DARK ANGEL

TITLE: DARK ANGEL

AUTHOR: MARI JUNGSTEDT

Pages: 280

Date: 08/04/2012

Grade: 4.5

Details: no. 6 Anders Knutas

            Received from Transworld Books

            through BookGeeks

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A new conference centre is officially opened in Visby, Gotland and everybody who is anybody is present, including Inspector Anders Knutas and his wife. It appears that the evening has been a huge success until the next day, when the body of Viktor Algard, the glamorous party-planner, is found in the centre by cleaners. It soon becomes clear that Algard died as a result of cyanide poisoning and Knutas and his team start an investigation.

It isn’t long before they discover that Algard had plenty of enemies. A 16 year old boy had been brutally beaten up outside a club for teenagers he owned, a boy who is now in a coma and fighting for his life. And the party-planner had recently told his wife of 30 years that he wanted a divorce, much to her surprise and horror. There are also rumours that the victim had recently started a secret affair with an unknown woman. It looks like this might be an open and shut case, but Knutas knows better than to jump to conclusions and is soon proven right when somebody else is attacked.

Meanwhile somebody is remembering his very unhappy childhood. A childhood structured by a domineering, unbalanced and utterly selfish mother. A mother they desperately wanted to please and save, but could please.

And while Knutas is conducting his investigation he has his own issues with parenthood. Distanced from his teenage twins he is shocked to discover how little he knows about their lives and finds himself doubting his value as a parent. And that is not the only dilemma he finds himself struggling with.

This is a well written and superbly plotted mystery. Whenever a possible solution occurred to me, it would, soon after, also be put forward by the story-line. The author knows exactly what she wants to share with the reader and when, which keeps the reader engrossed in the story. I found myself trying to stay ahead of the investigation on the pages, almost in competition with Anders Knutas.

The descriptions of Sweden and Gotland in particular are wonderful. The place really comes to live on the pages of this book, as do the people who live there.

Because the book gives a voice to various people in different chapters, the reader is getting an inside into both the mystery and the wider lives of the characters as the book moves along. In fact, this is as much a book about certain people living on Gotland as it is a murder mystery and this is a combination that works very well in the hands of Jungstedt.

However, this is book number 6 in a series and I can’t help feeling that it would have been a huge advantage if I had read the previous instalments. This story, especially when it comes to the main characters and their private lives, seems to continue a narrative which has started at an earlier stage. And although it is be no means necessary to be aware of those earlier lives in order to enjoy this book, I’m sure I would have gotten more out of this book if I had had prior knowledge about the people in this story.

It seems to me that a lot of the Scandinavian mysteries/thrillers I have been reading in the recent past have been written by journalists, and this book is no exception. It also seems to me that these journalist/authors use their novels to share problems in today’s society as they see it in their stories. In this book the social issue on display is that of young people these days, their attitudes towards alcohol and the mindless violence they seem to be capable of against each other. An issue that is, unfortunately, not confined to Sweden but all too familiar to me from the Irish news headlines.

For me this book was a wonderful discovery. I love the way the author combined the mystery with social and family issues. For me she achieved exactly the right balance between background story and thriller-aspect. It seems I managed to find myself yet another author I will now have to add to my list of favourites.

TORN

TITLE: TORN

AUTHOR: CASEY HILL

Pages: 390

Date: 06/04/2012

Grade: 5

Details: no. 2 Reilly Steel

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Reilly Steel, Quantico-trained forensic investigator working for the Garda Forensic Unit in Dublin, is very experienced at what she does and thinks she’s seen it all. But even she raises a few eye-brows when she finds herself face to face with the remains of a journalist, found in his own sceptic tank where he has apparently been left to drown “in his own shit”.

The crime-scene offers little or no clues for the investigation and a look at the journalist’s personal and professional life by Detectives Chris Delaney and Pete Kennedy doesn’t lead to a solid motive or suspect either.

When Reilly and the two investigators are called to another obscure and horrible crime-scene it is impossible not to link this second murder to the first one. Except that the first one wasn’t really first at all. It turns out that an earlier, equally strange, murder of a retired Garda is also part of the mystery.

But with no obvious links between the three victims and no forensic clues to speak of, the investigation isn’t going anywhere fast.

The murderer obviously has an agenda and seems to be working his way towards a spectacular finale, but unless Reilly, the investigators and the irritating profiler who has been called in, can come up with a link between the victims and a motive for their murders they don’t have a chance of identifying the perpetrator, never mind stopping him.

Casey Hill, a partnership between Melissa Hill and her husband Kevin, has done it again. The first Reilly Steel thriller “Taboo” was a great read and this book more than lives up to the expectations set by its predecessor.

Filled with gruesome and disturbing murders, fascinating forensic detail as well as interesting main characters, this book is a real page-turner. I like the way we get to know each of the characters a little bit better in each book and how their personal lives tie in with the rest of the story. I also appreciate that the authors have created real characters with flaws as well as good sides. Characters that come to life for the reader to such an extend that you could imagine meeting them on the streets of Dublin.

I could go on and on, but not without spoiling the book for those who haven’t read it, so I won’t. I will say though that I hope the two Hills will keep their writing partnership going for a very long time.

FATED

TITLE: FATED

AUTHOR: BENDICT JACKA

Pages: 322

Date: 04/04/2012

Grade: 5

Details: no. 1 Alex Verus novel

            Urban Fantasy

            Received from BookGeeks

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Alex Verus runs the Arcana Emporium in Camden. On the surface a new-age shop, both Alex and his shop are a lot more. In fact, Alex is a mage, a diviner. He can look into the future investigate the various options open to him and take the path that suits him best.

In a world where there are both Light and Dark mages, Alex stands alone, not part of either side and determined to keep it that way. The others are not prepared to leave Alex alone though. It starts with a visit from the Light Council represented by Lyle, a blast from the past Alex would just as soon not see again. The Council want Alex‘s help in retrieving a relic from an artefact in the British Museum, an relic they are not prepared to tell him anything about and assistance that would go more or less unrewarded. Alex doesn’t have to think twice before turning them down.

One of Alex’s few friends is Luna, a young woman burdened by a curse which means that anybody who gets too close to her gets very unlucky. The kind of unlucky that gets people killed.

She finds objects for Alex and shortly after his meeting Lyle, Alex meets Luna and receives a red crystal. A crystal Alex can’t divine at all although Luna says it glowed for her when she picked it up.

And with that the trouble really starts. Soon both the Light Council and Dark mages have Alex cornered and he finds himself having to come up with a plan where he does retrieve the very coveted relic without surrendering it to either side. A plan that might work if he’s lucky and keeps a close eye on all the possible futures. A plan that will most likely mean death for both him and Luna. A plan that will certainly bring Alex face to face with the past he’s been hiding from for years.

This book was a very happy surprise for me. I’m not quite sure what I expected when I started reading, but this story exceeded any and every expectation I had.

While I always enjoy a story where the forces of good are up against those of evil, nothing is quite as straight forward as that in this book.

While you might expect the distinction between the Light Council and the Dark mages to be as clear as the difference between white and black, things aren’t quite as obvious as that. And the main characters aren’t one-dimensional either, which makes the story very interesting and realistic. Alex has his past to keep away from and this need makes him a loner. Luna is a loner out of necessity and deeply unhappy because of it. Starbreeze, and elemental Alex calls upon when he needs help travelling over any distance in a hurry is cute as well as very easily distracted and provides some light relief in a somewhat dark story.

Yes, there are some strong similarities between this book and the Harry Dresden series by Jim Butcher, but the author is well aware of this. In fact there is a reference on page 3 to “one guy in Chicago who advertises in the phone book under Wizard” which made me smile, especially since this book is endorsed by Jim Butcher on the front cover.

This book is a great find for anybody who enjoys urban fiction and those books by Butcher. As for me, I hope to read the second Alex Verus novel, Cursed, sooner rather than later.

CATCH ME

TITLE: CATCH ME

AUTHOR: LISA GARDNER

Pages: 372

Date: 03/02/2012

Grade: 5+

Details: no. 6 D.D. Warren

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D.D. Warren, now mother to 10 week old baby Jack, has just returned to work and is still getting used to balancing home and work when she’s called to a crime-scene. A man has been found in his apartment, shot twice in his head. A quick search of the scene reveals that the man was a paedophile.

When she leaves the scene, D.D. finds a note saying “Everyone has to die sometime. Be brave” on her car and spots a woman observing her from a distance before rushing away. When D.D. catches up with the woman, Charlene Rosalind Carter Grant (Charlie), she is told the most amazing story. Charlie expects to die in four days time, on January 21^st at about eight in the evening. Over the past two years her two childhood friends were killed on that date. Two murders which are still unsolved and two crimes without clues or suspects. Charlie is the last surviving member of the childhood group and she expects the killer to come for her this year. And although she has been preparing to defend herself for most of the preceding year, she wants D.D. to investigate her murder after she is dead.

Initially very sceptical, D.D. soon discovers that everything Charlie has told her about her friends’ murders is true and she starts taking the possibility that the young woman might be next seriously.

Meanwhile another paedophile is shot and killed and D.D. and her team find themselves with a crime without any clues on their hands, as well as a crime that hasn’t actually been committed yet.

But is Charlene really in danger, or is she a threat to others?

This is a brilliant, heart-stopping, clammy hands, toe curling sort of thriller made far more interesting because the author makes the reader wonder about how much they actually object to certain crimes.

With alternate chapters being told by Charlene and from D.D.’s point of view the reader tends to be slightly ahead of the investigators in this book, although never so much that they can’t be surprised.

And then there are the very short chapters by someone named Abigail. Who is Abigail, and what role does she play in everything that is going on.

What made this book extra special is that lots of characters from previous books make a cameo appearance. Although there were more, three of these old favourites stood out for me; Pierce Quincy and his daughter Kimberly from a previous series and Roan Griffin who featured in “The Survivor’s Club”. It was very nice to meet these characters again, however briefly. It made me very aware though how much I would like to see whole books dedicated to them again.

Lisa Gardner is a master when it comes to writing intriguing mystery-thrillers. With her twisted crimes and fascinating investigators she keeps the reader guessing and on the edge of their seat until the last page. In me she’s found herself a dedicated fan, already counting the days/weeks/months until her next book is published.

THE TITANIC TRAGEDY

TITLE: THE TITANIC TRAGEDY

AUTHOR: WILLIAM SEIL

Pages: 261

Date: 01/04/2012

Grade: 4

Details: The Further Adventures of

            Sherlock Holmes Series

            Received from BookGeeks

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The year is 1912 and Dr. Watson is living alone in rooms in Piccadilly, writing historical novels, while Sherlock Holmes has retired to the South Downs where he keeps bees and conducts scientific experiments. For both men, the time of mysteries and adventures seems very firmly a thing of the past.

On the 9^th of April though, Dr. Watson admits an unexpected visitor who turns out to be government official with a message from Holmes.

The retired investigator has been convinced to travel to America on a secret government mission, and asks Watson to join him for the journey. They will be travelling on the maiden voyage of The Titanic, accompanied by Miss Christine Norton, a young spy who will be transporting top secret documents to America. Miss Norton is also the daughter of Irene Adler, the only woman who ever managed to better Sherlock Holmes.

On board the Titanic, Holmes is incognito, pretending to be Giles Winter, a Royal Navy Commodore but Watson, travelling under his own name attracts a lot of attention as the author of the books about the famous detective.

It isn’t long before trouble starts for the trio travelling to New York. Miss Norton’s room gets broken into and the secret plans stolen. There is no shortage of suspects on board, one of whom is Colonel James Moriarty, brother of Holmes infamous nemesis the Professor.

With national security at stake Holmes and his associates know they only have a few days to unravel the mystery of who stole the plans since once the Titanic arrives in America both the thief and the plans will just disappear. Little do they know that they have even less time than they feared.

While the Titanic sails towards her date with destiny, a frantic search for the plans is conducted while other and apparently unrelated mysteries also ask for investigations.

This was, once again, an enjoyable addition to the original Sherlock Holmes series of books and stories. The Further Adventures that I have read so far have all been of a high quality; close enough to the originals to make both the stories and the characters easily recognisable yet original enough to make them separate entities rather than poor carbon copies of Conan Doyle’s creations.

William Seil has, in this book, offered the reader another fascinating mystery. He makes good use of the original back stories and characters by introducing relatives of former opponents of Holmes as both friend and foe, while also adding a number of fresh characters that could easily have been coming from those originals.

Setting the story on board of The Titanic is of course very timely now that we’re only days away from the sinking of that great ship and I like the way the author dealt with their trip as well as the aftermath of the sinking.

I also like the way Seil dealt with the sinking tragedy. It would have been so easy to centre the story around that event, but the author didn’t fall into that particular trap. Instead he has given the reader an honest mystery in which the sinking plays only a relatively small part.

Overall I thoroughly enjoyed this book, find myself very grateful to have discovered these Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and hope that the series will continue for a long time yet.

On a more personal note, this is the second book centred on the sinking of The Titanic that I’ve read in the past few weeks (see The Company of the Dead) and I have to say that some of the crew and passengers on that ship are starting to turn into friends. I enjoyed recognising certain names, like those of J. Bruce Ismay, Captain Smith and Mr. Lightoller. If I’m not careful I might find myself turning into a bit of a Titanic expert one of these days.

11TH HOUR

TITLE: 11^TH HOUR

AUTHOR: JAMES PATTERSON &

              MAXIME PAETRO

Pages: 391

Date: 29/03/2012

Grade: 3.5

Details: no. 11 Women’s Murder Club

Library

Lindsay Boxer is pregnant and working two cases.

When millionaire drug-dealer Chaz Smith is shot down during a children’s concert the murder weapon is one that was stolen from the San Francisco Police Department evidence locker.  The weapon has also been used to kill four other drug dealers. It looks like there might be somebody, connected to the SFPD, out to kill those who can’t be touched by justice. And as Lindsay and her partner soon discover, he’s not done yet.

Lindsay has only started on this case when she called to the house of a famous movie star where two heads have been discovered displayed on the patio. There is no sign of any bodies, but the police do find five more heads buried in the garden.

These are two cases with little or no real evidence and even fewer clues and the pressure to solve them is high.

With the media hot on the police’s tail with their reports on both cases, Lindsay finds herself in the spotlight and very soon in personal turmoil. Even closing the cases might not lead to a happy ending in her personal life.

As always, this is a fast paced, thrill a minute mystery/thriller; just what you would expect from a James Patterson book.

However, this book, like several of its predecessors, also reads as if it has been created by write by number. The ingredients as well as their development are predictable. Take two strange investigations, throw in some personal dilemma’s for the main characters, maybe a twist and turn or two and voila, you’ve got yourself a best-seller. Provided of course that Patterson is one of the author names on the cover. I’m not sure a rookie author would get themselves published if they presented a rather flimsy book like this.

Having said all that, the also standard, short chapters, each of them with a sort of cliff-hanger ending, do draw the reader in and keep them turning the pages. And, I do enjoy getting back to characters I’ve come to know and love even if there is little or no character development.

Whenever I’m in need of an undemanding, quick read, James Patterson is one of the authors I can safely turn to and as such I will probably continue to read them. I can’t however see myself paying money for one of his titles. But then again, that’s what libraries are for.

THE PIANIST

TITLE: THE PIANIST

AUTHOR: WLADYSLAW SZPILMAN

Pages: 222

Date: 27/03/2012

Grade: 5

Details: Read for Dialogue Through Literature

Library

Wladyslaw Szpilman was a 28 year old Jewish man when Germany invaded Poland and subsequently turned part of Warsaw into a Jewish ghetto. 

Szpilman was a concert pianist and composer and for a long time his work as a pianist in café’s in Warsaw was the only income his family had.

Until the summer of 1942, Szpilman and his parents and three siblings lived together. By the end of that summer the German occupiers decided to clear the ghetto. In a short time and with the use of lots of horrific violence the fast majority of Jews were deported to places and fates unknown at the time.

While Szpilman was able to postpone the inevitable for a little while for his family, it was only a matter of time before they too found themselves in the “Umschlagplatz”, waiting to be forced onto cattle trucks. Szpilman is separated from his family at the crucial moment and able to flee the deportation area while his family disappears from his life, never to be seen again.

For Szpilman this heralds the start of three years of fleeing, hiding and fear. Dependent on friends from his pre-war life, his instincts and pure luck he manages to keep himself alive and undetected until the very last days of the occupation of Warsaw.

When he at last does run into a German officer during those last days he once again is very lucky. Captain Wilm Hosenfeld has had his doubts about the war, the German cause and the prosecution of Jews and others for years. Hosenfeld puts Szpilman in a more or less secure hiding place and provides him with the food he needs to survive a bit longer. In doing so, he provides Szpilman with what he needs in order to survive until the end of the occupation, giving him a chance to create a life for himself once again.

This is a heartbreaking story, filled with horrific images told in a detached way, more as if written by an uninvolved outsider than by someone who lived through it.

The tone of the book is such that I found myself almost accepting the brutalities, prosecutions and devastation as a normal occurrence. It was only when I put the book down and allowed my mind to wander that the true horror of everything I’d just read really hit home.

It is telling that normal life seems to continue despite the horror and the madness of the Warsaw ghetto. In the midst of persecution by the Germans, Wladyslaw and his brother Henryk have “normal” sibling fights. In the same way the excitement Wladyslaw feels about holding an anniversary concert in the ghetto seems out of place yet indicates how the human mind will cling to normality in order to be able to survive the unimaginable.

And the will and ability of the human body and spirit to survive almost anything is astounding. How Szpilman didn’t just give up and lay himself down to die is completely beyond me. I guess though that no one can know what they would be capable of until they find themselves in circumstances making it necessary to discover the limits of their ability to endure. I can only hope and pray that I will never find myself in such circumstances.

I’m glad that Szpilman’s last life-line was provided by a German officer. It is so easy to think about that period of human history and just assume that all Germans were despicable creatures. But even during the nightmare that was Nazi Germany things were never that black and white, and it is good to see that message in writing. It is telling though that in the first edition of this book, Hosenfeld was identified as Austrian rather than German. I guess people in Poland weren’t ready to think of any German as being essentially human in the days immediately after the war.