Review: ECHOES FROM THE DEAD, Johan Theorin

Bantam Dell, Delta trade paperback, 2008, ISBN 978-0-385-34221-6, 385 pages, translated from Swedish by Marlaine Delargy.

Julia Davidsson's life fell apart when her beautiful son Jens disappeared one foggy afternoon on the remote island of Oland in Sweden. Jen was just six years old, and Julia's relationship with his father had already collapsed. Her own mother had already begun her decline and never recovered, and Julia under-estimated the guilt her father felt afterwards.

Now, twenty years on, Julia, haunted by the need for resolution, returns to Oland to visit her father, and to find out once and for all, what really happened to Jens. Did he fall into the sea and drown, as so many have tried to say, did someone take him, or, illogical as it sounds, is he still alive just waiting to be found?

Julia's father has been sent a package containing what seems to be a sandal Jens was wearing on the day he disappeared. Gerlof Davidsson, coming to the end of his life, too needs resolution. He has always believed Jens was taken by someone, even though a thorough hunt and investigation at the time revealed nothing. He can't shake the thought that Jens's disappearance was somehow connected with the rumoured return of a notorious local killer, Nils Kant. When his friend Ernst is found dead at the stone quarry, Gerlof becomes even more convinced the killer is still at large.

A child's disappearance is the worst nightmare for any parent, Johann Theorin has captured the nightmare that Jens's disappearance created for both Julia and Gerlof very well. The twists and turns their investigation takes as they question the residents of Oland are both believable and unpredictable. The final denouement caught me by surprise.

I was reading something the other day about how we tend to use hackneyed cliches such as "page turner" far too often in book reviews. This is a book though that just keeps you reading. You want to help Julia and Gerlof to find some sort of closure, as well as reconciliation.

I don't know how you talk about the quality of a translation if you can't read the original, but let me say I think this one is well done.

My rating: 4.9

Johan Theorin is one of a number of new Scandinavian crime fiction authors who needs to be on your reading list. His second novel NIGHT BLIZZARD will be out later this year, and I'll certainly be waiting for it.

Read the opening chapters of ECHOES FROM THE DEAD online.

Other reviews to read

• Maxine Clarke on EuroCrime
• It's a Crime
• Norman on EuroCrime
• Bernadette at Reactions to Reading
• International Noir Fiction
• Scandinavian Crime Fiction

I couldn't help but be reminded of other books that I've read that have the same core topic:

• WHAT THE DEAD KNOW, Laura Lippman
• LITTLE GIRL LOST, Susan Kelly
• THE GIRL OF HIS DREAMS, Donna Leon
• INNOCENT GRAVES, Peter Robinson (My rating: 4.6)
• WHEN THE DEAD CRY OUT, Hillary Bonner (my rating:4.5)
• RAVEN BLACK, Ann Cleeves (my rating 4.6)
• NO TRACE, Barry Maitland (my rating 5.0)
• THE WOODS by Harlan Coben (my rating 5.0)
• IN THE WOODS, Tana French (my rating 5.0)
  
• BLACK SECONDS, Karen Fossum (my rating 5.0)

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Review: ARCTIC CHILL, Arnaldur Indridason

Harvill Secker, 2008, ISBN 978-1-846-55065-2, 344 pages. Translated from Icelandic by Bernard Scudder and Victoria Cribb.

Set in Reyjavik, Iceland. A young boy of Asiatic appearance is discovered dead near the flats where he lives. He is frozen to the ground in a pool of his own blood, with a stab wound to the stomach. A theme that runs through the story is the tensions between native Icelanders and incomers, particularly those who are noticeably different.

A teacher of Icelandic language at the boy's school believes such incomers have no place in Iceland. Erlendur has to decide whether the boy has been the victim of racial bigotry, perhaps perpetrated by another student at the school, or is the recent sighting of a possible paedophile in the neighbourhood significant?

Reyjavik is a relatively warm oasis in the harsh Icelandic landscape. Icelandic men go off to warm places like Thailand, have a good time, and then bring back with them new wives. You can almost hear Indridason thinking about this dilution of the Icelandic genetic pool. You may like to read Indridason's first novel translated into English JAR CITY (aka TAINTED BLOOD) to see the full significance of that.

For Erlendur though the boy's death stirs once again memories of the death of another little boy, his own brother, also the victim of the harsh Icelandic climate. There are questions about Bergur's death that were never answered.

ARCTIC CHILL develops and expands Erlendur's own character for Indridason's readers, as well as those who have made appearances as part of Erlendur's investigative team throughout the series. This novel will cement his following.

My rating: 4.8

ARCTIC CHILL is the 5th of Indridason's novels translated into English.
During this translation Bernard Scudder, the translator, died suddenly at the age of 53. Bernard has I think been the translator of all the books.

In 2005 Indridason won the CWA Gold Dagger for SILENCE OF THE GRAVE
However ARCTIC CHILL has emblazoned across both front and back covers (see the image on the top right of this page) - WINNER OF THE CWA GOLD DAGGER.
In my book that's misleading advertising, even though ARCTIC CHILL did appear in many "tops" lists in 2008.

My earlier reviews

TAINTED BLOOD (JAR CITY)
A man is found murdered in his Reykjavik flat, a cryptic note left on his body. Erlendur, Detective Inspector with the Reykjavik police investigates. The investigation of the dead man's past reveals 40 year old accusations of rape and the murder begins to reach out like an octopus into Iceland's past and its present. We learn much about Icelandic society, and about how police investigations are carried out. There are some interesting side plots such as Erlendur's relationship with his drug-addicted daughter Eva Lind, his son Sindri Snaer, and his retired colleague Marion Briem. The investigation moves at a good pace and raises some interesting ethical questions. My rating 4.9

SILENCE OF THE GRAVE by Arnaldur Indridason
Building work on the outskirts of Reykajavik (Iceland) uncovers a body possibly buried alive during World War Two. Erlendur and his team are called in to investigate and try to uncover the truth while a team of archaeologists slowly and painstaking exhume the skeleton. Those who still live in the area tell of a young pregnant woman who disappeared in the war, but is it her? An elderly dying man talks of the green woman who was crooked. At the same time Erlendur is re-living his past - his daughter Eva Lind lies in a coma in the local hospital after a miscarriage and an old woman asks him why he is carrying a young boy around with him. The construction of this novel is intricate and it is almost impossible to solve the mysteries until the very end. Indridason draws into it a fascinating local legend about an orgy at the local gasworks on the night Halley's comet nearly struck the earth in 1910. Translated into English from Icelandic in 2005.
My rating: 5

VOICES, Arnaldur Indridason, rating 5.0
The doorman at a Reykjavik hotel who doubles every year as Santa at Christmas parties in the hotel is found dead by one of the hotel maids, stabbed to death, in his squalid basement room. Christmas is fast approaching and the detective Erlendur is confronted by the problem of how or even if he is going to celebrate Christmas. Is there anything to celebrate? Strangely he moves into the hotel while the investigation of the murder is carried out just feeling he can't go back to his flat. This is Indridason's 3rd novel to be translated into English. It was originally published in 2003 and made it into English in 2006. Erlendur of course eventually solves the murder mystery but along the way we learn a lot about the ghosts of his own past, and gain insight into his relationship with his drug-addicted daughter Eva Lind. And even in the last 10 pages we are still juggling candidates for the killer.

THE DRAINING LAKE by Arnaldur Indridason
After an earth tremor, the water level in an Icelandic lake begins to drop as water drains out through fissures in the lakes bed. Eventually it drops low enough to reveal the skeleton of a murder victim, probably there for a number of years and anchored to a piece of Russian radio equipment. The search for the identity of this person is a fairly lengthy and tedious process but murders and missing persons are pretty rare in Iceland where everybody knows everybody. Woven into the murder investigation is the story of idealistic young Icelandic socialists, party members chosen to be educated at university in Leipzig in East Germany, and then also more about Erlendur's own family and his children who flit in and out of his life. Originally published in Icelandic in 2004, the 4th of Indridason's books to be translated into English.
My rating: 4.7

Other Reviews:

• Arctic Chill (reviewed by Maxine Clarke)
• The Draining Lake (reviewed by Laura Root)
• The Draining Lake (reviewed by Maxine Clarke)
• Silence of the Grave (reviewed by Karen Chisholm)
• Voices
• Voices (reviewed by Maxine Clarke)
• Voices (reviewed by Norman Price)

REVIEW: THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO, Stieg Larsson

Quercus, 2008, 533 pages
ISBN 978-1-84724-253-2
Originally published in Sweden in 2005, translated into English by Reg Keeland.

This is not an easy book to review without giving too much away. It is a bit like a turducken. Don’t know what that is? Well it’s an extravagant dish consisting of a partially de-boned turkey stuffed with a de-boned duck, which itself is stuffed with a small de-boned chicken.

The prologue begins with a mystery. A flower arrives to commemorate an old man’s eighty second birthday. Just as in the previous thirty five years it is a pressed flower, no card, no message. The recipient is Henrik Vanger whose granddaughter Harriet disappeared thirty six years before.

Journalist and magazine owner Mikael Blomkvist has just been convicted of aggravated libel and is about to spend three months in gaol. In fact he has been found guilty of 15 counts of libel, and it looks as if this will be the death knell for his magazine Millenium. Blomkvist is convinced he has been set up but there is no way he can prove it. He took on Hans-Erik Wennerstrom, a billionaire who is a top name among market speculators, and he lost.

Lisbeth Salander works for Milton Securities as an investigator. She is brilliant but a social misfit. Milton Securities is asked by Henrik Vanger’s lawyers to investigate whether there is any substance to the Wennerstrom libel case. Satisfied with the results of Salander’s report Vanger offers Blomkvist a job: to find out the truth of Harriet’s disappearance. Was she murdered by one of her own family?

Blomkvist penetrates further into this turducken than anybody has ever gone, bringing to the surface secrets that have lain hidden in the Vanger family for decades, even before Harriet’s disappearance.

This book will not please all. It’s very length will daunt some. The outer flesh of this turducken is a bit dry. It reminds me a bit of a John Grisham thriller. It takes a while to get going too. And then at the end, just when you think everything is resolved, you realise there are 100 pages to go, and a final denouement to come.

Does THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO deserve the accolades it has been getting? My short answer – yes. Larsson is a quirky writer, while Scandinavian in style and flavour, seemingly equally at home with modern developments in the genre. I loved his homage to contemporary crime fiction writers such as Elizabeth George, Sue Grafton, and Val McDermid.

Once you’ve read THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO you’ve read the first in the Millenium Trilogy, so there’s more to look forward to, but supposedly only two more. Steig Larsson died at the age of 50 in 2004, before his debut best seller was published. THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE is due to be published in English in January 2009.

My rating: 4.8