an Epub from Waterstones and Nook from Barnes & Noble.