The sixth book in the Martin Beck series follows the same lean, sardonic and insightful formula as the previous volumes. It is summer, and most of the events take place in Malmo, the coastal town which is the home turf of DI Per Mansson, who has collaborated with Martin Beck in previous investigations. He's assisted by the young, ambitious Benny Skacke, newly transferred to the region after his disastrous intervention at the end of THE FIRE ENGINE THAT DISAPPEARED.
A business dinner at the Savoy Hotel ends in drama when the host, industrialist Viktor Palmgren, is shot by a man who walks in to the dining room, performs the deed, then calmly escapes through an open window and rides off on a bicycle. The case would have been open and shut but for the fact that the two policemen who are sent to intercept the most probable suspect are the disaster-prone Kvant and Kristiansson, the laziest men on the force. They fail to apprehend the suspect in true hilarious fashion (the fact that the Swedish title of the book is literally translated as "Police, Police, Potato Pig", according to the delightfully informative introduction by Michael Carson, gives a clue as to what intercepted them).
Martin Beck is told to drop his holiday plans and go to Malmo to help Mansson. Political elements are involved, causing Beck's superiors to send in the security services also, in an uncomfortable parallel investigation. Most of Beck's regular associates are on holiday, but there are some good set-pieces in Stockholm as the dead man's business dealings are untangled, involving the old-fashioned, heavy cop Gunvald Larsson, as well as an episode with Lennart Kollberg and Asa Torell, the woman who has joined the police after her boyfriend was killed in THE LAUGHING POLICEMAN.
Eventually, a lucky discovery breaks the case. The careful investigative work into Palmgren's sleazy associates allows Beck and colleagues to rapidly identify the culprit. During the book, however, we have come to despise Palmgren's circle and its role in the corruption and exploitation rife in "modern" Sweden (the book was written in 1970), and by the time the murderer is identified, we sympathise with him far more than with his victim. MURDER AT THE SAVOY is well up to the standards of this excellent series, and praise does not come much higher than that.
Set in Mongolia, the "edge of the world", THE OUTCAST is the third book to feature Nergui, Doripalam, Tunjin and colleagues from the serious crime squad and, in Nergui's case, the ministry of security. Ghengis Khan is the most famous Mongolian - indeed, he is probably the only thing most people know about the country - and THE OUTCAST deals with this heritage. Solongo, Doripalam's ambitious wife, is head curator of the Ulaan Bataar museum which is putting on a huge exhibition in honour of the country's founder. She's part-horrified, part-annoyed when the body of a man is found wrapped up inside a carpet which has been delivered to the museum in one of the many trucks that contain artefacts for the exhibition.
Yet this crime is but one of several confusing simultaneous events. Our overweight friend Tunjin becomes embroiled in a demonstration, shooting and killing a potential suicide bomber. He collapses and is taken to hospital, but before he has time to regain consciousness, Nergui takes over Doripalam's investigation into what happened, reigniting tensions in the uneasy friendship between the two men. In another part of the city, a young student called Gundalai is helping to organise a political rally. The leader of the faction, Odbayer, is the son of a high-ranking official himself, yet this does not lessen his fervour in pushing for Mongolian independence - whether shaking off the final chains of Soviet rule, or heading off the increasing influence of China. It isn't long before yet more violence erupts, and Gundalai witnesses Odbayer being dragged away by uniformed men - who turn out to be masquerading as police officers.
Set against these confusing events are regular flashbacks to 20 years ago, in which we learn how a spy on an undefined mission made contact within Mongolia in order to fulfil an operation. We don't learn the details, but we do know that things went badly wrong for "Sam", the presumed titular outcast whose memories the reader is witnessing. Somehow, these events are connected to, and presumably explain, the current violence.
THE OUTCAST is a book of two parts. In the first, we observe previously established characters as they deal with the various crimes and events going on in the city, trying to understand them and, particularly in Tunjin's case, avoid censure or worse. Sarangarel, the judge at the heart of events in the previous book, THE ADVERSARY and possible romantic interest for Nergui, becomes involved and she, as well as Solongo, end up in some danger as it becomes clear how much is at stake and the level of seniority of those involved.
The second part of the book is a thriller, as the action shifts to far away across the plains to the presumed birthplace of Genghis Khan. During much excitement and several set pieces, Nergui and Tunjin come to understand how the events of 20 years ago, in which they were involved, are driving the threats they are currently facing. Together with Doripalam and the bright young policeman Batzorig - an expert at cutting through red-tape - they rush into various dangers to try to apprehend the culprits before disasters strike.
Although the author piles on the pace and the pressure, expertly juggling the disparate threads of the plots, I was sorry that the character development at the start of the book became somewhat stalled in favour of the action-packed climaxes. Although THE OUTCAST is an exhilarating read, I hope that the next book in the series will focus more on the core characters and how their interactions develop, at home and at work.
LAST RITUALS is an 'academic mystery': that is, the crime takes place in a university department (a student is murdered), and the solution depends on the uncovering and understanding of the victim's research, as well as of the broader mores, religion and witchcraft in medieval Europe. Yet the book is by no means heavy-going; the opposite in fact. LAST RITUALS is an assured novel, ably translated by the late Bernard Scudder. I recommend it very highly.
When the book opens, history student Harald Guntlieb is found dead in a small room at the university. He seems to have been strangled, but there are one or two other unpleasant details about the state of the body that force the unsympathetically portrayed police to call the death a murder. They rapidly arrest Halldor, a fellow-student who works part-time at the hospital morgue.
Harald comes from a fabulously wealthy German family, who are not satisfied that Halldor is the killer. Their lawyer, Matthew, begins to investigate on their behalf, but cannot progress very far because he doesn't speak Icelandic and does not know all the ins and outs of the country's legal and police procedures. He, together with the dead man's mother, therefore ask Thora, a local lawyer, to collaborate.
Thora, a divorced mother of a teenage boy and a younger girl, does a good job at running the family as well as holding down a partnership in a small firm. She jumps at the chance to work for the Guntliebs as a relief from her rather mundane professional cases, and her curiosity is immediately piqued by the documents on Harald's life and academic research which Matthew provides, giving her and the readers of the book a historical and biographical framework for what follows.
Thora is an attractive heroine: she's practical, capable and intelligent as well as having a dry sense of humour and an enquiring mind. Her domestic concerns are real enough, interesting and vivid, but without dominating the book. She's curious about everything: I particularly liked her encouragement of the pathologist who did Harald's autopsy to describe the molecular basis of muscle contraction. The description he provides is a little gem of knowledge. Similar examples are provided economically, accurately but not intrusively throughout the book - for example when a museum curator remarks in passing: "As a rule, people don't know anything: they can't even tell a revenant from a poltergeist."
LAST RITUALS is a straightforward telling of a macabre tale. Although the author does not mince words in describing some nasty events, she does not dwell unnecessarily on the horrors, but presents them in a pared-down style as part of the broader canvas of the narrative (similar in this respect to Helene Tursten's excellent Inspector Huss series). LAST RITUALS is far stronger and more effective by its refusal to dwell on the gruesome details of Harald's life and death, while at the same time having its spine-chilling moments - mostly in the sections where the (factual) activities of the medieval authorities' treatment of suspected witches and other poor souls are described.
The book is a classic detective story, in that Thora, with Matthew in support and being supportive, persists in questioning everyone as well as taking an academic interest in Harald's research, ultimately uncovering a treble mystery: that of the Guntlieb family's past; some ancient historical research that Harald and the rest of the university department were embarked upon; and the nature of the relationship between Harald and his alarming circle of student friends, who are clearly hiding some unappetising secrets.
As Thora and Matthew gradually put together all the threads of these interlocking stories, which all need to be understood before the circumstances of Harald's death and its immediate aftermath are clear, Thora herself has to cope with a domestic crisis in her own family involving her son. The 'confrontation' scene in this regard is absolutely brilliant: I laughed out loud, lost in admiration at the way Thora handles everyone involved, and the way the author juggles her cast. Thora is a great creation and I like her a lot. She and Matthew have a bantering, witty relationship that is nicely understated, reminiscent of Nick and Nora Charles. I hope I'll be encountering them again soon.
If you like Scandinavian crime fiction, and in the main I do, you can be pretty sure you are in for a treat when a book from this notably introspective region has the title THE BLACK PATH. This novel is indeed superb: it is the third in the series featuring lawyer Rebecka Martinsson.
At the start of the book, Rebecka is again traumatised (as she was at the start of the second) by the climactic events of the previous novel. She is in a much worse state this time, being hospitalized in a psychiatric clinic for some months, then having to undertake outpatient therapy, then deciding to resign from her job in a major Stockholm law firm (partly, but not only, because she despairs of her boss, Mans, ever showing any interest in her). She takes a job as a prosecutor specialising in financial crime in Kiruna, the village where she was bought up and the main location of the previous two novels. Here, Rebecka can work in solitude to her heart's content, blanking out her sad childhood, her empty present life, and living in the only place where she feels at home - her grandmother's house (which she owns), sharing what little companionship she needs with her neighbour, the charming old Sivving, and his dog.
In parallel with Rebecka's slow recovery and new start, police detectives Anna-Maria Mella and Sven-Erik Stalnakce are faced with a puzzling and brutal crime. A wealthy businesswoman has been found dead in an "ark", a small fishing cabin on the frozen lake. It soon emerges that the woman has both been stabbed and electrocuted. We gradually find out more about the victim and her circumstances as Anna-Maria and Rebecka both work on different aspects of the case. The two women, who share a mutual liking, gradually become closer; Anna-Maria in particular is impressed by Rebecka's intelligence, work-ethic and intuition. At the same time we see glimpses of these characters' domestic and personal lives: we learn a little more about Rebecka's miserable past and why she is so driven and alone; and we experience the warmer character of Anna-Maria, who is equally driven so far as her work is concerned, but at the same time emotionally connected to her four children and husband and tied up with the associated domestic duties and concerns.
Once the identity of the victim has been established, and her colleagues have identified the body, the plot expands to include the back-story of millionaire businessman Mauri Kallis and his close associates. We are drawn into the account of his life, his poverty, awful parenting, youthful ability to make money by speculating on the stock market, his meeting while at university with Diddi Wattrang and his enigmatic sister Inna, impoverished members of the Swedish upper-class. This odd threesome feed off each other, but all the time one senses disaster looming. Asa Larsson switches between her characters' stories in time and place with assured confidence. There is not much of a "mystery" to the crime, but the driving force of this book is the personalities and motivations of the people involved. The plot is highly topical, not only involving financial wheeler-dealing but also dodgy investments in Ugandan mines, heartless mercenaries and military coups. Later in the novel, Mauri's lost sister, Ester, makes an entrance. She has been conceived in a most strange and ugly manner and immediately adopted at birth, then bought up by foster parents for the money: a Sami artist and her reluctant husband. Ester is able to see visions in time and place. The reader only realises this gradually, as we see glimpses of her past, how she became an artist, and why she was compelled to forego her career and go to live with Mauri. Her story is compelling and utterly original, and it is through her that we eventually appreciate the title of the book.
THE BLACK PATH is a hard book to summarize because of its richness. The many plots and characters are all so different, yet the author presents them with clarity, insight, and in simple yet affecting prose. By the end of the novel, I was moved and exhausted. Not all is gloom: Rebecka seems finally to be moving on with her life with some degree of optimism; and also the widower Sven-Erik, Anna-Maria's partner, has some unexpected hope of a happier future.
The author plans to write three more books in this series. The first (SUN STORM/THE SAVAGE ALTAR) won the Swedish Crime Writers' Association prize for best debut novel. The second (THE BLOOD SPILT) was Best Swedish Crime Novel of 2004. THE BLACK PATH is an even better book than the previous two, and is no doubt due to win its own accolades.
The Brass Verdict is a superb novel. It is Michael Connelly’s nineteenth, displaying all the hallmarks of an author at the peak of his powers. I loved the book. If you’ve never read this author before, you could start with this title (it does not matter that characters in it have appeared in previous books), but you’ll probably then be compelled to seek out the entire back-catalogue.
One of the stars of Connelly’s books is Los Angeles; the town fits Harry Bosch, Mickey Haller and previous characters like a favourite old coat. Even though it is faded and has a few holes in the cloth, it’s the one you always choose to wear. The city is a presence that binds together the casts that enter and exit from the book; a presence that you know will be waiting for the next time.
The Brass Verdict is a good, old-fashioned story of the Raymond Chandler school, relying on plot, character and atmosphere rather than on special effects and gadgetry. Michael (Mickey) Haller is the Lincoln Lawyer who made his debut in the recent book of that title. He’s the son of a (deceased) famous lawyer to the stars, but he hasn’t repeated his father’s success. Instead he operates out of a car (he has three identical Lincolns), driving between courthouses, offices and police stations in the county as he picks up cases from people accused of the full gamut of crimes, from the most petty to the most serious.
As the new book opens, Mickey has been out of action for more than a year, owing to an injury and a subsequent addiction to painkillers. He’s bought sharply back into his law practice, however, when he prematurely inherits a colleague’s case load. It is one of these cases that forms the main plot of The Brass Verdict, though there are other stories weaving through the narrative. One of these features Harry Bosch, Connelly’s most regular character. Bosch is the officer investigating a murder, but we see him only through Mickey’s eyes in this novel, and not the usual Bosch point of view. The uneasy relationship between the two men, on opposite sides of the criminal fence, is one of many enjoyable themes of The Brass Verdict (a title explained at the end of the novel).
Connelly is a superb all-rounder. He’s great on male characters, managing to convey a combination of realism, toughness yet softness that is very appealing (he’s slightly less good at portraying women I think). The background details are, here as always, convincing and fascinating, whether about the intricacies of the legal system and how to play it, journalism, police procedures or what it’s like to be a movie producer. The plotting is excellent. The previous Mickey Haller book, good as it was, was slightly marred by an over-fanciful dénouement. There is none of that problem here; the plot hangs together tightly (the wobble I thought I’d detected in the penultimate chapter isn’t one), with drops and curve-balls in every chapter. The dramatic pace of the book is perfectly pitched throughout; the suspense is maintained by an interlocking series of questions and mysteries; and the writing is sensitive yet lean. Read the book. It’s great.
Michael Connelly’s website, including a list of all his books in chronological and series order.
The Book People are offering 10 of Michael Connelly’s previous books at the incredible price of £9.99. Snap them up!
BAD TRAFFIC is a book that epitomises all that is great about the crime-fiction genre. It has a tight plot that unfolds at breakneck pace; it depicts an alien world vividly; there is a range of believable and sympathetic characters; it constantly unsettles the reader; and the events it describes seem as if they could really happen. Although the book has strong elements of the noir genre, with its atmosphere of Greek tragedy in which events and characters fulfil the dictates of fate and there is an absence of sentiment, the book is by no means boiled as hard as noir often can be - hope and humanity are there to be found, like specks of jewels glistening in the depths.
The alien world depicted is England, as seen through the eyes of two Chinese men. One is Inspector Jian, an unpleasant and corrupt official whose daughter Wei Wei is a student of 'tourism and leisure' in Leeds. One day, Jian receives a phone call from the distraught girl, pleading for his help. When he calls her back, her phone has been disconnected. He flies to England and on arrival heads straight for her college, only to find that the girl gave up her studies months ago and nobody knows her whereabouts. The scenes at the start of the novel, in which Jian, used to being in command at home but now in a situation where nobody can understand his shouted Mandarin, are thoroughly unnerving. The tension is maintained as he manages to find the house where Wei Wei rented a room, then enlists the reluctant help of her flatmate Song, who is no friend of the departed girl.
The other protagonist is Ding Ming, an illegal immigrant who we first meet when the container truck containing him, his wife Little Ye and a collection of other desperate souls arrives at an isolated farm. Ding Ming and Little Ye are desperate to stay together, but she is sent to "pick flowers" and he is assigned to a group of cockle pickers and bundled off in a van. Ding Ming is thrilled at the wages, the princely sum of £1 a day, even though it will be 20 years before he has paid off his debt to the people who smuggled him to England from China, during which time his family at home will pay if he fails to toe the line. Ding Ming's naivety and constant optimism is charming, lending true poignancy as well as plenty of laughs to his increasingly desperate predicament with his boss, fat Kevin.
The connection between these two stories is Black Fort, a young gangster keen to make a name, and a fortune, for himself. He's connected with Wei Wei's disappearance as well as with the people-smugglers, and as a result, Jian and Ding Ming eventually meet to form an uneasy relationship of shifting loyalties, betrayal and, occasionally, mutual interest.
The book contains many sharply observed vignettes as Jian's and Ding Ming's sleepless odysseys continue during the long night. My favourite part concerns Joy, a fish and chip shop owner's daughter, whose relationship with the local low-life, and her methods of dealing both with it and her traditional father are so on-the-nail it is almost impossible to think that the author is not himself a Chinese woman working in a fish and chip shop.
The pace of the book never lets up; there are twists and turns, as well as shifting perspectives, at the start of every chapter; and personalities shift from being victims to being manipulators depending on whose point of view is depicted. During all the chaotic events of the long night, Jian comes to realise the futility of his life: the price he has paid for 'success' is emotional distance, loss of his wife and now, it seems, his only child; and although Ding Ming remains eternally optimistic even in the light of Kevin's most awful demands and the likelihood that Little Ye has been condemned to a far more dreadful occupation than "flower picking", it is shocking to realise that he is only nineteen years old and is quite happy about a prospective lifetime of eternal debt and hard labour that people in the West would find impossibly harsh.
Simon Lewis has based BAD TRAFFIC on real-life recent crimes in the UK: the death by suffocation of more than fifty illegal Chinese immigrants in a lorry container; and the drowning of cockle-pickers in Morecombe Bay, when they were caught out by the tides. His excursion into the sleazy and violent world of the gangs responsible for these crimes, as well as his extraordinary ability to see England with the fresh and uncomprehending eyes of a range of Chinese characters, is nothing short of superb. I cannot wait to read more of his work.
THE ARSENIC LABYRINTH is the third of Martin Edwards's Lake District mysteries, but you don't need to have read the previous two books to enjoy this one. The main protagonists are again historian Daniel Kind who, with his media-darling girlfriend Miranda, have "downsized" to a life in the Lakes; and Detective Chief Inspector Hannah Scarlett, whose increasingly unsympathetic partner Marc owns a local bookshop-cafe. Daniel and Hannah are connected because Hannah worked with Daniel's father Ben (now deceased), but over the course of the series they have increasingly come to realise they have more in common - a theme that is continued in this volume.
Hannah, who runs the area's cold-case team, reluctantly begins to re-investigate the disappearance of a young woman, Emma Bestwick. A 10-year anniversary article in the local paper by an ambitious reporter with the nickname "Diva" is enough to make Lauren Self, Hannah's boss, insist that the case be re-opened in the interests of the politics of community and media relations. Hannah digs into the case with her customary thoroughness, interviewing Emma's few friends and family in search of any overlooked leads. No sooner have we met this set of witnesses, or suspects, than an anonymous phone call directs Hannah and her team to the old arsenic mines in the hills above Coniston water. A grim discovery is made, leading to a double mystery.
In THE ARSENIC LABYRINTH, as with the previous two Lakeland books, Martin Edwards adds a dimension by cleverly weaving a historical element into the plot. Daniel is researching the life of Ruskin, with the aim of writing a book if only he could come up with a fresh perspective. His search for new material gives him an excuse to contact Marc and hence to catch up on Hannah's news. Soon enough, Daniel is meeting some of Emma's old circle as part of his academic investigation, which brings him near to an explanation for part of the Coniston mystery.
Meanwhile, the main plot concerns Hannah and her colleagues' attempts to discover more about the people in Emma's life: her strangely detached sister and her oily, self-important husband; the couple with whom Emma stayed before she died who have more in common with the missing woman than they at first let on; and Alexandra, manager of the local myths and legends museum, who had been Emma's lover but who had sacked her from her job at the museum. We also encounter Alexandra's creepy father Alban Clough (whose family trees are nevertheless both key to the mysteries and helpful to the reader as a point of reference for the sometimes complicated historical relationships between the Clough and the Inchmore families). Alban is owner of the Museum of Myths and Legend, a fictional museum which becomes more central as the plot unfolds. Alban's museum is quaintly anachronistic, but even so perhaps less odd than real museums in Keswick - one dedicated to pencils and another to the "cars of the stars", a rather bizarre centre for a homage to the vehicles used by James Bond and his ilk.
THE ARSENIC LABYRINTH is a fast-moving book, lighter than the previous books in the series, which is partly due to the engaging yet unpleasant opportunist Guy (or "Robert L Stevenson" as he calls himself) and his gullible (or is she?) landlady, Sarah. The plot is both solid and satisfying: sharp without being cynical, funny without drifting into pastiche, and serious without being stodgy. Most readers will probably be surprised by the final twist, owing to some crafty red herrings. Martin Edwards has well and truly hit his stride in his Lake District novels; I'm looking forward to the next outing for Hannah and Daniel.
I loved this crackingly paced book, which follows the same formula as the previous five novels in the series. Inspector Jack Frost is messy, disorganised and impulsive, incapable of looking after himself, yet totally dedicated to his job. He's also hilarious. He is one of those cops whose work ethic has nothing to do with external factors, which is just as well, as he is in a grade beneath his natural ability and his superiors are out to get him: specifically, to transfer him to nearby Lexton, a dump compared with the (not particularly nice) town of Denton, where Jack is stationed.
As well as coping with regular burden Superintendent Mullet, Jack has the additional cross to bear of Detective Chief Inspector Skinner, who insists on taking over investigations just when Jack has done all the donkey work. And there are incidents galore that need police action, ranging from the discovery of a decomposing foot in the woods, to the abduction of a two-year-old baby, and the disappearance of a twelve-year-old girl. Jack has a bad feeling about this last case, but despite all his efforts he cannot find a trace of the girl. Her father is irate, but his fury is no match for the nasty secrets that Jack wastes no time in uncovering. Before Jack can turn round, however, he finds out that the owner of a local supermarket is being blackmailed by someone who is threatening to poison the food on the shelves, leading to poor Jack and his team staking out cash-machines each night while the blackmailer attempts to withdraw the day's maximum amount of money from the ransom that has been deposited in the local building society. They have to work in daylight hours as well, naturally, as another girl goes missing, and yet another body is found by the railway embankment. Later, a butcher confesses to murdering his wife.
R D Wingfield rings the changes between all these cases with gusto and verve. Jack rises to every challenge with wit, insight and vulgarity, often sleeping at his desk fully clothed for a couple of hours before facing the next crisis - as well as failing to stem the usual flood of urgent admin from the ghastly Superintendent Mullett. Skinner continues to destabilise the team and manipulates Jack ruthlessly so that he takes the credit for all Jack's perspicacity - though eventually, he goes one step too far, with tragic results.
There are some holes in the plot, but they are easy to forgive given the number of balls in the air and because the book is so good-natured and very funny. Jack is a vivid character: so much so that he has formed the basis of a long-running successful TV series, in which he is considerably toned-down and sentimentalised. In the book version, Jack sails close to the edge: he constantly insults his fellow-officers, yet has no trouble getting them to do as he wants, not only because in his brusque way he rewards merit and initiative, but also he is the only detective in the local force who has a real instinct for the investigations, and it is he who eventually solves all the many crimes, much to Mullett's inner rage. He's not just a slapstick rogue, though, he is still mourning his wife, who dies in the first book, and is a lonely man - even admitting his failings to himself, but not really willing to try to change.
Sadly, R D Wingfield, author of A KILLING FROST, died before the book was published. Mike Ripley has written an excellent appreciation at Shotsmag: http://www.shotsmag.co.uk/features/2008/wingfield/wingfield.html, which is a funny and fitting tribute to this highly talented author.
Set in an Alpine village in Austria, THE SWEETNESS OF LIFE is more concerned with the lives and thoughts of the inhabitants than with the investigation and impact of the death which occurs at the start of the book. The plus side, for me, is the author's assured, detailed account of life and culture in a small-town environment. However, the slight downside is that the mystery element is not well-developed. The death is that of an elderly grandfather, who is playing ludo with his granddaughter when the doorbell rings. The old man goes out but does not return: the girl goes to look for him and finds him dead in the snow - in circumstances that cannot be natural.
In the next couple of chapters the reader is introduced to two characters, psychiatrist Raffael Horn and the compulsive Joseph Bauer. We then switch to an account of the investigation of the death, run by local police chief Ludwig Kovacs. Events are described from the perspective of a different character in each chapter, so we become quickly aware of Kovacs's mild irritation that his two best detectives are on vacation but his pleasure at the apparent aptitude of one of the substitutes, and experience his perceptions of the dead man's family. After the initial start to the investigation, the book veers off into more descriptions of life in the village as seen through the eyes of various characters - schoolteacher, priest and so on. In some cases this approach works very well, particularly in the chapters featuring Horn and Kovacs, which I enjoyed very much. Through their eyes, one experiences the claustrophobia, racism and petty corruptions of life in an outwardly conventional, old-fashioned and somewhat isolated place, and the author's powers of observation are superb.
Other characters work less well, and as the book swings between various points of view (presumably we are intended to have suspicions of at least some of the subjects), focus is lost. An example is that much of the action takes place at the hospital where Horn works, but because so many of the circumstances of the patients and staff are described, it is hard to keep them all straight, especially as several feature only briefly and then their stories are left hanging. Similarly, Horn's wife, a musician called Irene, is a troubled character with a history, but she, and her uncomfortable relationship with one (possibly both) of their sons, are sketched rather than explored.
Kovacs is, for me, the most interesting character. As the book progresses, one really feels one knows this man and his life: his failed marriage, his affair with Marlene, his relationship with Lefti, the Turkish owner of a beer garden, his detailed knowledge of the hypocrisy and acute observation of his locality, are superbly well conveyed. Eventually, some of the strands of the story converge when Katharina, the granddaughter of the dead man, is brought by her mother to Horn for treatment because she has not spoken since her grandfather's demise, and is still clutching the ludo pieces she was holding when she discovered the body. As Horn tries to get the girl to speak in some acutely observed psychotherapy sessions, various characters, young and old, continue to behave in suspicious ways, and Kovacs tries to work out whether one of the many kinds of nastiness (sometimes extremely chilling) in the village could be due to the actions of a murderer.
Eventually the case is solved, but the solution, although a tragic story in itself, lacks impact. I think this is partly because the book is not about the bereaved family or, as it turns out, very much about the perpetrators. We learn practically nothing about the effect of the grandfather's death on his family, or about their lives, apart from the sessions Horn has with Katharina and what he can surmise when either parent brings her to the clinic. I don't want to give the impression that this is a weak book, as it isn't. It is extremely well-written and translated, Kovacs and Horn are strongly conveyed characters, and I enjoyed reading it very much. I have a feeling that this author's next book (I hope there is one) is going to be even better.
Is there such a thing as a perfect crime-fiction novel? Probably not, but if there were, this would surely be a strong contender. Arnaldur Indridason's latest novel in the Inspector Erlendur series continues the upward trend in quality, confidence and storytelling that I have come to hope for, even dare to expect, with each new outing. Tragically, Indridason's translator, Bernard Scudder died before he had completed work on ARCTIC CHILL, but Victoria Cribb has stepped in and the result seems to be a seamless one.
The first few chapters of the book tell simply the story of a young Thai/Icelandic boy, Elias, found frozen in the snow, stabbed to death, a few yards from the block of flats that is his home. The police investigation continues, initially in a straightforward mode but gradually tightening its grip as icily as the climate, becoming colder and bleaker as the pages turn.
The main plot of the book is the attempt by Erlendur and his team to find out who killed the boy (and why). Hampered by communication problems, the police have to interact with the boy's mother via an interpreter. As her story emerges, we see the loneliness and determination of this hard-working Thai woman, trying to make a life for herself and her two sons after being abandoned and divorced by her Icelandic husband. The break-up of the marriage meant that both boys had to attend a new school, and much of the core of the book concerns the attempts of the police to dig into the cliques and cultures there, where a few teachers are cooperative but the majority, and most of the students and their families, most definitely are not.
At the same time, the police themselves are irritated by each other and by the people they have to investigate. In this book, we learn more about Erlendur: the life-changing event in his youth that made him turn to police work; the tragedy of his brother, who died in a blizzard when the boys were out together; and the life-long effects of this event on Erlendur, whose brother still accompanies him, years later, like an alter-ego. Erlendur's children, now grown up, appear to be more mature in this novel. Eva Lind in particular seems to have transcended some of her problems and attempts to connect with her morose father. Erlendur's past is also bought home to him by the terminal illness of his old boss Marion, and his knowledge that with her passing, much of his own history will have gone.
These psychological elements do not slow the pace of the book. This author is brilliant at speaking to the reader at the level at which the reader desires, so one can either ignore the economically presented character studies and get on with the plot, or revel in them and find further insight behind the sparse prose. For me, this author understands internal suffering all too well, and can convey the sadness of daily life in a dispassionate yet empathetic way.
Returning to the plot: a previous case involving a missing woman threads its way through the investigation of the dead schoolboy. Eventually, both cases are resolved in a way that is satisfying and, although sad, with some optimism for the family of the boy. I was moved by this book, all the more so for its unsentimental tone and its on-the-nail portrayal of depression.
