Review Roundup: Adler-Olsen, Anderson, Cahoon, Costantini, Cross, Daly, Hiekkapelto, Hjorth & Rosenfeldt, Johnstone, Mina, Sundstol

Here are eleven reviews which have been added to the Euro Crime website today, all have appeared on the blog since last time*.

*I am trialling a new approach at the moment in that all reviews will appear on the Euro Crime blog rather than being separate files as part of the Euro Crime website. I feel this will give the reviews more exposure and make them more findable in a search engine. The reviews will appear daily ie Monday to Friday, with roundups on Sundays. The website will continue with bibliographies etc, the only change is that the reviews will be on the blog.

I'd be interested in any comments about this new approach.

You can keep up to date with Euro Crime by following the blog and/or liking the Euro Crime Facebook page and follow on Twitter, @eurocrime.

New Reviews

Michelle Peckham reviews Jussi Adler-Olsen's Buried tr. Martin Aitken, the fifth in the Carl Morck and Assad series set in Copenhagen;

Amanda Gillies reviews Lin Anderson's The Special Dead, the eleventh in the Rhona Macleod series (check back on Tuesday for a Q & A with Lin);

Not Euro Crime, but as part of an occasional special feature, I review Lynn Cahoon's Guidebook to Murder, the first in a series set in a coastal Californian town;


Lynn Harvey reviews Roberto Costantini's The Root of all Evil tr. N S Thompson, the middle part of a projected trilogy;




Also set in America is Scottish author Mason Cross's The Samaritan, reviewed by Terry Halligan;

Terry also reviews Bill Daly's Double Mortice the second in the DCI Charlie Anderson series set in Glasgow;

Ewa Sherman reviews Kati Hiekkapelto's The Hummingbird tr. David Hackston which introduces Finland's Detective Anna Fekete;


Geoff Jones reviews Hjorth & Rosenfeldt's The Man Who Watched Women tr. Marlaine Delargy, the second in the Sebastian Bergman series;

Amanda also reviews The Jump by Doug Johnstone, and concludes "I am lost for superlatives to describe this book";

Michelle also reviews Denise Mina's Blood Salt Water, the fifth in the DS Alex Morrow series

and Laura Root reviews Vidar Sundstol's The Ravens tr. Tiina Nunnally, the conclusion to his Minnesota Trilogy.

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

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

Reviews: Chambers, Hauxwell, Perry, Ramsay, Robinson, Simenon, Sundstol, Wagner

Here are nine reviews which have been added to the Euro Crime website today, five have appeared on the blog since last time, and four are completely new.

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

New Reviews

Susan White reviews Kimberley Chambers's The Victim which she recommends for readers of Martina Cole and Lynda La Plante;


Amanda Gillies reviews Annie Hauxwell's A Morbid Habit the third book to feature PI Catherine Berlin;

Terry Halligan reviews the latest in the William Monk series by Anne Perry, Blood on the Water which is now out in paperback;


Terry also reviews Caro Ramsay's The Blood of Crows the fourth in her Anderson and Costello series;

Michelle Peckham reviews Caro Ramsay's fifth and most recent Anderson and Costello book, The Night Hunter;


Michelle also reviews Ray Robinson's Jawbone Lake;

Lynn Harvey reviews Georges Simenon's Pietr the Latvian freshly translated by David Bellos as part of Penguin's project to republish and re-translate all the Maigret novels; this being the first in the series;

Laura Root reviews Vidar Sundstol's Only the Dead translated by Tiinna Nunnally and is the middle part of the Minnesota trilogy

and Lynn also reviews the Petrona Award shortlist-listed Light in a Dark House by Jan Costin Wagner, translated by Anthea Bell which is now out in paperback.


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. NB. Forthcoming releases by category for 2015 are now available.

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

New Reviews: Bonner, Chase, Colfer, Forsyth, Jones, McIntosh, Masterton, Sundstol, Zouroudi

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 :).

Useful Information:
I've now set up the 2014 International Dagger Eligibles post so you can see which 76 (so far) titles are  published in the qualifying period.
There is a similar post for the 2014 Petrona Award Eligibles.
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

It's been a 9 year gap between books but Hilary Bonner is back with The Cruellest Game reviewed here by Susan White;

Michelle Peckham reviews  Wicked Game, the first in a new series by E V Seymour writing as Adam Chase, starring assassin for hire, Hex;

Lynn Harvey reviews Eoin Colfer's Screwed, the sequel to Plugged, which is now out in paperback;

Terry Halligan reviews Frederick Forsyth's The Kill List;

Geoff Jones reviews J Sydney Jones's Ruin Value set in Nuremberg at the time of the trials;

Terry also reviews The Fourth Crow by Pat McIntosh, the ninth in the Gil Cunningham series set in medieval Glasgow;

Rich Westwood reviews Graham Masterton's Broken Angels, the second in the Superintendent Katie Maguire series set in Cork, and warns it has some strong content;

Laura Root reviews Vidar Sundstol's The Land of Dreams, tr. Tiina Nunnally, the first part in his "Minnesota Trilogy"


and Amanda Gillies reviews the seventh in the Greek Hermes Diaktoros series from Anne Zouroudi: The Feast of Artemis.




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.