7 posts tagged “journalism crime”
Translated by Reg Keeland.
The long-awaited final part of Stieg Larsson's Millennium Trilogy reaches an English-language readership in 2009, five years after its first publication in Sweden. And it is certainly worth the wait. The story of Lisbeth Salander and Mikael Blomkvist (after earlier hints, here explicitly adult versions of Astrid Lindgren's children's characters Pippi Longstocking and Kalle Blomqvist), pulls you right in on page 1, and is terrifically difficult to leave behind on page 600, especially as so many aspects of their stories (particularly Lisbeth's) have not begun to be explored - and never will be, owning to the sad early death of the author.
THE GIRL WHO KICKED THE HORNETS' NEST begins directly after the dramatic finale of THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE, the first 100 pages reflecting the confusion of deaths, illnesses, attacks and conspiracy that culminated in the confrontations at Gosseberga. Most of these 100 pages take place in hospital where Lisbeth lies critically injured, where Zalachenko, her father, is also severely wounded, and where the police, security personnel and other vultures are circling round the pair. Anyone who has not read the previous two books will probably find this long introduction almost incomprehensible in its details - those who have read the predecessors will need good memories but will have no difficulty being drawn into Lisbeth's predicament as she lies paralysed in the knowledge that her father, lying in a nearby room down the corridor, is trying to finish his malign task - while other forces are keen to try her, label her as insane and send her back to the secure institution where she spent her unhappy adolescence - assuming she survives her terrible injuries.
Next, the canvas of the book expands to a compelling history of Swedish politics post-1964, consciously continuing from the social analysis of the Maj Sjowall/Per Wahloo Martin Beck series, charting the failures of Swedish democracy from within the security forces by the formation of the SSA, an unofficial secret police within the official secret police (Sapo), known only to one or two people in the country. Real and fictitious events and characters are seamlessly juxtaposed, though there's an essential brief glossary to help the non-Swedish reader grasp the non-fictional essentials.
In this novel, SSA consists of a small, secret core of very hard-liners, determined to uphold and protect what its members consider to be the country's best interests. Primarily, it seems, this task has consisted of containing Zalachenko, the most important Soviet defector to the West ever. The grey men of the SSA have created a new identity for him and over the years have given him free rein and protected him from the consequences of his criminal activities and gross abuse of his wife.
This army of old men from another time come together in the realization that the Zalachenko affair is likely to blow wide open once he and his daughter Lisbeth are able to communicate with the authorities. Although they have lost one of their main means of controlling Lisbeth (how she disposed of her guardian is part of the plot of book 2), they enlist the help of psychiatrist Peter Taleborian, the man who locked Lisbeth away after her pyrotechnic actions when aged 12, and whom she has good reason to hate. Only Dr Jonasson, the surgeon who is currently caring for Lisbeth, seems to stand between her and the strong forces who want her silenced.
The book bursts into real life after this long prologue, history and setting-of-scene, when an odd coalition including Mikael, Lisbeth and her hackers' group form the online ‘knights of the idiotic table' in their first real act of striking back. Mikael begins to dig into the story of Zalachencko, gradually becoming to suspect the existence of ‘The Section', as he calls what the reader knows to be SSA. When a crucial report is stolen from his apartment, he uses this circumstance to find out more than the perpetrators had bargained for, and to strike back at them, in a clever game of double bluff.
In THE GIRL WHO KICKED THE HORNETS' NEST, Lisbeth (who until the final chapters is a relatively insubstantial figure in the novel) serves as an allegory for Sweden itself - both the woman and the country have been betrayed over many years by secret allegiances of people bound together by delusions and evil impulses. Just as the young Lisbeth is wrongly diagnosed with mental illness and incarcerated in an isolation cell, so the young Swedish democracy is betrayed by people whose actions can only be explained by Mikael as being like those who have a mental illness and have separated themselves from normal society (p 475). Mikael is as much driven by his journalistic, crusading need to expose political corruption as his friendship and gratitude to Lisbeth compel him to expose the corruption that is continuing to threaten her by this coalition of "men who hate women".
Yet the novel is not a mere spy thriller - what gives it such massive heart are the characters - Mikael, Erica, the Millennium journalists, the Armansky operation, the police, Sapo agents, asylum seekers and others who give the novel such life - and the immense amount of absorbing, authentic details - of the workings of a newspaper office, a secret police organisation, computer hacking, police operations, investigative journalism, the security business, the race to publish Mikael's discoveries, and far more than can be covered in this review - a rich, dense and compelling context for the gradual uncovering of Lisbeth's story, cumulating in her trial where the main players take turns on centre stage.
There are certainly gaps in this book. One glaring weakness is that we never know why Zalachenko was so useful to the SSA, and why he continued to be so uniquely valuable for so long after he defected. We learn little of his criminal empire. Lisbeth, the very core of the trilogy, plays a passive role for almost all of the book. Some plot lines, for example the police search for the cop-killer Niedermann, are never developed. Other stories are hinted at but never told - we can only imagine that the author intended to pick those up in future books.
The Millennium Trilogy is a fantastically exciting and original set of books, admittedly with flaws, but with a great breadth and intelligence - of the characters as well as of the story - and with an ability to draw the reader in to an exciting narrative so that one is lost in the book, not knowing whether to turn the pages rapidly to find out what happens next, or to turn them slowly to prolong the totally mesmerising read, so ably conveyed to English readers by the translator, Reg Keeland.
Jack decides to investigate, and soon becomes convinced that the woman is right. At the same time, his glamorous young partner and to-be-replacement, the multitasking and over-ambitious Angela, does some Internet searching and comes up not only with a previous case with an identical modus operandi, but also makes some dark online discoveries of her own.
Before he knows it, Jack is facing what starts out as a puzzling inconvenience, rapidly escalating into danger. He calls an old friend, FBI agent Rachel Walling, in the hope that he can convince her to help. Soon, Rachel is caught up in events, cast off by the FBI and struggling to discern what’s behind Jack’s sudden plunge of fortune. Then, the two of them make a chilling discovery.
I won’t reveal any more of the plot here: the book just goes on and on at a confident and inventive pace, never slackening off into predictability, never stepping over the mark into unnecessary contrivance; always bang-up-to-the-minute and laden with constant tension as Jack and Rachel try to stay one step ahead by out-thinking their unknown enemy. At the same time, the book is full of details of journalistic procedures, inter-colleague dynamics, internet technology, FBI protocols – never slowing the pace but cumulatively creating an atmosphere of complete believability. The ending is less interesting than the rest of the book, but that didn't bother me too much, although I smiled at the fact that Jack's professionalism comes through for him. What I also like is the way the author has set things up so that any of his four main characters (Jack and Rachel, together with Harry Bosch and Mickey Haller, who are both alluded to in The Scarecrow although not (if memory serves) by name) could participate in a future novel in one of several ways. Intriguing!
If you haven’t read a Michael Connelly novel before, you could start with this one, or you could start with The Poet, the only previous book in which Jack is the main character (Rachel has appeared in several other novels, though). But perhaps the best thing to do is to begin with the first, The Black Echo, and make your way through the whole catalogue. I don't think you would regret it.
If you are a keen Connelly fan, you might like to keep a note of the websites mentioned in The Scarecrow. I haven’t tried this myself, but the author told us at the recent CrimeFest meeting that he has registered these domain names and has included some content on these sites relevant to the novel. There is also a three-part video, Conflict of Interest, on the author’s website which apparently tells the story of what Rachel is doing up to the point where she makes her first appearance in the novel - in response to a phone call from Jack. (Apparently the video story ends with this same phone call.) There are also video clips of scenes in and surrounding some of the author's other novels at the same web page.
Review first posted at Petrona, May 2009.
This long book is the second in the Millennium Trilogy, the first of which, THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO, introduced the reader to Lisbeth Salander and Mikael Blomkvist, a campaigning journalist. It is a very exciting read, and I'm eager to read the final volume.
THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE is in some senses two books. The first 200 pages is an extensive prologue telling the story of Lisbeth, previously a tantalisingly insubstantial figure: we learn quite a lot of her back-story, as some of the previous hints about her past are filled in (including a rather gruesome prologue chapter). At the same time, we learn that she has been travelling the world since the end of the first book, arriving in Grenada at the start of this one, where she has a brief affair, witnesses an attempted murder during a freak tornado, and sets out to solve Fermat's last theorem without the aid of a computer program. The rest of the book - in itself a hefty 400 pages, shifts to Sweden and ignores most of the Grenadan events. Perhaps some of them will be picked up in book three. Otherwise, I'm not sure of their point.
What follows is mostly a straight police procedural, at the same time revealing more of Lisbeth's history. Soon after she returns to Stockholm and sets herself up in an apartment that is off the official radar, three brutal murders occur on one night. Lisbeth, the only apparent link between all the victims, is the prime suspect and becomes the focus of a national police hunt. She has suffered terribly in her life - the reader by now knows some, but not all, of this background - and her treatment by the media is a horrible, insensitive parallel of her earlier abuse by those who should have cared for her - teachers, doctors, guardians and 'friends'. Lisbeth becomes a fugitive, yet refuses to be victimised by her ordeal. She is not only determined to find out the identity of the killer(s), but also, as she becomes more aware of how the crimes are linked to her, goes onto the attack to deal with the situation on her own. She has long since learned not to trust institutions such as the police and the law.
In parallel with Lisbeth's story, Blomkvist, publisher of Millennium magazine, is also investigating the murders. Two of the victims were colleagues and friends of his, and he's convinced that their deaths are related to the work they were doing in uncovering a massive scandal of prostitution and drug trafficking between Russia, Eastern Europe and Sweden. Although Lisbeth has rejected him as a lover and will not contact him, Blomkvist is convinced that she is innocent. Therefore, in contrast to the police investigation, which is focused solely on finding Lisbeth and convicting her, he attempts to uncover other motives for the crime.
The book is packed with incident, thrills, characters, rich details and plot revelations. Because Stieg Larsson is juggling stories about Millennium (the publication and its journalists), the international sex trade, an investigation agency, evil bikers, and the police investigation, as well as Lisbeth's associates and past, which itself contains several strong and moving subplots, the pace never lets up, emotions are intense, and there are no boring moments as, in J K Rowling style, the author gradually reveals more of the intention of his triptych. However, there are plenty of flaws - too often, people remember a crucial fact that they'd forgotten previously (one such, Blomkvist's discovery in his kitchen that leads into the final section, is truly clunky - and this is not the only clumsy device used); Lisbeth can find out anything she wants via magic, that is her (unexplained) hacking skills and her international geeks' undercover network. People often see each other by coincidence (Blomkvist and Lisbeth spot each other several times before they communicate directly), and there are quite a few cliches in terms of criminal masterminds, spooks and an evil Russian thug who is huge and feels no pain.
There is also a strong element of male wish-fulfilment running through the book. Lisbeth is almost a Modesty Blaise-like figure at times, having her breasts enlarged, living off junk food yet remaining "anorexically thin" (as we are often reminded), and enjoying lusty sex with men and women. The Millennium journalists are similarly idealised, being portrayed as liberal-thinking, high on integrity and very highly sexed. On the other hand, most of the other men in the book are either decent enough yet bland (the police chief) or pure evil - rapists, abductors, child abusers and "men who hate women" to name but a few of the types in the pages. Most of these aspects add to the overall excitement, but they also create a slightly comic-book atmosphere.
Nevertheless, despite these flaws (some of which the author might have revised before publication had he lived) this book is truly powerful. The criminal investigation turns out to be directly related to the events in Lisbeth's horrific past, and the way in which old events are gradually revealed in order to explain how the crimes occurred is very cleverly done, with a stunning, emotionally draining climax.
Although there is a resolution of sorts, there are a great many loose ends. It remains to be seen whether the third book will address these, in particular the mystery of Lisbeth's sister as well as the wider issues of the corruption of the Swedish "special services" and of the sex/drug trade. As things stand, we are left on a cliffhanger, with little closure in the characters' life-stories or on the wider issues that were being addressed by two of the murdered people. A perfect recipe for a third, and final, instalment.
In the provincial, decaying Norwegian town of Odda, journalist Robert Bell is a cynical observer, relishing his self-chosen role of outsider, constantly sizing-up and judging his fellow-citizens. He enjoys his lonely job at an outpost for a big newspaper, though has been regularly frustrated at the paper's refusal to publish what he regards as serious investigation, instead having to write frothy pieces.
As the story opens, a nineteen-year-old teenager has driven into the local river and, although no body has been discovered, presumably drowned. Robert is told by his manager, a delightfully accurate portrait of a voice down the phone, a politically correct, bland and smug woman whose composure Robert can never seem to ruffle however hard he tries, to follow the case. He does so, efficiently but upholds his journalistic integrity by refusing to take part in either exploiting the boy's family (however much they may seem to welcome it) or to join in the general condemnation of the Serbian asylum seekers who live in a local hostel and are considered by all to be the obvious culprits. Journalists from other papers and media turn up, including an unpleasant hotshot from Robert's own publication who muscles-in on Robert's area and patronisingly sets out to show Robert how it is done.
As well as the crime investigation, Robert's personal problems - and perhaps his reason for living in a place he seems to despise - come to the fore. His brother Frank is the local chief of police, but the two are cold with each other. We soon learn that the strains in the relationship are caused to a large extent by sibling rivalry over Irene, Frank's wife and Robert's lover.
THE SHADOW IN THE RIVER is an assured first novel, well translated into colloquial English. The author superbly conveys an atmosphere of mean gossip and despair as factories have closed down, causing endemic unemployment and encouraging a culture of malicious gossip. The Serbs are an easy target, and Robert's various ways of standing against the racism all around him are the most bleakly amusing, and in the case of the boy "Ronaldo", poignant, parts of the book.
Although Robert does eventually work out the reasons for the crime, there are no neat conclusions or tidied-up ends. This passage sums up Robert's beliefs and the book's philosophy:
"I thought how in detective films everything begins in darkness. With each succeeding scene people and events slowly emerge into light. The past becomes clearer and easier to understand. In the end everything can be explained and the reckoning paid. In reality things happen the other way round. Things seem clear and comprehensible, before they descend into the murk and the muck. As the end approaches you lose all track of the plot and have no idea how it's going to end."
I highly recommend this short, readable, if bleak, book. It isn't a conventional detective story, but the atmosphere and interactions between the characters are an end in themselves. The author has something he wants to say about globalisation and immigration, and he says it well. I enjoyed it very much.
Following on from her excellent first two novels, FALLING OFF AIR and OUT OF MIND, Catherine Sampson provides a change of theme for TV journalist Robin Ballantyne. After the death of her partner and the father of her twins, and starting a relationship with Finney, the detective investigating the case, Robin might have thought life would calm down a bit. She's wrong.
At the start of THE POOL OF UNEASE, Robin is sent to Beijing where Derek Sumner, an executive from a Scottish steel mill, has been murdered. The mill is about to be sold to a Chinese millionaire businessman called Nelson Li, and it was after Sumner made some indiscreet comments about the operation being moved from Scotland that his body was found.
As well as coping with the long flight and the separation from her young children, Robin is immediately thrown into the chaos of this huge Chinese city. She has hired an interpreter called Blue, but they have an edgy relationship: everywhere she goes, Robin encounters mistrust among a population ground-down by government dictates and poverty. She does her best to investigate Sumner's death, but is hampered by her lack of journalist's visa, the unwillingness of any of the other westerners involved to speak to her, and her incomprehension of the language.
Another story is running in parallel, that of Song, an ex-policeman who is struggling to make a living as a private detective. Song has left the police force because he couldn't stand his corrupt boss, Detective Chen, but he's in a mess because Chen is also the father of Song's wife Lina, whom Song has left, together with their son. Chen's persecution makes it virtually impossible for Song to operate, so he is reduced to lurking outside brothels trying to photograph errant husbands. It is while he is engaged in this activity that he hears a terrible scream in the woods. Racing up the hill to see what is happening, he comes across a dead woman in a fire, as well as a terrified young boy. Before he can react, Song hears shouts - and afraid of being accused of the crime, he grabs the boy and runs away, eventually ending up at the office of his partner Wolf, a young and rather eccentric lawyer with silver hair and a tattoo on his forehead.
Robin's and Song's separate investigations take alternate chapters, eventually, as one knows they must, merging into a single thread, before separating again. Although the two strong plot themes are satisfyingly strong, this book's power comes from its atmospheric and sympathetic portrayal of modern China - not just Beijing but the surrounding countryside and even Shanghai. Catherine Sampson now lives in Beijing, and her first-hand experience is woven into this very vivid account of a country in the midst of upheaval. She conveys so well what it must be like to live there if one is not one of the favoured Communist party few; how people struggle to survive in a place where wages are virtually non-existent, families live several to a room and share bathroom facilities with the rest of the street; and where nobody is sure who is watching them. This paranoia infects both Robin's and Song's efforts to uncover the truth of the nightmare situations in which they both find themselves, so that when they finally meet, although they can't communicate in words, they understand each other perfectly.
I loved this book, and hope very much to read more in future about Song, Wolf and Blue - such vivid and strong characters in their far-away world.
REQUIEM isn't a bad thriller by any means: it is short, swift, easy to read and has the makings of a sizzling plot. However, whoever teaches "thriller writing 101" should include type-examples by Lee Child and Dick Francis as part of the course. These two authors write (wrote) exciting, lean, plot-driven, stories, which although formulaic are made stronger by their attention to detail and character - creating "series loyalty" among readers. I haven't the least interest in an ex-Army drifter wandering round the USA, or in horse-racing, but I love Lee Child and Dick Francis. These authors care how they write, showing respect for their readers, and are deservedly appreciated by loyal fans in return.
REQUIEM has a great set of ingredients. There is Deborah, the feisty, beautiful (of course) African-American heroine: she is a gutsy divorced woman, fighting prejudice and a tough past in steamy Florida, determined to make it as a journalist on the Miami Herald. There is Sam Goldberg, managing editor of the paper: widowed, a cynical realist, yet wanting to stand out as a force for good in the real world of media moguls and political deals. There is Joe O'Neill, playboy son of Florida senator Jack - just how depraved was this golden youth? And there is William Craig, Second World War hero, on death row in the state prison at Railford, who Deborah is determined to interview in his last remaining days.
It is a powerful mix of politics, corruption, soap opera, racism, terrorism and sexism. It should work. But the parts don't quite combine to make a truly convincing whole. Why does Sam allow Deborah to follow the story of Craig, telling her not to reveal her assignment to anyone other than him - only to let himself be talked out of running her stories by his spineless superior? Why aren't other journalists and lawyers onto the story of Craig the instant that Deborah finds the crucial crack in the case against him? I can believe in institutionalised corruption, but total silence isn't believable when crucial evidence is in the public domain, fair game for anyone out to make a name or a quick buck for themselves. And the characters - well, they need work. Deborah's ex-husband is one of several who, though potentially interesting, turn out to be cardboard.
REQUIEM is billed as the first of a series. All the ingredients are there for exciting future outings for this likeable and brave heroine, who doesn't let anyone stand in her way. But this first story is rather flat - for example, the newspaper setting, once introduced to the reader, is non-existent. Elaine Viets in her Francesca Vierling series of four novels wrote insightfully and amusingly about an independent-minded journalist out of line with the paper's managers, determined to follow stories she thought important whatever the consequences. There is more newsroom atmosphere in one page of a Francesca Vierling book than there is in the whole of REQUIEM.
The book shows potential; there is space in this market for a heroine like Deborah, and the condemned man Craig is a convincing portrayal. But more thought is needed to create an individual plot with believable characters - there is no comparison between REQUIEM and the first Lee Child or Dick Francis. Let's hope that in the next outing, the players become more like characters and less like representations of attitudes. Even James Patterson, who now churns out embarrassingly poor material, took care to write nail-bitingly exciting thrillers in his early days of being published.
Denise Hamilton is the female author who most nearly made it onto David Montgomery's "top ten" detective novels list. I have enjoyed her previous books since reading her first, The Jasmine Trade, upon its initial UK publication as part of an Orion "new authors" promotion. Eve Diamond, an investigative journalist with the LA Times, struggles to make and keep a career in a city hypersensitive to ethnic and ethical tensions, and is as determined as hell to get to the bottom of things. The plot and outcome of The Jasmine Trade was original and moving-- all in all a great debut.
Although I have certainly enjoyed the subsequent Eve Diamond novels, which have built further on these themes, none of them has surpassed the first, and I am wondering if they are beginning to tail off a bit into formula. Savage Garden is once again set against the background of Eve's relationship with Latino boyfriend Silvio,a subplot that has got stuck, and hence irritating. Silvio is a cipher as in previous books: I think this is to keep the reader on edge wondering if he's going to turn out to be involved in the crime, but in fact it just makes him a non-character.
In Savage Garden, Eve is now more established at the paper; she is lumbered with an intern, hired on an "equal opportunities" programme. Eve's hypocritical superiors are pleased to have found an apparently ideal candidate but want Eve to keep a close eye on her to protect them from the possibility of a "Jayson Blair"-style plagiarism scandal. As ever, the author handles the politics of the newspaper, and more generally of Eve's struggle to stay on, let alone climb, the greasy pole, excellently.
However, the plot isn't that great, depending too much on people not telling Eve things until the second or third time she asks them. Silvio's silence/ambivalence is particularly unbelievable. The denouement relies on the old WIP (woman in peril) device about three times over, and when it is all sorted, stretches it a bit.
But I don't mean to sound grudging. Savage Garden is a perfectly competent, above-average, crime-fiction novel. I would not recommend reading it if you haven't read the earlier books in the series -- read The Jasmine Trade first. But if you have read and liked the earlier books, you'll probably like this one too. I hope that Denise Hamilton gets out of the Eve/Silvio rut for the next, though.
Originally posted at Petrona on 21 October 2006.
