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.

US Cozy Review: another triplet of reviewlets

Welcome to the latest entry in my irregular feature: US cozy review. My latest Cozy reads are more contemporary than in my last roundup:

In reading order:

1. Engaged in Death by Stephanie Blackmoore #1 Wedding Planner Mystery (2016)

I read this ages ages and accidentally missed it off my last roundup. This was my second favourite cozy read of last year. It introduces Mallory Shepard and her sister Rachel and is set in Port Quincy, Pennsylvania.

What I particularly liked about his book is that, usually we meet the heroine when she's moved to her new home to start afresh and then we get the back-story. In this book however we follow Mallory through her problems alongside her: cheating fiance, loss of job etc.

Mallory inherits a crumbling mansion which may have oil in its grounds. This could solve her money worries but she rejects the offer made by the oil company and next thing you know there's a dead man on the front lawn.

This has a complicated plot, cats and a hunky neighbour with a smart teenage daughter. What more could you ask for? I'm looking forward to reading the sequel, Murder Wears White.

2. A Most Curious Murder by Elizabeth Kane Buzzelli #1 A Little Library Mystery (2016)

I'm going to quote the official blurb on this one:

"Jenny Weston moves home to Bear Falls, Michigan, to nurse her bruised ego back to health after a bitter divorce. But the idyllic vision of her charming hometown crumbles when her mother's Little Library is destroyed.

The next-door neighbor, Zoe Zola, a little person and Lewis Carroll enthusiast, suspects local curmudgeon Adam Cane, but when he's found dead in Zoe's fairy garden, all roads lead back to her. Jenny, however, believes Zoe is innocent, so the two women team up to find the true culprit, investigating the richest family in Bear Falls, interrogating a few odd townspeople, and delving into long, hidden transgressions--until Adam Cane isn't the only body in town, and they have an even bigger mystery to solve.

Inspired by Alice in Wonderland, Elizabeth Kane Buzzelli's quaint and compelling series debut A Most Curious Murder will delight cozy mystery readers."

I liked this one enough to get the second, She Stopped for Death, but I did find the Alice in Wonderland theme a bit too hard for me to follow as I can't even remember if I read the original when I was a child (I'm that old sadly). I liked the idea of Jenny returning to her home and catching up with her former friends/enemies in different ways. And an old mystery is solved as well as the current one.

3. A Tine to Live, A Tine To Die by Edith Maxwell #1 Local Foods Mystery (2014)

Regular Euro Crime blog readers will know I'm always looking for vegetarian sleuths - so I thought I'd try this series. Our heroine Cam isn't veggie but she does grown her own food and is ethically conscious.

When programmer Cam loses her job she decides to take over her uncle's Organic Farm in Westbury, Massachusetts. She also inherits a farm-hand, Mike, whom she catches with a pesticide container. Mike is fired and worse than that, for him, is killed on Cam's farm with one of her farm tools. Cam tries to apply computer logic to solving the murder and in the meantime goes about her farm business and going to farmers' markets and suchlike.

I found this an interesting read as I was very taken with the details behind organic farming. I would say the pace is fairly steady but it does end with a bang! I've already bought the sequel, 'Til Dirt Do Us Part. The fifth book in the series, Mulch Ado about Murder, is out in May 2017.

US Cozy Review: a triplet of reviewlets

Welcome to the latest entry in my irregular feature: US cozy review. My latest Cozy reads range from old to new(ish), with publication dates from 1991 to 2013!

In publication order:

1. All the Great Pretenders by Deborah Adams #1 Jesus Creek series (1991)

I bought this in 1996 from Uncle Edgars when I went to my first Bouchercon which was in Minneapolis-Saint Paul. A mere twenty years later I got round to reading it.

Set in the small town of Jesus Creek in Tennessee, this introductory novel revolves around the Inn and the temporary Innkeeper Kate Yancy. A young heiress has disappeared from the Inn and her family have hired a psychic, who comes to stay at the Inn. The press are there too and an announcement that the psychic knows where the girl is, doesn't bode well for the psychic. The mystery aspect is fine but it it is Kate's wry humour and the unusual inhabitants of Jesus Creek which are the stars. Once I got into it, I really enjoyed All the Great Pretenders. The next book, All the Great Winters, revolves around the library and a library volunteer - so right up my street.

If you can't get hold of print copies then the ebooks are currently very good value.

2. Death in Daytime by Eileen Davidson & Robert J Randisi #1 Soap Opera series (2008)

Whereas All the Great Pretenders was pre-internet and almost pre-personal computers, soap star Alexis Peterson has a mobile phone which she thinks can get the internet but she would rather rely on the teenage son of a friend for help. Alexis is one of the main stars of daytime soap opera The Yearning Tide however her new boss Marcy bears a grudge against her and is trying to down-size Alexis's role and is withholding scripts and suchlike. So when Marcy is killed, and Alexis finds the body, Alexis becomes the prime suspect. So naturally Alexis tries to find the real killer, putting herself in danger and annoying the cops enormously.

I love behind the (tv/film) scene settings so I was predisposed to like this one, which I did. I was mis-directed nicely and didn't guess whodunnit at all. Though the cover looks like a cozy there is some strong language at times. I've got the final book (#4) in my tbr and will be purchasing the other two, probably on ebook. [I only had this one 4 years before reading it...]

3. Gluten for Punishment by Nancy J Parra #1 Baker's Treat series (2013)

I bought this in August and read it in October which is probably a record for me to turn around a book that quickly after buying!

Gluten for Punishment is the first in a short series of three, set in Oiltop, Kansas. Toni Holmes has returned home to Oiltop where she has inherited her mother's large house and she opens up a gluten-free bakery in a town surrounded by wheat fields. The official opening of the store is marred by heckling from a wheat farmer and soon after the heckler's dead body is found outside the store. Toni has motive and opportunity and is soon a 'person of interest'. She does some sleuthing, assisted by her eccentric family and friends. This is a solid introduction to the series and I already own the other two books. I did get a bit lost with her extensive family of siblings and who was who. Though sworn off men, there are two gorgeous men vying for her attention, so it'll be interesting to see who she chooses, if either.

Gluten-intolerance runs in my mother's side of the family so I was particularly interested to read a cozy revolving around a gluten-free bakery and I did learn a few things. There are some recipes in the back, if you like to bake.

NB. There is one quite violent scene towards the end.

A Baker's Dozen of the Tiniest of Reviews

On my desk, I have a pile of books which I've read and not yet reviewed. Some have been there months. As I can barely remember the plots, I will just be giving very brief comments on what I felt about them. In alphabetical order:

1/2/3. M C Beaton - Agatha Raisin: There Goes the Bride/ Agatha Raisin and the Busy Body/Agatha Raisin: As the Pig Turns.
I'm still about 5 books behind in the Agatha Raisin series. These are numbers 20 to 22 in the series, which I read in effort to get up to date (and failed); there's only so many books you can read in the same series back to back. I went back to these for a comfort read, a sense of knowing what'll you'll get.
My Good Reads rating is 3 stars each.

4. Samuel Bjork - I'm Travelling Alone tr. Charlotte Barslund
I had such high hopes for this one. It was getting positive comments from other readers but for me it didn't flow. The chapters alternated between different characters and some of the chapters were deadly dull and held up the momentum of the main storyline. I like the police detectives so I will give the sequel, out in 2017, a go.
My Good Reads rating is 2 stars.

5. Andrea Camilleri - Angelica's Smile tr. Stephen Sartarelli
This is the seventeenth in the Montalbano series. For me, Montalbano's romantic entanglements with much younger women are becoming tiresome but that aside, this is another enjoyable outing.
My Good Reads rating is 4 stars.

6/7. Lee Child - Personal/Make Me
Numbers 19 and 20 in the series. I have read about a third of the Jack Reacher books. My favourite is still Without Fail. Personal is set quite a bit in the UK so occasionally suffers from some over-explanations for non-UK readers which feels a bit clunky at times. The plot is ok and his female sidekick in this book is a little different to the usual model. I found Make Me to be quite drawn out. I did enjoy the companion book, Reacher Said Nothing: Lee Child and the Making of Make Me by Andy Martin - well the bits I could understand; it was a bit overly academic in parts. Read it after Make Me though!
My Good Reads rating is 3 stars each (and 4 stars for Andy Martin's book.)

8. Kati Hiekkapelto - The Defenceless tr. David Hackston
This is the second in the Anna Fekete series, which like its predecessor, The Hummingbird, was shortlisted for the Petrona Award. This is an excellent series which typifies the best of Scandinavian crime fiction with its focus on social issues.
My Good Reads rating is 4 stars.

9. Anne Holt - Dead Joker tr. Anne Bruce.
This is the fifth in the Hanne Wilhelmsen series. First published in 1999 and now in English in 2015. Thanks to the efforts of Corvus all 8 books in this series are now available in English. This outing is quite an emotional one for Hanne (and the reader).
My Good Reads rating is 3 stars.

10. Robert Karjel - My Name is N (apa The Swede) tr. Nancy Pick & Robert Karjel
I really liked this debut which introduces Swedish Security Police Officer Ernst Grip though most of the story is not set in Sweden but in Thailand, the US or an island military base. Quite a tense read with Grip having a major secret to keep from the Americans. Looks like it'll be a year or two until the sequel unfortunately.
My Good Reads rating is 4 stars.

11. M R C Kasasian - Death Descends on Saturn Villa
This is the third in this entertaining series starring Sidney Grice, London's only personal detective, and his young ward March Middleton. In this entry things don't go so well for March and Mr Grice has to save the day and take over narrating duties.
My Good Reads rating is 5 stars.

12. Jo Nesbo - Midnight Sun tr. Neil Smith
After the chilly Blood on Snow, this warm follow-up introduces a likeable but criminal young man who is on the run and ends up in the land of the midnight sun. Contains the usual well-constructed set pieces.
My Good Reads rating is 4 stars.

13. Kristina Ohlsson - Hostage tr. Marlaine Delargy.
My colleague Michelle has already reviewed Hostage. I too enjoy this series though I found this one a bit overlong at 500 pages.
My Good Reads rating is 3 stars.

Some Mini Scandi Reviews

Over the last few months I've read several Scandi books that I haven't had time to review. So to give myself a tabula rasa here are my brief thoughts on them:

Camilla Lackberg's last two books, THE LOST BOY and BURIED ANGELS (both tr.
Tiina Nunnally) have both revolved around an island. I always enjoy Lackberg's books to a certain extent, which varies on the amount of soap-opera activities of the main characters Erica (novelist) and Patrick (police officer) and their expanding family, and the antics of Patrick's fellow police officers. Whilst THE LOST BOY was an ok read, I did guess one of the twists; the better of the two books I think, is BURIED ANGELS with its cold case locked-island mystery involving the disappearance of all but one member of a family.

I hope Jorn Lier Horst will forgive me not doing his books justice will full reviews.
In my defence I am one of the team who put CLOSED FOR WINTER and THE HUNTING DOGS (both tr. Anne Bruce) on the Petrona Award shortlists for 2014 and 2015 respectively. The Petrona Award recognises the best Scandinavian crime fiction in translation. CLOSED FOR WINTER revolves around a murder in a holiday cottage and it takes its main character Chief Inspector Wisting to Lithuania, and THE HUNTING DOGS sees Wisting suspended and suspected of falsifying evidence. Wisting is a likeable, empathetic character who has an awkward relationship with his daughter Line a journalist. Line often ends up, though in a naturalistic way, running a parallel investigation into Wisting's cases from a “news” point of view.

Kati Hiekkapelto's striking debut, THE HUMMINGBIRD (tr. David Hackston), which introduces Anna Fekete, an immigrant to Finland from the Baltic states, catapulted its way on to this year's Petrona Award shortlist. Anna has to put up with extreme prejudice from her new police colleague as they try and catch a serial killer.

The gang's all here in Arne Dahl's TO THE TOP OF THE MOUNTAIN (tr. Alice
Menzies), well after a bit. The Intercrime group, having no serious crime to deal with have been disbanded and their leader retired off. Slowly however the team finds that the investigations they're involved in separately, have a connection. I enjoyed the previous two books in the series greatly but I struggled with this one and I lost interest in the second half. I wouldn't recommend starting the series with this one but I would recommend the series overall.

Having enjoyed Anne Holt's DEATH OF A DEMON I went straight on to THE LION'S MOUTH (both tr. Anne Bruce). Regular lead, Inspector Hanne Wilhelmsen, is more of a bystander in this one as she's out of the country initially. However the murder of the Prime Minister in her office - a closed room mystery - brings Hanne home to provide unofficial support to her colleague Billy T. I love books set in the world of politics so I lapped this one up. My only reservation was the ending but I cannot expand on that!

Another 2015 Petrona Award shortlistee is REYKJAVIK NIGHTS by Arnaldur Indridason (tr. Victoria Cribb) which is a prequel to his established series and introduces the young Erlendur in his first few years at the police. He is on traffic duty and on the night shift. He investigates the death of a tramp and in addition we get to see how he meets his future wife. It should appeal to existing and new fans alike.

As with Jorn Lier Horst, I've been party to both of Yrsa Sigurdardottir's previous
two books being shortlisted for the Petrona Award: SOMEONE TO WATCH OVER ME (tr. Philip Roughton) for 2014 and THE SILENCE OF THE SEA (tr. Victoria Cribb) for this year. In SOMEONE series character, lawyer Thora takes on the case of a young man with Down's syndrome who is accused of burning down a care home and killing five people and it is set against the backdrop of the financial crash. SILENCE has a slightly different structure  with Thora not being in the book as much as usual. A yacht returns to Reykjavik with no-one on board though a family and a crew were on it when it left Portugal. Thora is hired by the grand-parents of the surviving child who did not go on the ill-fated trip to prove that the parents are dead. The narrative is split between Thora's investigations and a recounting of what happened aboard the yacht and is an extremely tense and compulsive read.

Kristina Ohlsson's THE DISAPPEARED (tr. Marlaine Delargy) the latest book in the Alex Recht/Fredrika Bergman series continues to mix the personal with the professional in a similar way to Camilla Lackberg. All the main characters go through personal trauma whilst looking into the cold case of a missing student whose body has just been found. I enjoyed this very much.

Hans Olav Lahlum's THE HUMAN FLIES (tr. Kari Dickson), also shortlisted for the 2015 Petrona Award, introduces the nice but dim Norwegian policeman K2 and his brilliant civilian sidekick Patricia who is confined to a wheelchair and rarely leaves her home. Set in Oslo in 1968, they have a locked room mystery to solve where the murderer must surely be one of the apartment block's residents, all of whom seem to have a connection to the legendary war hero victim... FLIES melds an intriguing mystery with a look into recent Norwegian history.

Finally, staying in Norway, ages ago I read COLD HEARTS by Gunnar Staalesen (tr. Don Bartlett). I do enjoy this series, set in Bergen, so I can't wait for the next three books in the series which are due from Orenda Press and will also be translated by Don Bartlett.