Favourite Euro Crime Reads of 2017 - Laura

Today it's Euro Crime reviewer Laura's turn to reveal her favourite British/European/translated reads of 2017:

Laura Root's favourite reads of 2017 (in no particular order)

The Dry by Jane Harper.
Lying in Wait by Liz Nugent.
A Traitor in the Family by Nicholas Searle.
The Crime Writer by Jill Dawson
The Pledge by Friedrich Durrenmatt translated by Joel Agee (Pushkin Vertigo edition)

Favourite Euro Crime Reads of 2016 - Laura

Here are Laura's favourite British/European/translated reads of 2016:

Laura Root's favourite reads of 2016

Lie With Me by Sabine Durrant
A classy psychological thriller.

The Missing and the Dead by Stuart MacBride
The second to most recent instalment in the hugely successful Logan McRae series.

The Glorious Heresies by Lisa McInerney
Fast, furious and bleakly funny modern Irish noir.

The Catalyst Killing by Hans Olav Lahlum tr. Kari Dickson
Takes this retro series featuring K2 and Patricia into the 1970s and the milieu of militant student politics.

Streets of Darkness by A A Dhand
A scorching Bradford-set debut.

Review: Daisy in Chains by Sharon Bolton

Daisy in Chains by Sharon Bolton, June 2016, 352 pages, Bantam Press, ISBN: 0593076311

Reviewed by Laura Root.
(Read more of Laura's reviews for Euro Crime here.)

DAISY IN CHAINS is a standalone psychological thriller by Sharon Bolton set in South West England. The protagonist is Maggie Rose, a highly successful barrister and true crime author. Maggie has moved away from court appearances to writing true crime books, carrying out her own research to help overturn unsafe murder convictions on behalf of her clients.

Her latest client is Hamish Wolfe, a young, dashing, arrogant doctor imprisoned at Parkhurst on the Isle of Wight, after being convicted of a series of a killings involving four overweight young women. The women were lured to their death by a malevolent, internet, stranger who set up a false identity to tempt them into meeting him.

Hamish's mother, Sandra, and a motley array of supporters, the “Wolfe Pack”, are determined that Wolfe is innocent, and persuade Maggie to take on his case. Maggie looks to have an uphill struggle as the evidence against Wolfe was strong: both circumstantial and forensic. Unfortunate rumours have followed him from his university days, that he has a history of exploiting fat women with his friends and making sex tapes without their permission.

Despite (or because of) the nature of his crimes, Wolfe receives over a hundred letters a month, mostly from women. Maggie soon finds she has a rival in the “Wolfe Pack”, a young woman jealous of her prison meetings with Hamish. Maggie herself has to guard against Hamish's attempts to charm and manipulate her. She also has the police to deal with; the detective responsible for Wolfe's arrest is keeping a careful eye on the re-opening of his case.

I found DAISY IN CHAINS an enjoyable, compelling pageturner, with twists and turns that reminded me of Pierre Lemaitre's Verhoeven trilogy. Sharon Bolton skilfully builds up tension, carefully giving the reader clues about the details of the court case and its effect on the police and families involved. The author also casts an interesting light on the phenomenon of the magnetic attraction of convicted killers to outsiders, especially women.

Laura Root, July 2015

Favourite Euro Crime Reads of 2015 - Laura

In today's instalment of the Euro Crime reviewers' favourite reads of 2015, Laura Root unveils her favourite Euro Crime titles:

Laura Root's favourite reads of 2015

Ragnar Jonasson - Snowblind - tr. Quentin Bates

Keigo Higashino - Malice - tr. Alexander O Smith

Hans Olav Lalhum - Satellite People - tr. Kari Dickson

Arnaldur Indridason - Oblivion - tr. Victoria Cribb

Christianna Brand - Green for Danger

Review: Fall of Man in Wilmslow by David Lagercrantz tr. George Goulding

Fall of Man in Wilmslow by David Lagercrantz translated by George Goulding, May 2015, 368 pages, MacLehose Press, ISBN: 0857059890

Reviewed by Laura Root.
(Read more of Laura's reviews for Euro Crime here.)

FALL OF MAN IN WILMSLOW by David Lagercrantz (translated by George Goulding) is the first fiction work by this writer translated into English, and was released before the much anticipated THE GIRL IN THE SPIDER'S WEB. This book takes the form of a fictionalised account of a police investigation into the suicide of noted computer scientist Alan Turing in 1954 a couple of years after his conviction for “gross indecency”. Turing's punishment arising from this conviction was to be coerced into hormone treatment as the only alternative to a prison sentence. The achievements of Turing and the role played by the Bletchley Park codebreakers during the Second World War were to be closely guarded state secrets for decades to come.

The protagonist is the young Detective Constable Leonard Correll. Correll is the first police officer on the scene, called to Alan Turing's house in Cheshire after Turing's body is found by his shocked housekeeper. Turing died in his bed after eating an apple that had been contaminated by cyanide. Correll is a rather unusual policeman. The son of a relatively successful writer and raconteur, Correll feels he had great expectations which were thwarted by the financial ruin of his family and subsequent suicide of his father. Instead of a chance of a Cambridge degree and potential academic career, Correll left his public school, and ended up living and working in the tranquil Cheshire suburban town of Knutsford.

Correll's small official part in the investigation is over after giving evidence at the inquest. But he cannot resist carrying on his own clandestine investigation. Correll looks into Alan's theories and writings and is particularly fascinated by the Liar's Paradox, the conundrum central to Turing's views on logic). While he shares the homophobic prejudices of those he works with, he is impressed by Alan's academic credentials and curious about the nature of his secret war work. This curiosity is fuelled by the interest shown by the Secret Service in Alan's death and possessions left behind. When Correll moves out of library work and starts to seek out Turing's friends and former wartime colleagues in Cambridge, he attracts the attention of dangerous enemies.

Correll is a fully fledged, convincing character, hampered by a sense of social inadequacy coupled with thwarted academic ambitions. But he isn't the submissive pushover he at first appears, gaining confidence as he moves into the academic circles that he aspires to. However the real star character is Turing, and this book contains a wealth of detail about his life and theories. Lagercrantz shows us just how badly Turing was treated by British officialdom despite his vital contribution to the Allies' victory. Scapegoated as part of the McCarthyite witch hunt which meant that even on this side of the Atlantic gay men and women were vulnerable to being scapegoated as likely communist sympathisers. I found FALL OF MAN IN WILMSLOW was very well written, falling more or less in the thriller genre, and that the author had a particularly impressive grasp of the geography and general feel of North West England for a non-British writer. I look forward to reading future books by this author.

Laura Root, October 2015

Review: The Ravens by Vidar Sundstol tr. Tiina Nunnally

The Ravens by Vidar Sundstol translated by Tiina Nunnally, April 2015, 272 pages, University of Minnesota Press, ISBN: 081668944X

Reviewed by Laura Root.
(Read more of Laura's reviews for Euro Crime here.)

THE RAVENS by Vidar Sundstol (translated by Tiina Nunnally) is the closing instalment in the Minnesota trilogy featuring unlikely hero Lance Hansen, plodding US Forestry service cop. This sequence of books is set amongst the small lakeside towns of the Norwegian-American diaspora. First book in the series is THE LAND OF DREAMS, in which Lance had a tangential role in a murder investigation, after he found the body of Georg Loftus, a Swedish tourist who had been brutally killed at Baraga's Cross. The second book in the trilogy, ONLY THE DEAD was very different in feel. Instead of focussing on Lance's interactions amongst the small-town Norwegian-American and Ojibwe communities, the main action of ONLY THE DEAD revolved around a grim wintry hunting expedition by Lance and his brother. This book was tense and claustrophobic, as it was unclear who was the prey. THE RAVENS proves to be different yet again from the preceding books.

At the start of THE RAVENS, Lance has run away from his troubles and is hiding out at a small town just over the Canadian border. He has lied to his family and colleagues by telling them that he has decided to take a holiday to Norway to visit his ancestral roots. Eventually Lance gives up this ridiculous charade and returns to his home-town, forcing himself to confront his fears about his brother Andy. Lance is afraid of his brother. He is convinced that Andy was involved in the murder at Baraga's Cross, and is tormented by the dilemma of whether or not to speaks up about his suspicions. He is particularly troubled as if he stays silent an innocent man, Lenny Diver, who is currently on remand for the crime, may end up serving a long prison sentence.

Lance forces himself out of his comfort zone and ineptly delves into the past in his attempts to uncover what exactly happened at Baraga's Cross. He tracks down Clayton Miller, victim of an assault by Andy as a teenager, to find out more about what makes Andy tick. He tries to rebuild connections with family and friends in his quest for information, as he fights the anguish in his head and the lure of the snowy lake, driving himself to the brink of his sanity. His improving relationships with his niece, teenage Goth rebel Chrissy and with his ex, Debbie Ahonen, help provide some stability for Lance at this difficult time.

THE RAVENS is an intriguing finale to an unusual trilogy. As with previous books in the series, the focus is more on the landscape and people of the borderland communities, and the turmoil in Lance's mind, than on action and thrills. THE RAVENS did feel a little slow at times, and Lance's failure to simply ask direct questions of his brother can be a little frustrating. But Lance's reticence is just about credible as being in keeping with Lance's emotionally inarticulate nature. The themes of dreaming and of Lance being haunted by the spirit of Swamper Caribou are interestingly developed in this book and play a part in Lance's eventually uncovering of the truth about the murder. The ultimate resolution of the crime ties up the loose ends more or less satisfactorily, managing a reasonably thrilling twist in the tale. THE RAVENS would be readable as a standalone, but the reader would get more out of having read at least THE LAND OF DREAMS beforehand.

Laura Root, August 2015

Review: The Invisible Guardian by Dolores Redondo tr. Isabelle Kaufeler

The Invisible Guardian by Dolores Redondo translated by Isabelle Kaufeler, April 2015, 432 pages, HarperCollins, ISBN: 000752532X

Reviewed by Laura Root.
(Read more of Laura's reviews for Euro Crime here.)

THE INVISIBLE GUARDIAN by Dolores Redondo (translator Isabelle Kaufeler) is the first in her best-selling trilogy of novels set in Navarre. These books feature young female detective, Police Inspector Amaia Salazar, who had a traumatic childhood in the beautiful historic small town of Elizondo. The literal meaning of the name Elizondo is “beside the church” , which proves to be a rather apt meaning as quite a few of the characters in this book hold pagan and magical beliefs or believe they have seen supernatural creatures. After leaving home to study at university, Amaia now lives in Pamplona and has a successful police career and happy marriage to her husband, an American sculptor from a wealthy family, with the only fly in the ointment being concerns about her fertility. But then Amaia is sent back to Elizondo to head up the murder investigation after the particularly nasty ritualised murder of a young girl, Ainhoa Elisazu, whose body was found by the riverside in the woods.

Amaia soon discovers that there is probably a serial killer at large near her home town. A girl in her late teens had been found dead some months before after a drug-fuelled row with her boyfriend, and the police had wrongly assumed that the boyfriend was the culprit. But Amaia soon finds out that there are a number of similarities with the death of Ainhoa, and the boyfriend was almost certainly unfairly imprisoned. The forensic reports in Ainhoa's case reveal some puzzling information, that mysterious animal hairs were found at the crime scene. Events taken an even stranger turn when a sighting by a forest ranger spark rumours that a basajaun was present in the forest around the time of the murder. (A basajaun is a creature from Basque mythology, a giant human like hairy creature that is reputed to protect animals in the forest.)

Amaia has to face up to a number of family troubles past and present on her return home, having been cast since childhood in the role of the family scapegoat in the eyes of her mother and older sister Flora. Amaia has a better relationship with her other sister,. Rosaura, who is reeling from a recent split with her ne'er do well boyfriend, Freddy, but this sisterly relationship becomes strained during the course of the investigation. Flora is an overbearing bully who has taken over the family baking business, and made a huge success of it, with book and television deals in the pipeline. Despite this success Flora is bitter as she perceives that Ros and Amaia escaped the responsibility of the business. The burden of her past weighs heavily on Amaia as she investigates this case, and has to battle to gain the respect of some of her male colleagues whilst having painful flashbacks to her childhood

I found that THE INVISIBLE GUARDIAN has an intriguing take on the police procedural, moving beyond the gory details of crime scenes and office politics typical of the genre. What is particularly distinctive about this book is the way the atmosphere and the local mythology of the Basque region play such an important part in this story. Amaia is an interesting heroine, whose unfeasibly good detective skills are shown as being the result of the combination of her talent at conventional detective work with a witch-like intuition. The back-story and at times strained relationships between Amaia and her sisters was convincingly depicted. At times though I found the writing a bit overwrought and a little too determined to show Amaia's intellectual and professional superiority compared to her colleagues. Otherwise THE INVISIBLE GUARDIAN is a striking debut, and I would be interested to read future books in this series.

Laura Root, June 2015

Review: Disclaimer by Renee Knight

Disclaimer by Renee Knight, April 2015, 304 pages, Doubleday, ISBN: 0857522817

Reviewed by Laura Root.
(Read more of Laura's reviews for Euro Crime here.)

DISCLAIMER is a highly assured debut novel with a cracking premise. Middle-aged wife and mother Catherine has moved into a new house, when she idly picks up a book that she doesn't recall buying. Catherine suffer many sleepless nights of anguish due to reading the book. As this book doesn't abide by the conventional “disclaimer” that it isn't intended to resemble any real life person. Although the names have been changed, the novel depicts a sequence of events that Catherine has tried hard to forget, and has kept secret for decades, even from her husband. Catherine struggles to cope with this intrusion into her life, and desperately tries to hide her worries whilst she investigates who on earth could have written this book, and left it at her house.

On paper Catherine seems to have the perfect life; she has a successful career as a crusading journalist/documentary maker, a loving high-earning husband and a grown-up son. But Catherine struggles to carry through her confident professional façade into her domestic life. She has long had a troubled relationship with her twenty-something son, Nicholas. Robert has a superficially better rapport with Nicholas than Catherine; he is a workaholic lawyer who secretly looks down on Catherine for preferring to work and have a nanny during Nicholas' childhood.

Meanwhile we see events from the point of view of the man who deposited the book at her house, Stephen Brigstocke, starting two years before the beginning of this book. Brigstocke is an elderly widower and failed author with an absent adult son, so lonely that he clings to his late wife's clothes and belongings for solace. He was a teacher who retired before he was fired from his private school after accusations of cruelty towards his pupils. He is determined to wreak revenge on Catherine for an unspecified wrong, and has spent the last few years calculating how best to hurt her, seriously considering pushing her under a Tube train. Brigstocke's manoeuvres cunningly exploit the fault-lines in Catherine's family relationships as he continues to stalk her.

DISCLAIMER is at heart the tale of two families and the ripple effects of a chance interaction between them, which have the potential to affect relationships decades later. Knight continually challenges our perceptions of the main characters, and the stories they have told themselves to allow them to survive their hardest moments (it is no coincidence that both the main characters are writers). The author manages to shade in the nuances of the situation that motivated Stephen Brigstocke's intrusion into the life of Catherine and her family, and make the reader care about both Catherine and to an extent Stephen Brigstocke, despite their rather prickly, brittle natures. I found this a remarkably well written page turner, as much a meditation on parenthood and grief as a traditional crime novel. I very much look forward to further books by this author.

Laura Root, June 2015

Favourite Euro Crime Reads of 2014 - Laura

Today Euro Crime reviewer Laura Root reveals her 5 favourite reads of 2014:

Laura Root's favourite reads of 2014

My top 5, in no particular order:-

Malcolm Mackay - The Sudden Arrival of Violence
A blistering conclusion to his Glasgow-set Hitman trilogy.

Pierre Lemaitre - Irene tr. Frank Wynne
Equally stunning prequel to Alex.

Three very different books which all happen to focus on the after effects on friends and family of the untimely death of a daughter, and the understandable desire for justice/vengeance upon those responsible:

P D Viner - The Last Winter of Dani Lancing

Kanae Minato - Confessions tr. Stephen Snyder

Cath Staincliffe - Letters to A Murderer

Review: Only the Dead by Vidar Sundstol tr. Tiina Nunnally

Only the Dead by Vidar Sundstol translated by Tiina Nunnally, September 2014, 152 pages, University of Minnesota Press, ISBN: 0816689423

Reviewed by Laura Root.
(Read more of Laura's reviews for Euro Crime here.)

ONLY THE DEAD is the second in the acclaimed Minnesota trilogy by Norwegian author Vidar Sundstol, set around Lake Superior and takes place soon after the end of the first instalment, THE LAND OF DREAMS. In THE LAND OF DREAMS Forestry Services cop Lance Hansen found the body of a young Norwegian tourist at Baraga's Cross, and was involved in the investigation of the murder. As a local history enthusiast, Lance has also become obsessed with another possible murder that took place in the area over a hundred years previously, of a Native American trapper, Swamper Caribou, who disappeared in suspicious circumstances.

At the start of this novel, Lance is supposedly taking it easy on a weekend hunting trip with his brother Andy. But despite the tidy resolution of the murder case, Lance is riven by doubts. He is unable to voice his suspicions of Andy, who lied about his whereabouts on the night of the murder and becomes increasingly unable to act naturally around him. Lance's Ojibwe ex-father-in-law tries to reach out to Lance, sensing the stress that he is under, but Lance is unreceptive. An incident where Lance uses excessive violence when carrying out what he justifies as a mercy killing of a wild animal seriously injured by his car, shows that Lance may not the stolid principled man he seemed in the previous book.

When Lance goes out on a second hunting trip with Andy, the scene is set for fraternal relations to deteriorate further. Sundstol alternates the story of paranoid fear and suspicion between Lance and Andy with a similar tale over a hundred years early, of the relationship between Lance's ancestor, Norwegian immigrant Thorson Ormod, and the lethal distrust he develops towards Swamper Caribou, who rescues him after he falls through ice in Lake Superior and takes him to his cabin to dry off. (Though whether this version of events is to be accepted by the reader as definitive, or the product of Lance's imagination remains ambiguous).

ONLY THE DEAD has a very different feel to the previous instalment in the series. THE LAND OF DREAMS opened out, via the central character Lance Hansen, to show a whole community and way of life of a Scandinavian-American diaspora, and how they are viewed by big city incomers, such as the FBI agents involved in investigating the murder at Baraga's Cross. By contrast ONLY THE DEAD is a claustrophobic thriller focussing on the interaction between hunter and the environment, and between two sets of men, the Hansen brothers Lance and Andy, and the men of the past, Thorson and Swamper Caribou, where the hunter becomes the hunted and vice versa.

Although hunting-based thrillers tend not to be my choice of reading, I found ONLY THE DEAD was genuinely gripping. The author was very successful in building up tension in the relationships between the men, and showing how fear and poor communication can lead to fatal misunderstandings. Sundstol also very convincingly shows the perils faced by his characters in dealing with the hostile environment of the wintry lake and forest. Overall I felt this was an unexpected but surprisingly enjoyable follow up to the first book in the series, and I look forward to seeing how this trilogy is concluded. Although this book could work as a standalone, I would recommend reading THE LAND OF DREAMS before this book, to see the characters in their full context.

Laura Root, October 2014

Review: Parade by Shuichi Yoshida tr. Philip Gabriel

Parade by Shuichi Yoshida translated by Philip Gabriel, March 2014, 240 pages, Harvill Secker, ISBN: 1846552370

Reviewed by Laura Root.
(Read more of Laura's reviews for Euro Crime here.)

PARADE by Shuichi Yoshida is the second of his books to be translated into English, following the success of cult thriller and film VILLAIN, and is a tale of Tokyo urban anomie, focussing on the lives of five young people sharing a small suburban apartment.

The book is narrated from the point of view of each of these five people, with each section moving a little further forward in time; Ryosuke, a geeky student and part-time Mexican restaurant chef, Kotomi the lovelorn small town girl who has come to Tokyo to reunited with her former boyfriend and current TV star, waiting around to be thrown crumbs of his affection in the form of booty call, Mirai a sarcastic and cynical shop manager with a drink problem, who hangs out in the gay bars of Tokyo, and Naoki, ostensibly the most successful of the bunch, with his high powered film industry career. Into this mix comes Satoru, a worryingly young drifter of no fixed abode, who earns a living by "night jobs" and charms the flat mates into allowing him a spot on his sofa. The device of using five different narrative voices works surprisingly well, with Yoshida managing to convincingly differentiate the characters.

Underneath the sitcom cosiness of the flatmate set-up, a darker spectre lurks. Each of the flatmates has their own reasons, some of them quite sad for coming to Tokyo, and all have secret self-destructive behaviours to hide from others. And dangers lie outside the flat; a mysterious maniac is brutally assaulting women near the local metro station, and closer to home, a suspicious procession of older men and tearful young girls frequent the neighbouring apartment, no 402.

PARADE is a slow burn psychological thriller, a sort of Japanese fusion of Friends and American Psycho. The most shockingly violent crimes and the identity of their perpetrator only become evident at virtually the end of the novel. Yoshida shows that at its worst, urban alienation can lead to sinister crimes and complicity, covering similar ground to VILLAIN, but in a more opaque fashion. But these crimes don't really come out of the blue, but more as a logical end point to the fragmented society depicted by Yoshida. While the flatmates strain to hide their real selves and present a more positive social image, they are party to a lot of harmful behaviour and smaller crimes as perpetrators, victims and bystanders, ranging from breaking and entering, drug taking, prostitution, domestic abuse and to lesser misdemeanours such as obsessive romantic behaviour and infidelity. Overall I found this a somewhat unconventional thriller, and an interesting and quick read, but rather more low key than VILLAIN.

Laura Root, March 2014

Review: Pale Horses by Jassy Mackenzie

Pale Horses by Jassy Mackenzie, April 2013, 320 pages, Soho Press, ISBN: 1616952210

Reviewed by Laura Root.
(Read more of Laura's reviews for Euro Crime here.)

PALE HORSES is the fourth in Jassy Mackenzie's series of thrillers featuring Jade de Jong, South African PI. The book opens in an upscale cafe in Sandton, a very wealthy suburb of Johannesburg. Jade is still traumatised by events that took place in earlier novels in the series, but is persuaded to take on a case brought to her by the geeky millionaire trader Victor Theron. Theron has recently lost a friend, Sonet Meintjies in a suspicious extreme sports incident - Theron and Sonet were basejumpers, illicitly taking parachute jumps from high buildings without the owners' permission. Despite Theron checking Sonet's parachute for her before the jump, for some reason Sonet's parachute didn't function, resulting in her death. Theron is keen to avoid involvement and bad publicity in any homicide investigation resulting from the incident and hires Jade to uncover the truth about this incident.

Jade investigates the accident scene, and Sonet's personal and professional life, to uncover the truth. Sonet worked for a charity, Williams Management, that helps small rural communities set up sustainable crop farms. One of these farms included that formerly owned by her ex-husband, the embittered Van Schalkwyk, in Theunisvlei, subject of a successful land claim by the Siyabonga tribe. Jade's search for the truth leads her from Johannesburg to the depths of the Karoo. In the meantime, we see events through the eyes of Mrs Kumalo, widow of a man who worked on the farm at Theunisvlei, who took a job as housekeeper/chef for a wealthy Johannesberg man, but is being forced to act as driver for a shady criminal.

Jade is a reasonably sympathetic heroine, resourceful and with a strong sense of justice, if somewhat prone to impatience with those who get in the way of her investigation. Despite the deceptively gentle start, in the cafes and luxury tower blocks of Sandton, this book shows the danger and violence of carrying out investigative work in South Africa, and provides an interesting view of contemporary issues in South Africa in the post-apartheid era, including the operation of agribusiness and GM multinationals. Jassy McKenzie doesn't stint from showing the violence of those who were responsible for Sonet's death, and from showing how Jade herself has to resort to violence to protect her life and that of innocent witnesses.

Jade's on-off relationship with Superintendent David Patel features in the latter half of the novel, and is the one slightly unsatisfactory note to this novel, particularly the subplot involving anonymous letters to Patel. It feels somewhat incongruous to have a romantic theme whilst Jade is dealing with all this violence around her, though admittedly the relationship is a useful plot device to allow Jade good police connections where necessary and to let us see a gentler side to Jade. Overall I found this a very enjoyable and surprisingly readable book, managing to be an intelligent pageturner. This book works well as a standalone, with the caveat that it does contain some significant potential spoilers about earlier books in the series.

Laura Root, July 2013

Review: Chamber Music by Tom Benn

Chamber Music by Tom Benn, January 2013, 336 pages, Jonathan Cape, ISBN: 0224093517

Reviewed by Laura Root.
(Read more of Laura's reviews for Euro Crime here.)

CHAMBER MUSIC is the second outing for Tom Benn's anti-hero, hardman with a heart Henry Bane, known as Bane. This book takes place in early 1998, a couple of years after the first novel in this series, THE DOLL PRINCESS. Manchester city centre is still in the process of reconstruction following the IRA bombing, and Bane and his crooked mechanic pal Maz are now working for a different gangster boss, Abrafo. Bane is living relatively peacefully with his girlfriend Jan and her semi-delinquent teenage son Trenton in Wythenshawe, when old girlfriend Roisin re-enters his life dramatically on the eve of his father's funeral.

Roisin has driven up from London with her customs officer boyfriend Dan, who has been wounded in a recent shooting and doesn't want to go to a hospital. Dan is far from forthcoming about the reasons for the shooting, and Bane doesn't trust him. But as Roisin was an old girlfriend and is sister of his close friend and associate, the violent Gordon, recently released from prison, Bane agrees to protect and assist Roisin and Dan, even though he is somewhat less than keen on Dan (whom he nicknames Knobhead). Further complications arise in Bane's professional life, due to a Yardie gangster with ambitions, Hagfish, who is keen to muscle in on Abrafo's trade. Hagfish has a pet komodo dragon to guard his valuables, and a girlfriend, Berta, who leads a rather unusual "church" of women in Hulme, and is involved with potion making. Hagfish's bid for power unleashes a trail of death and destruction and gang warfare that affects Bane and Abrafo personally.

Benn employs a dual timeline in this book, shifting back in time to relate events from eight years earlier, when Bane had his brief relationship with Roisin. Benn shows how the budding romance unravelled. At that time Bane sold drugs in the Manchester clubs in the hey day of illegal raves and acid house and became involved in a violent drug war, with certain parallels to his current (1998) situation. The split time line, whilst skilfully done, can be a bit disorientating to the reader, possibly deliberately mirroring the dizzying effect of the world of recreational drugs that Bane is involved in.

The characterisation of Bane in this novel makes him somewhat less likeable than in the previous novel in the series. In THE DOLL PRINCESS, there was a certain ambiguity to Bane's character, where in dealing with the police and other gangsters the reader felt that Bane's options remained open to stay in or move out of the gangster life. But this novel shows a more hardened, if slightly more domesticated side to him, with less of a chance that Bane can escape his criminal past. Overall this is another quality slice of noir, Manchester style, with Tom Benn as ever spot on with the slang and sense of place of '90s Manchester.

Laura Root, June 2013

Review: Pierced by Thomas Enger

Pierced by Thomas Enger translated by Charlotte Barslund, December 2012, 544 pages, Faber and Faber, ISBN: 0571272460

Reviewed by Laura Root.
(Read more of Laura's reviews for Euro Crime here.)

One of four Scandinavian crime novels nominated for this year's inaugural Petrona Award, PIERCED is the second in Norwegian writer Thomas Enger's series featuring online news journalist Henning Juul. In this instalment of the series, Juul is approached by convicted murderer Tore Pulli, former gangland enforcer turned celebrity property developer. Pulli has been found guilty of the murder of Jocke Brolenius, a thuggish Swedish enforcer, and prime suspect in the murder of a friend of Pulli's, Fighting Fit gym owner Vidar Fjell. As one of the injuries sustained by Brolenius was a "Pulli punch", a jawbreaking manoeuvre Pull was famous for in his enforcer days, and Pulli's knuckleduster (kept for sentimental reasons in the study of Pulli’s house!) was found at the scene, the case seemed crystal clear against Pulli.

In the run up to his appeal, Pulli makes Juul an offer he can’t refuse - if Juul looks for evidence that will exonerate him of Brolenius’s murder, he will tell him what he knows about the fire that injured Juul, and killed Juul’s young son, Jonas. After Juul agrees to help Pulli, he calls in some favours due to his successful indentification of the villain of the previous novel in the series, BURNED. Juul can rely on the assistance of fellow journalist, Iver Gundersen, and his police acquaintances Brogelund and Pia Nockleby to obtain more information about Pulli and his world. Juul also discusses the case with the mysterious police informer 6tiermes7, who contacts him anonymously via online chat. Juul and Gundersen visit the gyms and bars frequented by Pulli and his shady group of friends to attempt to find out more from a group of people who are not significantly keener to talk to the media than to the police. Meanwhile in a separate strand of the novel, at first seemingly unrelated to the Pulli plotline, news camera-man, Thorleif Brenden and his partner are being stalked, and their idyllic upper middle class family life suddenly begins to be threatened.

As in the previous novel in the series, BURNED, Juul remains a sympathetic hero, still struggling to deal with the loss of his son and plagued by nightmares and flashbacks, and amnesia, but mostly managing to function better in his day to day life than in the previous novel. Enger depicts character and milieu very convincingly, and gives a credible and interesting insight into both the frantic environment of online news journalism, and the violent, sweaty milieu of the muscled enforcers. For the most part the book remains a remarkably pacy page turner despite its fashionable 500 plus page length, though I did feel that some of the Brenden subplot could have been omitted, and that Brenden's complete failure to contemplate seeking help from the police at the start could have done with some explanation. The mysteries in Juul's personal life are not fully resolved, with a humdinger of a cliffhanger at the very end of this novel, leading nicely into the next entry in this top notch Scandinavian crime series.

Laura Root, May 2013.

Favourite Euro Crime Reads of 2012 - Laura

Continuing the series of Euro Crime reviewers' favourite reads of 2012 here are Laura Root's favourite Euro Crime and/or translated titles, in the order she listed them:

I would like to dedicate my top 5 of 2012 to Maxine, as without Maxine's gentle encouragement I would never have had the confidence to review for Euro Crime.

Ashes by Sergios Gakas tr Anne-Marie Stanton-Ife
The Hour of the Wolf by Hakan Nesser tr Laurie Thompson
The Nameless Dead by Brian McGilloway
The Summer of Dead Toys by Antonio Hill tr Laura McGoughlin
The Eyes of Lira Kazan by Eva Joly & Judith Perrignon tr Emily Read