Some Mini Scandi Reviews II

Here are brief reviews of some of the Scandi books I've read this year. I'm including Vargas here as Iceland plays a significant role in her latest Adamsberg.

Karin Fossum – hellfire tr. Kari Dickson

Another bleak outing from Karin Fossum. It starts with the murder of a mother and child and the narrative subsequently alternates between events of several months leading up to the present day, and the present day investigation by series regular, Sejer. Fossum really knows how to break a reader's heart.





Leif G W Persson – The Dying Detective tr. Neil Smith

Shortlisted for the Petrona Award 2017 and winner of the CWA International Dagger 2017, there's not much to add to that. I loved this book. Borrowing from a tradition (I think) begun with Josephine Tey's The Daughter of Time, our ailing detective Lars Martin Johansson is laid up and asked to investigate a cold case from his sick bed - incidentally a case messed up by one Evert Backstrom. He must find the killer of a little girl. As the statue of limitations has passed what can they do if they do find the murderer? One of the many questions pondered by Johansson.

Yrsa Sigurdardottir – Why Did You Lie? tr. Victoria Cribb

Also shortlisted for the Petrona Award 2017, Why Did You Lie? is a multi-person narrative – how do their stories overlap and who is behind the sinister events affecting each person? This is the sort of book that when you get to the conclusion you then have to go back to the beginning of the book to see how it's all been cleverly woven together. Some of the narratives are more compelling than others so overall it doesn’t quite live up to the heights of the Petrona Award winning The Silence of the Sea, which I loved.


Fred Vargas – A Climate of Fear tr. Sian Reynolds

This is the latest in the Commissaire Adamsberg series to reach us in English, and it was shortlisted for the CWA International Dagger 2017. This one is mostly set in Paris and surroundings with a significant thread playing out in Iceland which necessitates a visit by Adamsberg and some of his colleagues. Vargas weaves her usual fantastical tale this time revolving around Robespierre and the French Revolution/Reign of Terror. I found this topic interesting up to a point but the pace of the book sags in the middle after what seems like countless historical re-enactments and only springs back to life in the subsequent Icelandic section. Overall this was a bit of a disappointment compared to her usual 5-star outings. Nonetheless she's always worth a read but it's perhaps not the best one to start with.

TV News: Backstrom starts tonight

Backstrom, the US series based on Leif GW Persson's Evert Backstrom series of books, begins tonight on Fox UK at 9pm:

"Detective Lieutenant Everett Backstrom is a man with no filter. After a five-year exile to the traffic division for offensive behavior, he has returned from disgrace to lead Portland's newly minted S.C.U. Tasked with navigating the city's most sensitive and serious cases, he must solve each crime as he tries, and fails, to change his own self-destructive behavior."

Backstrom is played by Rainn Wilson and there are 13 episodes in this one and only season as the show was cancelled earlier this year.

New Reviews: Broadfoot, Hawkins, Lawton, Mankell, O'Brien, Persson, Quinn, Thomas, Weeks

A belated Happy New Year and a big thank you for all the visitors to Euro Crime and to the regular commenters. An equally big thank you to the review team who keep me supplied with quality reviews. The reviewers are currently sharing their favourite reads of 2014 and I'll shortly be announcing the overall favourites. The 'new discoveries' posts, which I normally release before Christmas will follow soon - delayed due to illness.

Without further ado, here are nine reviews which have been added to the Euro Crime website today, two have appeared on the blog since last time, and seven are completely new. Several of these are of favourite books of last year.

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

New Reviews

Neil Broadfoot's Falling Fast is one of Amanda Gillies's top 5 reads of 2014; set in Edinburgh it introduces journalist, Doug McGregor;


Michelle Peckham put Paula Hawkins's debut The Girl on the Train on her top 5 reads of 2014. Lots of Gone Girl-type buzz about this one;

Terry Halligan reviews John Lawton's Sweet Sunday which gets a welcome reissue and is set in the US mainly in 1969.


I review Henning Mankell's An Event in Autumn tr. Laurie Thompson a Wallander novella written for the Dutch market around ten years ago and now available in English;

Terry included Martin O'Brien's Knife Gun Poison Bomb in his top reads of 2014. This is the eighth in the Chief Inspector Daniel Jacquot series set in Marseilles and at the moment is (I believe) only available for Kindle;


Laura Root reviews Leif GW Persson's Falling Freely, As If In a Dream tr. Paul Norlen, the final part of the "Story of a Crime" trilogy investigating the murder of Olaf Palme;

Lynn Harvey's top 5 reads of 2014 included Anthony Quinn's Disappeared, the first in the Police Inspector Celcius Daly series set in Northern Ireland;


Terry also included David Thomas's Ostland in his top reads of 2014, the story of SS officer Georg Heuser's journey from policeman to criminal

and Amanda also reviews Lee Weeks's Frozen Grave, the third in the series featuring DI Dan Carter and DC Ebony Willis.


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

New Reviews: Brett, Ellis, Hauxwell, Nickson, Persson, Perry, Reichs, Thomas, Wheatley

This week's set of reviews, added to Euro Crime today, is a mixture of new reviews and a catch-up of those posted directly on the blog in the last two weeks, so you may have read some of them before if you're a regular :).

NB. There is also a Euro Crime page on Facebook which you can like and will keep you up to date with the blog (plus occasional extras).

New Reviews

Brother and sister detecting duo Blotto and Twinks are back in Simon Brett's Blotto, Twinks and the Riddle of the Sphinx, reviewed here by Mark Bailey;

Susan White reviews P R Ellis's Painted Ladies which introduces copper turned PI, Jasmine Frame;

Amanda Gillies reviews A Bitter Taste by Annie Hauxwell, the second book in her Catherine Berlin series;

Michelle Peckham reviews Chris Nickson's  Fair and Tender Ladies, the sixth in his Richard Nottingham series set in Leeds;

Laura Root reviews Leif G W Persson's He Who Kills the Dragon, tr. Neil Smith, the second in the Evert Backstrom series;

Terry Halligan reviews the latest in the Thomas Pitt series from Anne Perry, Death on Blackheath;

I review Kathy Reichs's Tempe Brennan short story Bones in Her Pocket;

Lynn Harvey reviews Ostland by David Thomas

 
and Terry also reviews the reissue of Dennis Wheatley's The Forbidden Territory.


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: Brooks, Bruce, Collett, Cutts, Holt, Mackenzie, Persson, Sampson, Webster

This week's set of reviews, added to Euro Crime today, is a mixture of new reviews and a catch-up of those posted directly on the blog in the last two weeks, so you may have read some of them before if you're a regular :).

Terry Halligan reviews Kevin Brooks' Wrapped in White, the third in the PI John Craine series;

Michelle Peckham reviews Alison Bruce's The Silence, the fourth in the Cambridge-set DC Gary Goodhew series, now out in paperback;

Terry also reviews Chris Collett's Blood and Stone which sees the return of Birmingham DI Tom Mariner, after a four year gap, this time he's on holiday in Wales;

Geoff Jones reviews Lisa Cutts' debut, Never Forget which introduces DC Nina Foster;

Susan White reviews Jonathan Holt's The Abomination set in Venice and the first in a trilogy;

Laura Root reviews Jassy Mackenzie's Pale Horses, the fourth in the PI Jade de Jong series set in South Africa;

Amanda Gillies reviews Leif GW Persson's Another Time, Another Life, tr. Paul Norlen calling it "a perfect read for the summer";

Mark Bailey reviews Kevin Sampson's The Killing Pool, set in Liverpool;

Lynn Harvey reviews Jason Webster's The Anarchist Detective the third in the Max Camara series set in Valencia;

and I've just completed a crime month on my blog for teenage/ya fiction, including a review of Caroline Lawrence's The Case of the Good-Looking Corpse. A summary post can be found here.


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: Eastland, Griffiths, Higashino, Jameson, Persson, Taylor

Six new reviews have been added to Euro Crime today:

Terry Halligan reviews Sam Eastland's The Red Moth, the fourth in the Inspector Pekkala series, and set in 1941;

Michellle Peckham reviews Elly Griffiths's Dying Fall, the fifth in the Ruth Galloway series, usually set in Norfolk but this time the setting is in the North-West

I review Keigo Higashino's Salvation of a Saint, tr. Alexander O Smith with Elye J Alexander, the second novel to feature Tokyo Detective Kusanagi and his friend Yukawa;

Lynn Harvey reviews Hanna Jameson's debut, Something You Are;

Norman Price reviews Leif GW Persson's Linda, as in the Linda Murder, tr. Neil Smith the first in a new series featuring (the non-pc) Evert Backstrom

and Sarah Hilary reviews Andrew Taylor's The Scent of Death set in New York just after the War of Independence.

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: James, Link, Persson, Russell, Ryan, Shepherd, Spedding, Steinhauer, Varesi

During April you can enter a competition to win a copy of Julia Crouch's Every Vow You Break. There are no geographical restrictions.

Answer the question and fill in the form here.

Here are this week's reviews of which there are 9 again this week as I'm taking next weekend off. There are also plenty of updates to the new releases pages (see below):

Susan White reviews Dan James's (aka Dan Waddell's) Unsinkable set on the Titanic;

Maxine Clarke reviews Charlotte Link's The Other Child, tr. Stefan Tobler set in Scarborough;

Laura Root reviews Leif GW Persson's Another Time, Another Life tr. Paul Norlen, the second in the "Story of a Crime" trilogy;

Amanda Gillies reviews the paperback release of Craig Russell's A Fear of Dark Water which is the latest in the Jan Fabel series;

Rich Westwood reviews William Ryan's The Holy Thief, the first in his Captain Alexei Dmitriyevich Korolev series, set in 1936;

Terry Halligan reviews Lloyd Shepherd's debut, a historical crime novel - The English Monster, calling it "superb";

Geoff Jones reviews Sally Spedding's creepy thriller Cold Remains;

Lynn Harvey reviews Olen Steinhauer's "gripping" globe-trotting spy thriller An American Spy

and Michelle Peckham reviews Valerio Varesi follow-up to his International Dagger short-listed River of Shadows, The Dark Valley tr. Joseph Farrell.

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. Titles by Elizabeth Bailey, M C Beaton, C C Benison, Rhys Bowen, Audrey Braun, Alison Bruce, Tania Carver, Kimberley Chambers, Lee Child, Sam Christer, Elizabeth J Duncan, Carola Dunn, Ruth Dudley Edwards, Charles Finch, Friis & Kaaberbol, Frances Fyfield, Eliza Graham, Susanna Gregory, Helene Gremillon, Penny Hancock, Anne Holt, Will Jordan, Ali Knight, Stephen Leather, M L Longworth, G M Malliet, Edward Marston, Peter May, Andy McNab, Fergus McNeill, Regina O’Melveny, Andrea Penrose, Anne Perry, Ann Purser, Rob Ryan, Lloyd Shepherd, A K Shevchenko, Eva Maria Staal, Nick Stone, Peter Tickler, Simon Tolkien, Lee Weeks, Jeri Westerson and Timothy Williams have been added to these pages this week.

Publishing Deals

From Publishers Lunch:

Mystery/Crime
Leif GW Persson's The Fall of the Welfare State Trilogy: BETWEEN SUMMER'S LONGING AND WINTER'S COLD, ANOTHER TIME, ANOTHER LIFE and FALLING FREELY, AS IF IN A DREAM, telling what could very well be the truth about the biggest unsolved crime in modern European history.

I haven't found anything about this (Swedish) author written in English yet so I shall have to do more research!

also from PL:

Film
Film rights to P.B. Kerr's CHILDREN OF THE LAMP series, to DreamWorks, with Nina Jacobson producing

P B Kerr is probably better know to crime readers as Philip Kerr, author of the Bernie Gunther series. (In the UK, Quercus are publishing the latest in that series, One from the Other in July. It came out last September in the US.)