17 posts tagged “psychology thriller”
Translated by Laura A. Wideburg.
Six years after the events in GOOD NIGHT, MY DARLING, we re-encounter Justine Dalvik, still living in the house in the woods left to her by her father, the 'candy millionaire' whose 'Sandy Concern' bought material comfort if not happiness to his daughter and second wife, Flora. Justine is still with Hans-Peter, a middle-aged concierge at a small, traditional hotel in town, though unfortunately he is no longer portrayed as a bibliophile.
Justine is haunted by one of the events in particular of six years ago, described in GOOD NIGHT MY DARLING, and spends her days rowing out into the middle of the lake, peering beneath the surface to see if she can see the drowned body of Berit, the woman she knew from her schooldays and who now haunts her dreams. Berit's husband, Tor, has not worked since his wife disappeared, and is being romantically pursued by Jill, Berit's best friend. This fifty-something unlikely couple travel on a ship off the coast of Norway to see the whales, but Tor is too seasick and miserable to enjoy the holiday. Jill does shift-work as a pilot at the harbour, guiding the maritime traffic through the treacherous shallows of the canal. Relationships among the stunted and strange characters in this creepy novel are no less treacherous.
Many passages in THE SHADOW IN THE WATER repeat themes and incidents from the previous novel. Ariadne is the cleaner at the hotel where Hans-Peter works. Her blind daughter is now 16 and the picture of their domestic life with Ariadne's violent husband, Tommy, a policeman, is deeply disturbing and chilling. Tommy has inherited a suspicion of Justine. Not only was she the last known person to see Berit alive, but Justine's ex-lover Nathan, as well as a photographer called Maria, both either vanished or were killed on a Malaysian adventure holiday. The police can't prove anything, and nor can Micke, Nathan's feckless son who spends his life living with his shrewish mother, observing and plotting revenge on Justine, who he believes should be mourning Nathan instead of beginning again with Hans-Peter.
The novel revisits the lives of these and other characters, mostly elderly and all eccentric or damaged to a greater or lesser degree. There's a damp, claustrophobic air over the whole novel. Although Justine is the main character in the previous book, here she is far less central, appearing as quite a pathetic figure with her decrepit, smelly bird. And although she is obsessed with Berit, her nemesis comes from a different direction altogether.
Some degree of closure is obtained for some of the characters by the end of this book, but it is a very disturbing novel, clouded and obscured by perceptions and suspicions so that nothing is what it seems. I admire the translator, Laura Wideburg, for so ably conveying the many subtleties of atmosphere and character. Both this novel and its predecessor won the Best Swedish Crime Novel of the Year for the years in which they were first published (1998 and 2005), and I can see why. THE SHADOW IN THE WATER is even less of a comfortable read than its predecessor, in showing the nasty things that go on under the surface of apparently ordinary, small-town lives.
Translated by Laura A. Wideburg.
GOOD NIGHT, MY DARLING tells the life-story of Justine, a lonely woman in her mid-forties who lives on her own in an isolated house in the woods near a lake, somewhere in Sweden. Justine is trying to move on with her life after what seems to be a disaster involving her boyfriend Nathan, but we are not sure exactly what has happened. She decides to begin running to get some exercise, but most of the time she wanders round the house with her tatty raven, who flies freely around, and muses on her childhood with her father, owner of a sweet factory, and her stepmother Flora. She has some dim recollections of her French mother, who died suddenly of a cerebral stroke when Justine was very young.
Gradually we realise that Justine had a deeply unhappy childhood, being bullied and ostracised at school, as well as having to cope with Flora's bitter jealousy and abuse. Justine was a withdrawn child, becoming even more so as a result of this misery. Her father loved her but failed to take any real interest in her. More is revealed about the traumatic events of Justine's early life, and we become more aware of how her past informs her present behaviour.
Interspersed with Justine's story, we also get to know some people who live in the nearby town, particularly a divorced man called Hans-Peter, a bibliophile who works as a night porter in a local hotel; the stepmother Flora, now totally disabled and in a nearby care home; and Berit, who works for a local publisher. I loved these character sketches: the author has a wonderful ability to draw the reader right in to her subjects' lives and preoccupations.
The second part of the book flashes back to Justine's holiday with Nathan, her lover briefly introduced at the start of the novel. He is handsome and feckless, having had three wives, various less formal liaisons with women, and a lot of children. He's decided to start a business running adventure holidays to the Malaysian jungle, so he and Justine decide to go on a trip to check out the locale and logistics. As the couple arrive and join up with a party of fellow-trekkers, Justine is subject to Nathan's mental bullying and unpleasant behaviour, under the surface of his false bonhomie. She cracks, and has to return home - but not before cracking again when she is yet further provoked.
The final section of this excellently translated, haunting novel weaves together all these elements, as the complete picture of Justine's life and character comes into focus from all the previous hints and fragments, as she decides to take decisive action. The author deliberately does not allow the reader to sympathise with or condemn most of the characters, which gives this atmospheric and gripping book a satisfyingly unsettling air. The treatment of the police investigation into various incidents is also told with a dry humour and a rather different perspective from the way in which the police are usually portrayed in crime novels.
Translated by Mike Mitchell.
THE LIE is an "identical twins" thriller, though the two women concerned, Suzanne Lasko and Nadia Trenkler, are apparently not related. Suzanne is down on her luck - her marriage has failed, she's lost her job as a bank teller due to confusion she experiences after a years-ago car accident, and is living in a meagre apartment for which she has trouble finding the rent. She's close to her mother, who is ailing and now lives in a home, and for the old lady's pleasure she makes up an interesting life for herself in which she has a good job and a boyfriend (in reality an odious, sexually abusive neighbour).
Suzanne is eventually reduced to dipping into her mother's nest egg to pay her rent despite the many job applications she fills out, so she's relieved when she finally scores an interview at the firm of Behringer and partners. While in the building, she briefly encounters a very smart woman who could be her double. The interview goes well and Suzanne feels confident about being offered the job, so is devastated when she is rejected. Enter Nadia, the rich double who sees an opportunity in the fortuitous likeness, who pays the desperate Suzanne to stand in for her with her husband for a weekend while she goes off for a fling with her lover.
The premise is not new, but is given interest and depth by the character and life of Suzanne. At this stage I was intrigued to continue with the novel. I'm afraid that I then rather rapidly lost interest, as what transpires is a mish-mash of "lives of the rich and famous" told at the level of a mediocre TV movie or magazine-inspired romance, together with some casually described scientific research aspects and financial manoeuvres. The two women swap identities again and again; Michael (Nadia's husband) veers between illogical positions; and the constant shifting of suspicions is confusingly superficial - is Nadia really having an affair, or is she conducting a financial scam - and who are the mysterious hit men she's apparently involved with?
Somewhere in all this there is a good little psychological thriller struggling to get out, but unfortunately, for me it never does. If the novel had been revised (again) and shortened before publication, ironing out some of the inconsistencies and cutting some of the to-ing and fro-ing between Suzanne, Michael, Nadia and various bit-part scientists, neighbours, business associates and cardboard villains, the result would have been more focused and involving. Suzanne is the only character with life or depth, and the aspects of the plot concerning her non-Nadia life are the most interesting.
Petra Hammesfahr has written many novels, only one other of which has been translated into English (at time of writing this review). That novel, THE SINNER, is a dark and excellent journey into the depths of the human soul; it is in a different league from THE LIE and in my opinion a much better demonstration of this author's talents.
Translated by Laura Vroomen. BACK TO THE COAST is an excellent little thriller, an easy read that can be raced through in a couple of hours and that leaves a haunting impression. The protagonist, a young rock singer called Maria, has a somewhat chaotic life. She has two children by different fathers, and you can immediately tell she's an unconventional person by the names she has given them, Wolf and Merel (meaning blackbird). At the start of the book she's just had an abortion - her boyfriend Geert (Wolf's father), a musician in Maria's band, is depressed and can't get his life together; Maria, who has already watched Steve, Merel's father, ignore his parental responsibilities, just can't cope with the prospect of looking after three young children on her own and decides to break up with Geert who needs too much looking after himself. Maria is struggling to come to terms with her decision and recovering from the operation when very nasty letters and packages start to arrive. The police (rather realistically presented, I imagine) are not interested in these threats in the absence of any crime.
Maria verges from being unsettled to paranoid about who is responsible, suspecting her children's fathers, her band members, even her nosy neighbours, but she's completely thrown when an undertaker arrives at her front door, having been booked to conduct her own funeral. Not only do the police remain uninterested in protecting Maria (they seem prejudiced about her lifestyle), but she herself is sued by the funeral directors for the outlay and the waste of their time.
Unable to continue performing in the band because of her terror, suspicious of all her associates and with no help from the police, Maria decides to flee to the coast – to her childhood home and sister Ans, who still lives there with her husband (and Maria's manager) Martin. There, the tension ratchets up even more, with both Maria and the reader being constantly wrong-footed as yet more nasty and dangerous events occur.
Although it might be obvious to the reader what is going on before it becomes clear to Maria (partly because of a dearth of suspects), this does not one jot spoil the enjoyment of this exciting novel. Even minor characters like Geert, Steve, Martin and Harry (a man who tries to help Maria), are strongly presented, rounding out this deceptively simple tale. The author's ruthlessness and her sharp social observation (particularly her witty dissection of psychobabble, small-town life and the politically correct) combine to make this book a very satisfying read on several counts. At the same time, our prejudices about stereotypes are neatly turned on their head more than once.
The past history of Ans and Maria and their parents (particularly their mother) is gradually and cleverly revealed, leaving the reader, after turning the last page, wondering just how much went on in the family's past that even Maria herself has not realised.
Dead Time is the latest in Steven White’s gripping series about psychologist Alan Gregory. Although it could be read as a stand-alone, I recommend reading some of the earlier books in the series first to fully appreciate the dynamics – which are deep, detailed and divisive – between the members of Alan’s family and their friends and colleagues.
Dead Time is the best kind of thriller – on one level it is an exciting detective story about the disappearance some years previously of a young woman on a hiking trip in the Grand Canyon. What happened to her, and were any of her fellow-travellers involved? And how is Alan Gregory going to feature in this case?
On another level, the novel’s events are filtered through the analytical eyes of Alan. No interaction between characters can take place without him internalising what is “really” going on. This approach provides a fascinating glimpse of the many ways in which people’s unconscious motivations control their words and deeds, as well as slowing down the action while interestingly building up suspense.
As the novel opens, Alan and his wife Lauren are reeling from previous events – Lauren is planning a trip to Holland to see if she can track down the daughter whose existence was revealed in Dry Ice, whereas Alan himself is trying to come to terms both with these revelations and with his and Lauren’s sudden new adoptive son, Jonas, and their police detective friend Sam is suspended from duty and has apparently withdrawn from human contact.
While Lauren is in Europe, Alan and Jonas travel to New York: Jonas is staying with his extended relations while Alan has too much time on his hands to try to come to terms with Lauren’s betrayal. He’s kick-started out of his drifting state by his ex-wife Meredith, who wants Alan to find a young woman, Lisa, who is doing Meredith a very special favour but who has inexplicably vanished. The reader knows before Alan does that Lisa is one of the Grand Canyon party, as is Eric, Meredith’s fiancé and about-to-be second husband. Particularly successful is the author’s technique of alternating chapters between Alan and Meredith’s perspectives – reading about the same interactions between them from each other’s point of view.
Alan and Sam find themselves digging into the Grand Canyon mystery – Sam by a direct reworking of the investigation into the young woman’s disappearance, and Alan by meeting the witnesses involved, which means both men have to spend time in LA and the surrounding countryside and culture, not to mention temptations.
Stephen White is a master at integrating the psychological landscape with his plots. This novel is all about the relationship between parents and children – biological, adoptive, estranged, and more. At the end of the book, many threads are tied together in unpredictable, insightful and exciting ways. As usual, I shall look forward to the next in the series.
Dead Time described at author's website.
Weighing in at 550 pages, I was slightly daunted at the prospect of reading this book, but I need not have worried. It’s very absorbing – a slow burn of a book (published by Pan Macmillan), full of atmosphere and suspense, as well as with a well-drawn cast of characters and a satisfying plot.
The first part of the novel concerns three women who are staying in a remote cottage in a village in the north of England. Rachael, Anne and Grace are conducting an ecological review, the results of which will determine whether the area can be developed into a quarry. As the novel opens, Rachael arrives at the cottage to begin the project and discovers her friend Bella, owner of the neighbouring farmhouse, hanging from a noose, having apparently committed suicide. This being a crime novel, we know that this conclusion may not be justified, but for the first part of the novel, the author is content to let everyone believe that Bella took her own life, while we get to know the living characters and the dynamics between them. Each section of the book is told from the point of view of one of the three women researchers, having the double benefit that the characters and their concerns can come to life, and that certain events can be with justification kept from the reader.
Tensions build between the women and with the people in the nearby village who have conflicting interests in the project. Peter, the women’s employer, is a greasy-pole-climber who among other nefarious activities has plagiarised Rachael’s research and discarded her after an affair without telling her he’s begun to see another woman (whom he eventually marries). Rachael is the most successfully portrayed of the three central women, as she fights to overcome her insecurities and relationship with her confident, overwhelming mother. Anne is married to the local squire, but their relationship is semi-detached to say the least; Grace also has a local connection – she is the most mysterious of the three women and one senses she must have some connection to Bella’s death.
A crisis occurs in the shape of another death, which leads to the introduction of DI Vera Stanhope, a middle-aged, unmarried and distinctly unconventional woman who has bags of external confidence but her own share of internal insecurities relating to her own past, and in particular her father’s “secret obsession”. Vera brings a welcome dynamism to the book, both in terms of plot and her working environment with her subordinates.
The author cleverly switches between points of view; these, together with her paced revelations of past events gradually show the full extent of the network which Vera must unravel to get to the bottom of the mystery (or mysteries). I shall certainly be reading the next books in the Vera Stanhope series (though I believe that THE CROW TRAP was originally written as a standalone novel), not least because I find her an attractive and unusual character, and want to know more about her.
Since first drafting this review it has been confirmed that Vera Stanhope is to become a TV detective. I’m very much looking forward to watching her exploits, and well-deserved congratulations to Ann Cleeves for this news.
The Crow Trap reviewed at Reviewing the Evidence
Wheredunnit on Northumberland, Ann Cleeves and the Vera Stanhope books.
Brief review at Mysteries in Paradise, as part of a "female detectives" post.
Ann Cleeves guest post on "crime for all" at DJ's krimblog.
Posts about Ann Cleeves at DJ's krimblog: includes reviews of all the Vera Stanhope series.
Translated by Charlotte Barslund.
Karin Fossum brings her usual cool empathy to this apparently simple tale of a married couple out for a Sunday afternoon walk in the forest, who discover the body of a young boy. The wife, Kristine, is deeply upset by the discovery, which brings into focus her own long-standing desire for a child, and the refusal of her husband, Reinhardt, to have a family. Reinhardt, on the other hand, is excited by the discovery, taking photos of the boy on his mobile phone (to the shock of Kristine) so he can show his friends, who he invites round for a grim dinner party to regale them with the find, and even, later on, attending the funeral of the dead boy and witnessing the mother's grief.
The first half of this novel is more of a dissection of a marriage than a mystery. Kristine sees a man walking away from her just before discovering the dead boy, and it seems likely that he's the perpetrator. Rather than condemning, the author remains non-judgemental and detached, showing the reader how life appears not only from the criminal's perspective but also through the eyes of detectives Sejer and Skarre, who seek to understand how someone could be a paedophile, rather than starting a witch-hunt. To this end, the police colleagues interview Philip Akeson, a sex offender who has done his time and been released back into society - and although like everyone, I find the whole subject of sex offences revolting (particularly where children are involved), I admire the author for going where few dare to tread, presenting the arguments fairly and even with sympathy and humour, not least because Akeson is shown as being rather likeable.
Half-way though the book, a second boy disappears. His name is Edwin and he's obese. He went to the same primary school as Jonas August, the dead boy, so detectives and village-folk alike suspect that the same person is responsible. By now, the reader knows quite a bit about Jonas August's killer, and we know it isn't the con-man boyfriend of Edwin's mother or the gay teacher at school who is very friendly to all the boys and invites them to his house to do jigsaws (to the consternation of his partner) - but never asks the girls. Who is implicated in Edwin's disappearance is an open question, however.
As usual, I am very impressed by Karin Fossum's talent and originality. In THE WATER'S EDGE she has taken an upsetting and controversial topic– the painful death of a child or children - and has made it palatable and interesting even to a sensitive reader who, frankly, cannot usually bear to think about the subject. The author uses the events in the book to look at people, their attitudes and relationships, in both small and large ways. Some of these are fleeting - how the villagers react to immigrant farm workers or the parents' association's suspicion of the gay teacher once Edwin disappears - and others are dissected in more detail, such as Kristine's gradual pulling away from her dominant marriage partner, or the study of Edwin's mother. All of this is done with insight, yet the mystery builds up almost under the surface of the book and, by the end of the novel, is sufficiently resolved for us to know what happened, without having all the loose ends artificially tied up.
Sejer and Skarre are relatively insubstantial characters, serving mainly to keep the plot going and to provide a neutral vehicle for the exploration of various human behaviours. Occasionally one of them might have a personal reflection, for example Sejer thinks of his daughter and his grandson - but on the whole their personal lives remain on the back-burner while the author looks at the reflections from all the faces of the prism of her characters and the situations that they have created for themselves. This is a wonderful book, short and haunting, and beautifully naturally translated. If you read it, I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
The description and dissection of a failing marriage that takes up the first chapters of BETRAYAL is one of the most realistic and gripping accounts I have read of how happy expectations gradually wither into the ashes of hard work, obligations, indifference and exhaustion. Eva and Henrik seem to have it all: he's a freelance writer, she a successful businesswoman. They have a four-year-old son, Axel (who still sleeps between them at night) and her parents, if not his, are supportive and always on-hand to babysit. What goes wrong? Henrik has gradually become resentful of his wife's decisiveness and leadership in all matters. Eva has become aware of what is missing in her grey life (as she sees it) - the weariness, the inadequacy, the rare commodity of time even in an era of more and more time-saving devices, the overwhelming influx of information that the human brain has not evolved to be able to handle.
Interspersed with the account of this stressed-out woman and her feelings of inadequacy is another story, that of Jonas, a young man whose partner Anna has suffered an accident and is in a coma. Jonas has been devotedly visiting Anna for two years (this being Sweden, he has been "off sick" from his job as a postman for all this time) and providing her with physical therapy and kind conversation. Jonas, however, is not what he seems. Soon we realise he has an obsessive-compulsive disorder and has suffered a particularly nasty childhood, chillingly portrayed. Yet Eva, who has had the opposite experience of an idyllic early life, is driven by her need to provide Axel with a "safe childhood home", a purely self-imposed drive that fuels her poisonous feelings towards Henrik. It is as if she is in competition with her own parents to be better than them, while at the same time being unable to admit to them that her marriage is in trouble - yet the older couple are the very people who understand, and hence support, her the most.
Eventually things come to a head for Eva when she realises that the main reason for Henrik's indifference is that he is having a secret affair. She soon unearths the most likely suspect, and in her bitterness and rage, takes an evil revenge. She also meets Jonas, an encounter that is going to have devastating consequences.
BETRAYAL is a compelling read, in which the tension is almost unbearable. The author's psychological insight is sharp: we identify with each character while we see the world through their eyes, but when the author pulls back and shows a more objective view, we realise things are definitely not as they had seemed. Each player in this grim story is locked into their own particular emotional straitjacket, all of which are cleverly, and with almost unbearable tension, built up into a perfect house of cards. It's all going to come tumbling down, but for who, and how? The final chapters are horrifically chilling - but in common with the very best of Scandinavian crime fiction, no car chases, fancy technology, thrills or spills are necessary for the gut-wrenching impact. This novel is psychological suspense at its finest.
Put aside two or three hours and read this book from beginning to end. It's a tense and involving read, and you won't want to be distracted.
Sybilla is an outcast, living off the radar of the authorities in Stockholm. She has various safe places and strategies for surviving each month until her meagre payment from her mother arrives at a PO box. One of her ploys is to put on a smart suit she keeps in her rucksack (bought from Oxfam), go to a luxury hotel bar, meet a businessman, flirt, pretend to lose her wallet, and trick the mark into paying for her room for the night. Unfortunately, on one of these outings, the man she tricks is found murdered the next morning. Sybilla escapes, but soon finds that she is the main suspect, becoming the victim of a police and media hunt.
Sybilla's survival over the next few days is interspersed with the story of how she came to drop out of society. She suffered a childhood of awful mental abuse, which made my blood boil to read about. With nobody to sympathise with her (to the contrary, everyone is against her and/or betrays her) she falls into a trap made of her own idealism and trusting nature, as a result of which she is abused even further by the authorities. The story of Sybilla's childhood leading up to her eighteenth birthday, is equally as harrowing as that of Lisbeth Salander, the main character of the Millennium Trilogy by Stieg Larsson, and Sybilla's solution, of living "off the grid", is remarkably similar to Lisbeth's.
Matters come to a head when Sybilla discovers that her source of income has dried up. She's now desperate, and friends she's made since living rough cannot or will not help her now. The hunt for her intensifies. Eventually, she thinks of one hiding place where she is likely to be safe - and while there, she finds an unusual ally and a strategy for dealing with her dilemma.
MISSING is a tensely exciting book with an extremely sympathetic and capable main character. I think Karin Alvtegen is one of the very best talents writing crime fiction today. Congratulations to her for writing such insightful, exciting and thought-provoking novels, and to her English translators for bringing them so effectively to a wider audience.
The Sinner by Petra Hammesfahr (translated by John Brownjohn) fulfils its early promise: it is a brilliant portrait into the dark places of one woman's memory. There are one or two hints that things are not as they should be in the opening section. For example, Cora and her husband Gereon work for Gereon's parents: their young son is not only looked after by his grandmother during the times his parents are working, but he stays with his grandparents during the week, only sleeping at home at weekends.
The book begins with Cora's strong desire to commit suicide, an impulse triggered by an attempted sexual approach from her husband. The impulse becomes an obsession, but before Cora can fulfil her objective, she is distracted into committing a terrible crime. The rest of the book concerns Cora's treatment by the police, doctors and lawyers as "the system" grinds into gear and the people in command - invariably male - decide what to do with Cora and how her case should be handled. Is she insane or should she be in prison?
Cora herself is in no doubt: she wants to be imprisoned and makes this very plain in her voluntary statements to the police. But Rudolf Grovian, the police commissioner, is less sure. Cora has suffered a terrible head injury in her past and has no memory of how it came about. She constantly changes her story. She says things, for example when describing the details of her crime, that don't ring true compared with other criminals Grovian has interrogated over the years. She's tense and obsessive: she waters the plants in the interrogation room and criticises the police for their unclean coffee maker in the immediate aftermath of the tragedy.
The Sinner is a dark book. Its interest for the reader depends on one's willingness to enter the journey to discover Cora's past, to repeatedly dissect her childhood up to the age of 19: sometimes fantasy, sometimes real, sometimes a mixture - who can know? Cora has at least two self-consistent mental landscapes, and is in strong denial about many events in order to protect someone or some people. Her parents have themselves changed dramatically for the worse by their experiences in the Second World War - Cora's father is said to have shot Polish children while in the army, and her mother to have been the "girlfriend" of many soldiers. He has become a passive yet dangerously repressed parent and she a deluded religious maniac.
Through Cora's paternal aunt, Grovian becomes aware of the existence of Magdalena, Cora's invalid sister. Magdalena's role in the story gradually comes to dominate, as Grovian and subsequently others involved in Cora's case try to find out what really happened that night six years ago when Cora received her injury. Which of the various accounts that Cora tells her interviewers, or herself, are true? Is there really a murder involved - and if so, who is the perpetrator and who the victim?
The Sinner is a compelling, unsentimental book for readers interested in the many deceptions and strategies of which the conscious and unconscious mind is capable. It isn't a conventional mystery or exciting thriller, but in my opinion far more satisfying than either. The author creates a fully rounded portrait of her protagonist, ties up the hints and fragments that have permeated the narrative from the first page, and carries her mission through right to the final sentence. I think The Sinner is a work of great merit that transcends any attempt to categorise it into a genre.
I have recently read the four available, translated books by Karin Alvtegen (Missing, Betrayal, Shame and Shadow). There are similarities between the two novelists, in that both of them dig deep into the souls of their characters, and both do not shrink from the bleakness of despair and disgust, showing the full effects of human cruelty. Alvtegen's novels are perhaps more conventionally exciting and "of the genre" than Hammesfahr, whereas Hammesfahr is more interested in pushing at the limits of how far the mental, dissociated state can take someone, and the effect of trauma on psychology and personality. Both authors are very confident at plot and pace. I find both of them absolutely wonderful at providing unflinching insight into the human condition while at the same time creating a plot-driven story; I congratulate them and their translators.
Fiona Walker's excellent review of The Sinner at Euro Crime.
Karen Meek tells me that Petra Hammesfahr's next book to be translated into English is The Lie, translated by Mike Mitchell, due to be published by Bitter Lemon Press in October. I hope that some of her other books will soon follow.
