Crime Fiction on a Euro Pass: Germany: week beginning Mon 5 Sept

The idea behind Crime Fiction on a Euro Pass is that participants write a post linked to the country of the week.

We have already visited

• England
• Spain/Portugal
• France
• Holland/Belgium 
• Denmark

This week's country is Germany

The future stops on our journey will be

• Monday 12 September - Austria
• Monday 19 September - Switzerland
• Monday 26 September - the Czech republic
• Monday 3 October - Italy
• Monday 10 October - Greece
• Monday 17 October - Turkey

create your personalized map of Europe

Some suggestions:
You can choose one of the following (or something more imaginative)

• a book review (create a new one or revive an old one)
• an author profile
• a reading syllabus for crime fiction either set in this country, or written by authors from this country.

Your post can be "based" anywhere in this week's country.

When you have written a post please do the following:

• put a link to this post in yours (feel free to use the logo if you like)
• Come back here and put a link to your post in Mr Linky

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Historical Challenge Completed

Yesterday I completed the Historical Fiction Challenge hosted by Historical Tapestry.

I actually still have some historical crime fiction sitting in my TBR and will probably read more this year.

You'll see from my list below that my reading, all crime fiction titles has taken me to a great range of places and periods.

Historical Fiction Challenge

Struggling the Addiction: 10 books
my extra rule: all need to be crime fiction

1. 4.4, DEATH OF A RED HEROINE, Qiu Xiaolong (China 1949-1990)
2. 4.8, THE DIGGERS REST HOTEL, Geoffrey McGeachin (Australia)
3. 4.7, HEARTSTONE, C.J. Sansom (Tudor England, 1545)
4. 4.4, EYE OF THE RED TSAR, Sam Eastland (Russia 1917, 1929)
5. 4.6, RELICS OF THE DEAD, Ariana Franklin (Glastonbury 1196)
6. 4.3, THE SERPENT AND THE SCORPION, Clare Langley-Hawthorne  (London 1912)
   
7. 4.6, SARAH'S KEY, Tatiana de Rosnay (Paris 1942)
8. 4.5, RAILWAY TO THE GRAVE, Edward Marston
   (Britain 1850s) 
9. 4.4, THE PERICLES COMMISSION, Gary Corby (Ancient Athens) 
10. 4.3, DIED IN THE WOOL, Ngaio Marsh ( New Zealand 1942) 

Review: DEATH OF A RED HEROINE, Qiu Xiaolong

Book Description (Amazon)

Series: Soho Crime | Publication Date: July 1, 2003
In this Anthony Award-winning debut, Inspector Chen of the Shanghai Police must find the murderer of a National Model worker, and then risk his own life and career to see that justice is done. 

• Format: Amazon Kindle
• Source: I bought it (rather puzzlingly, Amazon no longer shows a Kindle version, for me, at any rate)

 My take:

Two old friends who haven't met for twenty years go fishing in a canal and discover the body of a young woman, wrapped up in plastic.

The case is taken on by Chief Inspector Chen Cao of the Shanghai Police and his lieutenant Detective Yu Guangming.
This is the first in Qiu Xialong's Inspector Chen series and so the author spends a little time introducing these characters to the reader, exploring the relationships between them.

Chen was aware of Yu's acerbic undertone. His accelerated  promotion was going to take some living down, not to mention  his new apartment. A certain measure of antagonism was hardly  surprising, especially from Detective Yu, who had entered the  force earlier and had technical training and a police family background.

Chen is an unusual policeman, a graduate in English literature, and a published poet.

Chen had not intended to be a cop - not in his college years.  He had been a published poet as well as a top student at Beijing  Foreign Language Institute. He had his mind set on literary pursuits.   Just one month before graduation, he had applied to an  M.A. program in English and American literature, a decision his  mother had approved, since Chen's father had been a well-known  professor of the Neo-Confucian school. He was informed, however,   that a promising job was waiting for him in the Ministry of  Foreign Affairs.

Chen and Yu are informed that the case has political implications and so they are not only to be advised by an older party cadre, and under the direct supervision of a party secretary, but from the beginning interference comes from their political superiors.

They assemble irrefutable evidence that the person responsible for the murder is an HCC, the son of a well known older party cadre. Even at that stage attempts are made to deflect them. Both are assigned to new jobs. Both seem to be in real danger of losing their jobs.

I found DEATH OF A RED HEROINE fascinating reading. It describes the political changes that Chinese society underwent first of all with the establishment of the Communist Revolution, and then with the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s. At the time the novel is set, in the early 1990s, the winds of change are blowing again, and everything is justified in terms of "for the sake of the Party". Chen and Yu get frustrated because they can't always get on with their first concern, the bringing of a murderer to justice.

DEATH OF A RED HEROINE is a novel you need to read patiently. Its path meanders a little, and the story is littered with references to Chinese literature, which for me didn't always add to the crime fiction aspects. You will see that I am "counting" this novel in the Historical Fiction Challenge. It is recognisably a "police procedural" too.

My rating: 4.4

Other posts to check

• Mysteries and More (" X" is for Qui Xiaolong)
• The Game's Afoot - X is for Xiaolong 
• Mysteries and More (" X" is for Xiaolong's Death of a Red Heroine

Inspector Chen (Fantastic Fiction)
1. Death of a Red Heroine (2000)
2. A Loyal Character Dancer (2002)
3. When Red Is Black (2004)
4. A Case of Two Cities (2006)
5. Red Mandarin Dress (2007)
6. The Mao Case (2009)
7. Don't Cry Tai Lake (2011)

About the author
Qiu Xiaolong was born in Shanghai. He was selected for membership  in the Chinese Writers' Association and published poetry,  translations and criticism in China. 
He has lived in the United  States since 1989 and has an M.A. and a Ph.D. in Comparative  Literature awarded by Washington University. 
His work has been  published in Prairie Schooner, New Letters, Present Tense, River Styx,  Riverfront Times, and in several anthologies. 
He has been the recipient   of the Missouri Biennial Award, the Prairie Schooner Readers'  Choice Award, a Yaddo and a Ford Foundation Fellowship. 
He  teaches Chinese Literature at University College of Washington  University and lives in St. Louis with his wife and daughter. 

Review: DEAD LIKE YOU, Peter James - audio

• Unabridged recording
• Available from Audible.com, released 25 May 2010
• Book published in 2010
• Narrated by David Bauckham
• Length: 14 hrs, 29 mins
• Source: prize at CrimeFest 2011
• I was also provided a made-from-paper copy by Pan Macmillan Australia.

Publisher's Summary

Winner of the 2011 CrimeFest Sounds of Crime Award.
Don't imagine for one moment that I'm not watching you...
After a New Year's Eve ball, a woman is raped as she returns to her hotel room. A week later, another woman is attacked. Superintendent Roy Grace realises that these new cases bear close similarities to an unsolved series of crimes in Brighton back in 1997. When more women are assaulted, Grace becomes increasingly certain that they are dealing with the same twisted individual...

My take:

The length of this recording requires some dedicated listening, and has actually taken he-who-listens-with-me and myself about 3 weeks of listening on longish car trips, which also provides reviewing challenges. While I am familiar with the writing of Peter James and the Roy Grace series in particular (see links below for my other reviews), my fellow listener was not.

My fellow listener dislikes books that jump between time frames as DEAD LIKE YOU does. It has two main time frames: 1997 and 2007. The times of the year are similar - both around Christmas, New Year - and there are similarities between the crimes committed, making Roy Grace fear that the "Shoe Man",  believed to have raped 5 women and murdered a sixth in 1997, has returned.  The alternative is that there is a copycat occurring, someone who admired and followed the exploits of "Shoe Man" a decade before.

Back in 1997 the investigation into the rapes took place just before Roy Grace's wife Sandy disappeared. Sandy has never been found despite a number of reported sightings and so her disappearance continues to be a theme as in earlier titles in the series. But Grace is preparing to have her declared dead and now has a happy relationship with Chloe who works as a pathologist.

There's plenty to think about as the action jumps backwards and forwards between the past and the present, and we discover that there is more than one possible perpetrator of the current rapes. DEAD LIKE YOU is a satisfyingly complex novel.
If I have one criticism, it is its length: the trade paperback version is 548 pages. It is a very detailed book, again showing considerable evidence that Peter James knows what he is talking about, that his research has been profound. But there were times when I wanted the detailed descriptions to be less, and for the action to proceed a bit faster. There are times too when the reader knows that Grace and his team are ignoring vital evidence, making false assumptions and going down the wrong path.

So, does it work as a stand-alone, if you haven't read earlier titles in the series? The answer is "yes". James ensures that you get to know all the background that you need. So go for it! Peter James is a master story teller.

My rating: 4.8

My other reviews of Peter James novels
DEAD MAN'S FOOTSTEPS
NOT DEAD ENOUGH
5.0, DEAD TOMORROW

Standalone=plot. Series=character Do you agree?

After some poll participants suggested they avoided reading books if they were in a series I ran another poll:

Commenters were a bit ambivalent: the following comment was fairly representative of thinking.

Any book, for it to be enjoyable, has to have both good plot and interesting characters. A series does allow character development, but at the same time each instalment needs to be able to be read as a standalone for the story to be fulfilling. Personally I don't care whether a book is a standalone or part of a series as long as it's an entertaining, interesting read.

Do you read translated crime fiction?

I've read 106 books this year and just 16 of them are translated titles.
Last year I read 20, and I'm aiming to exceed that.

How about you? Do you read translated crime fiction or do you avoid it?
What titles can you recommend?

Do consider the last 5 novels you've read and tell us how many of them were translated. Record your results in the poll in the right hand column.

Would you like to read more?
Just in case you do, here are the 16 titles I've read so far in 2011.

1. 4.7, UNTIL THY WRATH BE PAST, Asa Larsson (Swedish)
2. 4.5, VILLAIN, Shuichi Yoshida (Japanese)
3. 4.4, THE KILLER'S ART, Mari Jungstedt (Swedish)
4. 4.8, AN UNCERTAIN PLACE, Fred Vargas (French)
5. 4.7, TRACKERS, Deon Meyer (Afrikaans- South Africa)
6. 4.8, KEEPER OF LOST CAUSES, Jussi Adler-Olsen  (Denmark)
7. 4.8, THE LEOPARD, Jo Nesbo  (Norwegian)
8. 4.5, THE DEVOTION OF SUSPECT X, Keigo Higashino (Japanese)
9. 4.5, FROZEN MOMENT, Camilla Ceder (Swedish) 
10. 4.5, OPERATION NAPOLEON, Arnaldur Indridason (icelandic)
11. 4,4, FROZEN TRACKS, Ake Edwardson (Swedish)
12. 4.6, THREE SECONDS, Roslund & Hellstrom (Swedish)
13. 4.4, MAIGRET & the MAN on the BOULEVARD, Georges Simenon (French)
14. 4.7, THE MAN WHO WENT UP IN SMOKE, Maj Sjowall & Per Wahloo (Swedish)
15. 4.9, BAD INTENTIONS, Karin Fossum (Norwegian)
16. 4.5, MAIGRET & THE HEADLESS CORPSE, Georges Simenon (French)

Forgotten Book: A SEASON FOR MURDER, Ann Granger

This contribution to Pattinase's Friday's Forgotten Books is a book I read in 1994. It was published in 1991 and is the second book in the Mitchell and Markby Village series. The series reached #15 in 2004.

From Publishers Weekly

The impact of modern life on English villages is vividly captured in Granger's second murder mystery. British consular officer Meredith Mitchell rents isolated Rose Cottage in Pook's Common when she is posted back to England. Uneasily resuming her acquaintance with attractive local CID Chief Inspector Alan Markby (begun in SAY IT WITH POISON ), Meredith becomes friendly with neighbor equestrienne Harriet Needham.
When Harriet dies from a fall during a Boxing Day meet, animal rights activist Simon Pardy is blamed because his banner spooked the steed. The autopsy, however, discloses that Harriet , known to have abjured drugs and medicines, died full of tranquilizers and alcohol. Alan draws Meredith into the investigation, which is complicated by the murder of the unlikable Pardy, an attack on Harriet's vengeance-seeking executor cousin and a plethora of the horsewoman's former lovers. As Meredith uncovers old local secrets, she also tries to sort out her highly ambiguous feelings for Alan. Granger delicately probes human relationships in this top-notch tale.

About the author
Patricia Ann Granger (born 1939) is a British crime writer. Granger was born in Portsmouth, England. She took a Modern Languages degree at the University of London, taught English for a year in France, but eventually went to work in the visa sections of British consulates and embassies in Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia and Austria. She married a work colleague in the foreign service and went with him to Zambia and Germany before returning to live in England with their two children. Her first novels were historical romances published under the nom de plume Ann Hulme. After her return to England, her first crime novel, Say It With Poison, was published in 1991.

Granger has 3 other series that feature: Fran Varady (7 titles 1997 - 2007), Lizzie Martin  (3 titles 2006 - 2009) and Campbell and Carter (2 titles: 2009 and 2011)