Tuesday, August 30, 2016
Saturday, August 13, 2016
Into oblivion () by Arnaldur Indridason
Loyal readers of Arnaldur Indridason's Erlendur series will be thrilled by Into Oblivion, the mesmerizing follow-up to the gritty prequel Reykjavik Nights. Here devoted fans will get another glimpse of Erlendur in his early days as a young, budding detective, while also absorbing plenty about Iceland and what makes the place tick.
It’s 1979. A woman swims in a remote, milky-blue lagoon. Steam rises from the water and as it clears, a body is revealed in the ghostly light. Miles away, a vast aircraft hangar rises behind the perimeter fence of the US military base. A sickening thud is heard as a man’s body falls from a high platform.
Many years before, a schoolgirl went missing, and the world has forgotten her. But Erlendur has not. Erlendur is a newly promoted detective, and he is contending with a battered dead body, a rogue CIA operative, and America’s troublesome presence in Iceland. In his spare time he investigates a cold case. He is only starting out, but he is already deeply involved in his work.
The writer whose work The New York Times describes as "having the sweep and consequence of epic storytelling," has outdone himself in this multi-layered and masterful novel of suspense.
Thanks to MacMillan Books for synopsis.
Many years before, a schoolgirl went missing, and the world has forgotten her. But Erlendur has not. Erlendur is a newly promoted detective, and he is contending with a battered dead body, a rogue CIA operative, and America’s troublesome presence in Iceland. In his spare time he investigates a cold case. He is only starting out, but he is already deeply involved in his work.
The writer whose work The New York Times describes as "having the sweep and consequence of epic storytelling," has outdone himself in this multi-layered and masterful novel of suspense.
Thanks to MacMillan Books for synopsis.
The man from Beijing (2010) by Henning Mankell
Thanks for comprehensive review from Mike Peed of The New Yorker
Published: February 26, 2010
Henning Mankell is perhaps the second-most-famous modern Swedish cultural figure, after Ingmar Bergman — which seems appropriate since he’s married to one of Bergman’s daughters. And since portions of Sweden remain winterbound for more than seven months a year, it seems equally appropriate that much of these countrymen’s work is enshrouded in gloom. Bergman wrote of a “virulent, terrifying evil” within us all. Mankell asks, “Why does barbarism always wear a human face?” If striations of optimism can be found in their work, maybe that’s just the Northern Lights.
Mankell is best known for a series of police procedurals involving Detective Kurt Wallander, a saturnine lump of a man who consistently beats the odds to solve Sweden’s most brutal crimes. (Mankell concluded the series last year, but the final book has yet to be translated into English.) He has also written more than two dozen plays, a few children’s books and several stand-alone novels. As a young man, Mankell began to live part time in Mozambique. “I’ve understood more about the world,” he likes to say, “by living with one foot in the snow and one foot in the dust.”
Mankell’s latest crime novel, “The Man From Beijing,” opens with the discovery of 19 dead and disfigured bodies in the fictional town of Hesjovallen: “It was as if a blood-laden hurricane had stormed through the village.” The local police uncover exactly two clues: The victims appear to be distantly related, and someone dropped a red ribbon in the adjoining woods.
Fortunately, Birgitta Roslin, an inquisitive judge, has some time on her hands: on doctor’s orders (after a diagnosis of anxiety-induced fatigue) she can’t go to work for a fortnight. Hesjovallen is her mother’s hometown, and a little digging among old papers and on the Internet reveals that she is connected to the victims. So she promptly braves the bad roads to Hesjovallen, books a room at a hotel and, before long, has the whole crime worked out. If only the police would listen.
There’s a hard-boiled gruffness to Mankell’s prose, although his story often reads like the product of an oral tradition, dotted with aphorisms. (“White men smelling of spirits were always more unpredictable than sober ones.”) Most grating, however, is Laurie Thompson’s translation, full of awkward syntax and clichés. (To what degree this originates with Mankell is hard to know.) One character is “not yet defeated, once and for all,” while another “should have understood, but refused to accept what she really did understand.” “Ignorance is bliss”; “The devil is always in the details”; and “If you want to make an omelet, you have to break an egg.”
If a Raymond Chandler effect is the goal, the humdrum plot interferes. As is the case with so many of Mankell’s novels, the primary concern of “The Man From Beijing” isn’t to solve the crime (early on, Birgitta understands its genesis as “probably no more than the usual: revenge, greed, jealousy”) but to polemicize — against the wholesale debasement of Swedish society but also, jarringly, against China’s recent chicanery in Africa, where the energy-hungry nation is exploiting a trove of natural resources.
The route is circuitous and often redundant. From Birgitta in the present day, readers are flung back to the mid-19th century, first to Guangzhou and then to Nevada, before returning to 21st-century Beijing and, finally, Zimbabwe and Mozambique. Several characters exist primarily to deliver political and social précis, arguing repeatedly that while China can be an insidious country, we Westerners are hardly innocent of exploiting other nations. The intrigue surrounding the murders dissipates. Detectives fade to distant bystanders. And the origin of the red ribbon — the key with which Birgitta unlocks the mystery — goes unexplained. Mankell’s fierce instinct for social criticism is admirable. If only it didn’t sabotage the opportunity for old-fashioned whodunit delight.
Mankell is best known for a series of police procedurals involving Detective Kurt Wallander, a saturnine lump of a man who consistently beats the odds to solve Sweden’s most brutal crimes. (Mankell concluded the series last year, but the final book has yet to be translated into English.) He has also written more than two dozen plays, a few children’s books and several stand-alone novels. As a young man, Mankell began to live part time in Mozambique. “I’ve understood more about the world,” he likes to say, “by living with one foot in the snow and one foot in the dust.”
Mankell’s latest crime novel, “The Man From Beijing,” opens with the discovery of 19 dead and disfigured bodies in the fictional town of Hesjovallen: “It was as if a blood-laden hurricane had stormed through the village.” The local police uncover exactly two clues: The victims appear to be distantly related, and someone dropped a red ribbon in the adjoining woods.
Fortunately, Birgitta Roslin, an inquisitive judge, has some time on her hands: on doctor’s orders (after a diagnosis of anxiety-induced fatigue) she can’t go to work for a fortnight. Hesjovallen is her mother’s hometown, and a little digging among old papers and on the Internet reveals that she is connected to the victims. So she promptly braves the bad roads to Hesjovallen, books a room at a hotel and, before long, has the whole crime worked out. If only the police would listen.
There’s a hard-boiled gruffness to Mankell’s prose, although his story often reads like the product of an oral tradition, dotted with aphorisms. (“White men smelling of spirits were always more unpredictable than sober ones.”) Most grating, however, is Laurie Thompson’s translation, full of awkward syntax and clichés. (To what degree this originates with Mankell is hard to know.) One character is “not yet defeated, once and for all,” while another “should have understood, but refused to accept what she really did understand.” “Ignorance is bliss”; “The devil is always in the details”; and “If you want to make an omelet, you have to break an egg.”
If a Raymond Chandler effect is the goal, the humdrum plot interferes. As is the case with so many of Mankell’s novels, the primary concern of “The Man From Beijing” isn’t to solve the crime (early on, Birgitta understands its genesis as “probably no more than the usual: revenge, greed, jealousy”) but to polemicize — against the wholesale debasement of Swedish society but also, jarringly, against China’s recent chicanery in Africa, where the energy-hungry nation is exploiting a trove of natural resources.
The route is circuitous and often redundant. From Birgitta in the present day, readers are flung back to the mid-19th century, first to Guangzhou and then to Nevada, before returning to 21st-century Beijing and, finally, Zimbabwe and Mozambique. Several characters exist primarily to deliver political and social précis, arguing repeatedly that while China can be an insidious country, we Westerners are hardly innocent of exploiting other nations. The intrigue surrounding the murders dissipates. Detectives fade to distant bystanders. And the origin of the red ribbon — the key with which Birgitta unlocks the mystery — goes unexplained. Mankell’s fierce instinct for social criticism is admirable. If only it didn’t sabotage the opportunity for old-fashioned whodunit delight.
Monday, August 8, 2016
The golden calf: Inspector Huss #5 (2013) by Helene Tursten
Thanks to Goodreads for synopsis
Soho’s perennially popular Swedish crime series featuring Detective Inspector Irene Huss—jiujitsu champion, mother of teenage twin girls, and investigator on Göteborg Murder Squad—is back!
Three men have been shot in one of Göteborg's most fashionable neighborhoods, sending Irene Huss and her colleagues on a goose chase through a tony world of expensive cars and fancy homes. All three victims seem to be tied to one person, the glamorous dot-com darling Sanna Kaegler-Ceder, but Sanna isn’t talking, even when her own life seems to be at stake.
Three men have been shot in one of Göteborg's most fashionable neighborhoods, sending Irene Huss and her colleagues on a goose chase through a tony world of expensive cars and fancy homes. All three victims seem to be tied to one person, the glamorous dot-com darling Sanna Kaegler-Ceder, but Sanna isn’t talking, even when her own life seems to be at stake.
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