New Reviews: Enger, Fowler, Kavanagh, Learner, Lipska, Macbain, Sutton, Tuomainen, Walker

Here are nine reviews which have been added to the Euro Crime website today, three have appeared on the blog over the last couple of weeks and six are completely new.

In another of my occasional feature posts, I recently put together a list of vegetarian detectives and sidekicks.

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

New Reviews

Laura Root reviews Thomas Enger's Scarred tr. Charlotte Barslund, the third in the Henning Juul series set in Oslo;

Mark Bailey reviews the latest in the Bryant and May series by Christopher Fowler: Bryant & May and The Bleeding Heart;



Michelle Peckham reviews Emma Kavanagh's debut, Falling;

Terry Halligan reviews T S Learner's third thriller, The Stolen;

Geoff Jones reviews Anya Lipska's Death Can't Take a Joke the follow-up to the well-received, Where the Devil Can't Go;

Susan White reviews The Bull Slayer, the second in Bruce Macbain's Pliny series;

Terry also reviews Lawless and the Devil of Euston Square by William Sutton, set in Victorian London;

Lynn Harvey reviews Antti Tuomainen's The Healer tr. Lola Rogers which is now out in paperback

and Amanda Gillies reviews Martin Walker's The Resistance Man the latest in the Bruno, Chief of Police, series set in rural France.


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: Bilal, Enger, Ferris, Meredith, Russell, Santora, Sherez

Seven new reviews have been added to Euro Crime today:

Lynn Harvey reviews Parker Bilal's Dogstar Rising, set in Cairo in 2001 and featuring former policeman Makana;

Laura Root reviews the Petrona Award shortlisted Pierced by Thomas Enger, tr. Charlotte Barslund, the sequel to Burned.

Michelle Peckham reviews Gordon Ferris's Pilgrim Soul, the third in the Douglas Brodie series, set just after World War Two;

Terry Halligan reviews D E Meredith's follow-up to Devoured: The Devil's Ribbon featuring the Victorian forensic pathologists Hatton and Roumande;

Amanda Gillies reviews Leigh Russell's fifth DI Geraldine Steel book, Stop Dead;

Susan White reviews Nick Santora's Fifteen Digits

and Terry also reviews Stav Sherez's Eleven Days, the second in the Carrigan and Miller 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: 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.

CrimeFest - Death in a Cold Climate

Barry Forshaw chairs the Death in a Cold Climate - Scandinavians panel at Crimefest 2012.
Guests: Asa Larsson (Swe), Thomas Enger (Nor), Ragnar Jonasson (Ice) and Gunnar Staalesen (Nor)

Here are my notes:

Stieg Larsson has opened the doors for other Scandinavian authors - light a candle for him - but he is from the north though he writes about Stockholm.

AL is often asked how can such a short person write such horrible things? She kills dogs and priest in her books but only gets letters about the dogs. (NB. No dogs (or priests) are harmed in Until Thy Wrath Be Past). Enjoyed writing her first book the most. Says to know an author, read their first book.

TE: Burned is the first of six books (originally was looking at eight or even twelve) about Henning Juul (sounds like yule), Pierced is out shortly in UK and he is working on Scarred. All six books about Juul finding out why his son died. HJ has "really pissed someone off". There is more information about the fire in Pierced and there is a teaser at the end, as there was at the end of Burned.

GS adapted one of books for theatre so the statue (of Varg Veum in Bergen) is a mixture of that actor and tv actor (though the tv actor is from East Norway and has the wrong accent)

RJ: Crime fiction in Iceland - until Arnaldur Indridason (1997) - was looked down on. There are two murders or less a year in Iceland.

AL comes from town 200km north of polar circle, 100 years old. Asked - why so much mutilations - is it typical for women?

Sjowall and Wahloo are the King and Queen, Henning Mankell is the crown prince, writing in same style.

GS showed Prince Charles and Camilla around Bergen for 27 minutes.

RJ: The plot and setting is the reason for popularity not the social issues, and strong chars (adds AL), especially in a series. And nature (GS) (ie open space, wildlife). If not having to speak in English the four authors could converse in slowly spoken Norwegian.

TE: [Translator] Charlotte Barslund nailed Henning Juul character and GS praising Don Bartlett's translations.

RJ: Started reading Agatha Christie when 12/13 and four years later approached the publisher about translating them.

GS: Writes 5 days a week, loves his job.

AL wrote 'Wrath' between 4-7am, goes to bed early and this is the quiet time when there are no demands from family or telephone. AL was a tax lawyer.

TE: Henning Juul is a real character, these online journalist do exist.

GS: Ambassador for the dark side of Bergen.

AL: No taboos on what to write. TE wouldn't write about paedophilia. RJ: As you write more your boundaries move. GS: not extreme violence, more about psychology.

TE: First draft of Burned was much more humorous but editors stick to conventions and took it out. TE wanted to give H Juul a weapon to deal with his situation.

GS borrows from Raymond Chandler.

Check out the bibliographies and reviews at the Euro Crime website:

Death in a Cold Climate by Barry Forshaw
Asa Larsson
Thomas Enger
Ragnar Jonasson - not yet translated into English
Gunnar Staalesen

New Reviews: Cato, Cordy, Enger, Hochgatterer, Learner, Nickson, Smith, van der Vlugt, Wallace

As well as reading the 9 new reviews, if you haven't already, do enter the competition which closes on 31st: win Death of the Mantis by Michael Stanley (no geographical restrictions).

Here are this week's reviews:

Lizzie Hayes reviews Joyce Cato's, A Fatal Fall of Snow the second in this culinary series and which is set at Christmas;

Susan White reviews The Colour of Death by Michael Cordy which is set in the US and covers synaesthesia and cults;

Lynn Harvey reviews Thomas Enger's Burned, tr. Charlotte Barslund now out in paperback, and she's keen to read the sequel;

Maxine Clarke reviews the follow-up to The Sweetness of Life by Paulus Hochgatterer, The Mattress House, tr. Jamie Bulloch (do read Maxine's review but please do not read the synopsis on book-selling websites which give far too much away);

Terry Halligan reviews T S Learner's The Map, a historical quest thriller set in Europe;

Michelle Peckham reviews Chris Nickson's Cold Cruel Winter now out in trade paperback (look out for February's competition sponsored by this author);

Laura Root reviews the final part of Tom Rob Smith's USSR trilogy, Agent 6;

Rich Westwood reviews Simone van der Vlugt's Shadow Sister, tr. Michele Hutchinson a Dutch suspense thriller

and Amanda Gillies reviews political thriller Killing the Messenger by Christopher Wallace.

Previous reviews can be found in the review archive.

Forthcoming titles can be found by author or date or by category, here and new titles by Joyce Cato and Anya Lipska have been added to these pages this week.

New Reviews: Enger, Fossum, Holt, Indridason, Kepler, Lackberg, Ridpath, Wagner

Here are this week's reviews - can you spot the theme?:

I review the debut novel from Norwegian author Thomas Enger, Burned, tr. Charlotte Barslund, which introduces an intriguing new lead in the shape of damaged reporter Henning Juul;

Michelle Peckham reviews one of Karin Fossum's earlier Sejer books, The Water's Edge, tr. Charlotte Barslund which she thoroughly recommends;

Maxine Clarke reviews Anne Holt's latest Vik/Stubo which she says is the best so far: Fear Not, tr. Marlaine Delargy;

New reviewer Rich Westwood opens his account with a review of the paperback edition of Arnaldur Indridason's Operation Napoleon, tr. Victoria Cribb which, unfortunately, isn't a patch on his Erlendur series;

A second opinion on Lars Kepler's The Hypnotist, tr. Ann Long is provided by Maxine Clarke;

I reviewed on the blog last week, the audio book version of Camilla Lackberg's The Gallows Bird, tr. Steven T Murray;

Lizzie Hayes recommends Michael Ridpath's 66 Degrees North, the second in his Iceland series

and Mark Bailey reviews Jan Costin Wagner's follow-up to Ice Moon, Silence, tr. Anthea Bell which is now out in paperback.

Previous reviews can be found in the review archive and forthcoming titles can be found by author or date, here.

Publishing Deal - Thomas Enger

The crime in translation wave continues with Faber announcing a deal for two books from Norwegian author Thomas Enger. In the Bookseller:

Faber has signed a new crime series by Norwegian author Thomas Enger, including his debut Burned, which has been sold into 12 other territories so far. Acquiring Editor Angus Cargill bought UK and Commonwealth rights from Norwegian publisher Gyldendal.

Burned opens with the arrest of a Pakistani immigrant, accused of the Sharia style killing of a Norwegian woman. Cargill said it was a significant acquisition for Faber’s growing crime list, and described Burned as a novel that "combined the thrill of the best page-turner, with a deep psychological portrait of this wonderful character".

Faber will publish Burned in July 2011, to be followed by Phantom Pain in July 2012.

Update: the translator will be Charlotte Barslund who also translates Karin Fossum.