Review: BLOOD ON SNOW, Jo Nesbo

• published Random House 2015
  
• English translation by Neil Smith, from Norwegian
• this edition Random House Large Print, 164 pages
• ISBN 978-0-8041-9488-4
• source: my local library

Synopsis

From the internationally acclaimed author of the Harry Hole novels—a fast, tight, darkly lyrical stand-alone novel that has at its center the perfectly sympathetic antihero: an Oslo contract killer who draws us into an unexpected meditation on death and love.

This is the story of Olav: an extremely talented “fixer” for one of Oslo’s most powerful crime bosses. But Olav is also an unusually complicated fixer. He has a capacity for love that is as far-reaching as is his gift for murder. He is our straightforward, calm-in-the-face-of-crisis narrator with a storyteller’s hypnotic knack for fantasy. He has an “innate talent for subordination” but running through his veins is a “virus” born of the power over life and death. And while his latest job puts him at the pinnacle of his trade, it may be mutating into his greatest mistake. . . .

My Take

Olav tries to put what he does for a living on a professional footing: he refers to those who pay him as his clients, and those he kills as units. This is part of his own strategy to remain aloof and to depersonalise what he does.

When he is contracted to kill the client's wife, things begin to go wrong, and Olav makes a decision which means his client will be gunning for him, literally. Olav tries to play Oslo underworld bosses off against each other. But not everyone is as loyal as he thinks they are.

BLOOD ON SNOW is really a novella, a quick read, a short snippet of Olav's life, not a Harry Hole novel. Even so, we learn quite a bit about Olav, his background, and what he does.

I think the thing I liked best was the twist in the tail in the final pages.

My rating: 4.4

I've also reviewed
NEMESIS
THE REDEEMER
5.0, THE SNOWMAN
4.8, THE LEOPARD
4.7, HEADHUNTERS
4.7, PHANTOM
4.7, THE BAT
4.7, POLICE
5.0, THE SON

Three views of crime in Iceland?

By pure accident the last three novels that I have read, all crime fiction of course, were set in Iceland, a country that I have never actually visited.

4.8, SOMEONE TO WATCH OVER ME, Yrsa Sigurðardóttir- translated
4.4, OBLIVION, Arnaldur Indridason  - translated from Icelandic
4.5, FROZEN OUT, Quentin Bates - set in Iceland

The first and last were by new-to-me authors and were set after the global financial crisis hit Iceland. OBLIVION is by an author that I feel I know well and is a prequel to an existing series.
Two of the novels are translated but FROZEN OUT is by a British author who first went to Iceland for his "gap" year and stayed on.

All of the novels emphasise how small Iceland is, how everybody knows everybody-else, and I'm trying to decide whether they present the same view of Iceland. They all certainly seem to say that very little crime takes place in Iceland, serial killers are almost unknown, and that Iceland presents a similar crime profile to the rest of the Western world.

FROZEN OUT is a police procedural with a very strong female sleuth. It is the first in a series.
SOMEONE TO WATCH OVER ME is the 5th in a series and features a female lawyer.
OBLIVION features Elendur, and is a prequel to a long series which began with JAR CITY.

I think that OBLIVION is the most noir, and that the other two both present a much more optimistic view of Iceland. I think that, despite his long residence, Quentin Bates still has an "incomers" view of the island.

How do you see them?

Review: SOMEONE TO WATCH OVER ME, Yrsa Sigurðardóttir

• Format: Kindle (Amazon)
• File Size: 1253 KB
• Print Length: 337 pages
• Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton (May 9, 2013), first published 2012
• Translated from Icelandic by Philip Roughton
• Sold by: Hachette Book Group
• Language: English
• ASIN: B00AFAYGXM
• #5 in the Thóra Gudmundsdóttir series

Synopsis (Amazon)

Berglind hurried to her son and pulled him forcefully from the window. She held him close and tried at the same time to wipe the windowpane. But the haze couldn't be wiped away. It was on the outside of the glass.

Pesi looked up at her. 'Magga's outside. She can't get in. She wants to look after me.' He pointed at the window and frowned. 'She's a little bit angry.'


A young man with Down's Syndrome has been convicted of burning down his care home and killing five people, but a fellow inmate at his secure psychiatric unit has hired Thora to prove Jakob is innocent. If he didn't do it, who did? And how is the multiple murder connected to the death of Magga, killed in a hit and run on her way to babysit?

My Take

Despite the best intentions this is the first title that I have read by Yrsa Sigurðardóttir. The storyline is intriguing: a very nasty inmate of a psychiatric prison wants to challenge the sentence which found a fellow inmate guilty of arson and the murder of four other residents of the care home in which he lives.

Jakob has Downs Syndrome and much of the evidence he gave at his trial made little sense. The jury took into account the fact that he did not want to be in the care home at all, and that he was at time capable of great violence. But the more Thora investigates the more she becomes convinced that he would not have the ability to set a fire.

The only other survivor of the fire has "locked-in" syndrome but she obviously has information she thinks is important. The problem is making sense of what she communicates.

A very good read, one that will send me back looking for earlier titles in the series.

My rating:  4.8

Thóra Gudmundsdóttir
1. Last Rituals (2007)
2. My Soul to Take (2009)
3. Ashes to Dust (2010)
4. The Day is Dark (2011)
5. Someone to Watch Over Me (2012)
     aka I Remember You
6. The Silence of the Sea (2014)

In 2015 Sigurðardóttir received the Petrona Award for THE SILENCE OF THE SEA.

Agatha Christie Reading Challenge continues

There are six contributions to the May edition of the Agatha Christie Reading Challenge.

Agatha Christie Reading Challenge Participants

1. Agatha Christie's own favourites 2. The Sinking of Lusitania: Is It All Germany’s Fault? @ Christie in a Year 3. CROOKED HOUSE@ Reactions to Reading 4. PARTNERS IN CRIME @ Bitter Tea and Mystery 5. Margaret @ BooksPlease (David Suchet's POIROT and ME) 6. Christie, England’s First Female Serial Killer and a Wren @ Christie in a Year The June edition of the Agatha Christie Reading Challenge Blog Carnival is now open for contributions

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Review: TROUBLED WATERS, Gillian Galbraith - audio book

• #6 in the Alice Rice mystery series
• Narrated by: Lesley Mackie
• Length: 7 hrs and 59 mins 
• Unabridged Audiobook



Release Date:02-01-15
Publisher: Soundings
source: Audible.com 

Synopsis (Audible)

A young, disabled girl is lost on a winter's night in Leith, unable to help herself or find her way home. Someone is combing the streets, frantically searching for her. Within hours of her disappearance, a body is washed up on Beamer Rock, a tiny island in the Forth being used as part of the foundations for the new Queensferry Bridge.

No sooner has DI Alice Rice managed to discover the identity of that body than another one is washed up on the edge of the estuary, in Belhaven Bay. What is the connection between the two bodies? Has the killer any other victims in his or her sights? And if so can Alice solve the puzzle before another life is taken?

My Take

Another police procedural based in the Lothian and Borders Police, but there are sufficiently different plot strands to keep the readers' interest. There are quite a few mystery elements and the solutions are not immediately obvious. 

I wasn't particularly aware that this title was part of a series, so obviously you don't have to read them in order, although I guess a progressive reading might add to an understanding of the characters of the investigative team.

Very readable.

My rating: 4.4

 Alice Rice Mysteries
1. Blood in the Water (2007)
2. Where the Shadow Falls (2008
3. Dying of the Light (2009)
4. No Sorrow to Die (2010)
5. The Road to Hell (2012) 
6. Troubled Waters (2014) 

About the author
Gillian Galbraith is the author of six detective novels featuring Alice Rice, a Detective sergeant with Lothian and Borders Police. Alexander McCall Smith said of "Blood In The Water", the first book in the series, ;
"There is not a dull page from start to finish"
Prior to taking up writing, Gillian worked for a very short period as a journalist and then, for many years, as an Advocate at the Scottish Bar.The majority of her work was in Civil Law but she also conducted a number of High Court trials in the High Court of Justiciary. She lives in the country with her husband , daughter and countless other creatures.  

What I read in May 2015

I didn't read so many books this last month, but did enjoy many of them as you can tell from my ratings.

May 2015

I read many of them on my Kindle, which I find I am using often as an alternative to holding a heavy book.

• 4.3, TAKE MY BREATH AWAY, Martin Edwards
• 5.0, THE DROWNED BOY, Karin Fossum - translated from Norwegian
• 3.8, THE JOURNEYING BOY, Michael Innes - vintage crime fiction
• 4.4, ODDFELLOWS, Nicolas Shakespeare - set in Broken Hill, 1 January 1915, some "Turks" attack a picnic train.
• 4.9, THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN, Paula Hawkins 
• 2.0, THE LAUGHING MONSTERS, Denis Johnson
• 4.8, THOSE WE LEFT BEHIND, Stuart Neville
• 4.5, CROSS FINGERS, Paddy Richardson - New Zealand author 
• 4.4, OBLIVION, Arnaldur Indridason  - translated from Icelandic
• 4.5, FROZEN OUT, Quentin Bates - set in Iceland 

My Pick of the Month was  THE DROWNED BOY by Karin Fossum

Synopsis (NetGalley)

‘He'd just learnt to walk,’ she said. ‘He was sitting playing on his blanket, then all of a sudden he was gone.’

A 16-month-old boy is found drowned in a pond right by his home. Chief Inspector Sejer is called to the scene as there is something troubling about the mother’s story. As even her own family turns against her, Sejer is determined to get to the truth. 

See what others have chosen this month.

Crime Fiction Pick of the Month May 2015

Crime Fiction Pick of the Month 2015

Many crime fiction bloggers write a summary post at the end of each month listing what they've read, and some, like me, even go as far as naming their pick of the month.

This meme is an attempt to aggregate those summary posts.
It is an invitation to you to write your own summary post for May  2015, identify your crime fiction best read of the month, and add your post's URL to the Mr Linky below.
If Mr Linky does not appear for you, leave the URL in a comment and I will add it myself.

You can list all the books you've read in the past month on your post, even if some of them are not crime fiction, but I'd like you to nominate your crime fiction pick of the month.

That will be what you will list in Mr Linky too -
e.g.
ROSEANNA, Maj Sjowall & Per Wahloo - MiP (or Kerrie)

You are welcome to use the image on your post and it would be great if you could link your post back to this post on MYSTERIES in PARADISE.

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