Review: TUESDAY'S GONE, Nicci French

• Format: Kindle (Amazon)
• File Size: 711 KB
• Print Length: 464 pages
• Publisher: Penguin (July 19, 2012)
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
• Language: English
• ASIN: B0086741R2
• Source: I bought it

Synopsis (Amazon)

Nicci French, returns with the second book in the gripping new series that began with Top Ten Bestseller BLUE MONDAY. Fans of Peter James' Roy Grace series and Peter Robinson's DCI Banks series will love central character psychotherapist Frieda Klein, who is consulted on a grisly and seemingly unsolvable crime.

For Frieda Klein the days get longer, the cases darker . . .

Psychotherapist Frieda Klein thought she was done with the police. But once more DCI Karlsson is knocking at her door.

A man's decomposed body has been found in the flat of Michelle Doyce, a woman trapped in a world of strange mental disorder. The police don't know who it is, how he got there or what happened - and Michelle can't tell them. But Karlsson hopes Frieda can get access to the truths buried beneath her confusion.

Painstakingly, Frieda uncovers a possible identity for the corpse: Robert Poole, a jack of all trades and master conman. But the deeper Frieda and Karlsson dig into Poole's past, the more of his victims they encounter - and the more motives they find for murder. Meanwhile, violent ghosts from Frieda's own past are returning to threaten her.

Unable to discover quite who is telling the truth and who is lying, they know they are getting closer to a killer. But whoever murdered Poole is determined to stay free - and anyone that gets too close will meet the same fate.

A gritty heroine, a gruesome crime and a terrifying hunt for a psychotic killer, Tuesday's Gone is not to be missed by fans of psychological thrillers.

My Take

TUESDAY'S GONE is connected to the earlier novel BLUE MONDAY  not just by Frieda Klein as the central character but by unfinished business that keeps cropping up, particularly the disappearance of Alan Dekker.

Chapter One begins on Tuesday. The main story is that of Michelle Doyce, discovered by her social worker sitting on a sofa in her small flat next to a naked man who has obviously been dead for some time. A good deal of the plot is concerned with identifying this man and working out whether Michelle actually killed him.

But there are a number of mini plots too adding to the complexity of the novel and making it a satisfying read. Freda's character gains more substance. A very readable novel with some intriguing plot lines, some of which carry over into the next in the series, WAITING FOR WEDNESDAY to be published in 2013.

My rating: 4.5

I've also reviewed 4.3, BLUE MONDAY

Reminder: I'm collecting Lists of Best Crime Fiction read in 2012

As I warned in mid December, I am collecting your best crime fiction reading for 2012.

Below I have provided a Mr Linky for those of you who blog, so that you can write a post, and come back and leave a link. If you don't have a blog, or if you prefer to do it that way, then leave a list of books (with authors) as a comment on this post.
The titles can have been published any time, but must be crime fiction.
It would be great if you could add the year first published into your list.

Collection time will run for another week, until January 20th 2013 and then I'll do some collation of the suggestions.

If you come across other blog posts listing best crime fiction reads please feel free to add them to Mr Linky for us to check.

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Review: ANOTHER TIME, ANOTHER LIFE, Leif GW Persson

• Format: Kindle (Amazon)
• File Size: 684 KB
• Print Length: 416 pages
• Publisher: Transworld Digital (March 15, 2012)
• translated by Paul Norlen
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services
• Language: English
• ASIN: B007BLO4D0
• Source: I bought it

 Synopsis (Amazon)

Stockholm1975. Six young people take the entire staff of the West German embassy hostage, demanding that the Baader-Meinhof members being held as prisoners in West Germany be released immediately. The long siege ends with the deaths of two hostages and the wounding of several others, including the captors. 

1989: When a Swedish civil servant is murdered, the two leading detectives on the case, Anna Holt and Bo Jarnebring, find their investigation hastily shelved by an incompetent and corrupt senior investigator.

1999. Lars Johansson, having just joined the Swedish Security Police, decides to tie up a few loose ends left behind by his predecessor: specifically, two files on Swedes who had allegedly collaborated on the 1975 assault on the West German embassy, one of whom turned out to be the murder victim in 1989. Johansson reopens the investigation and, with help from detectives Jarnebring and Holt, follows the leads - right up the Swedish political ladder...

Awarded Best Swedish Crime Novel by the Swedish Academy of Crime Writers on its original publication in 2003, Another Time, Another Life is an astonishingly accomplished and resonant thriller spanning twenty-five years, centred around the still-unsolved murder of Prime Minister Olof Palme in 1986.

My take

The synopsis above gives you a pretty good plot outline without giving everything away. So it remains for me to tell you what I thought of it. ANOTHER TIME, ANOTHER LIFE is #2 in a trilogy of police procedurals featuring detectives Bo Jarnebring and Lars Johansson. It is currently the only one of the trilogy to be translated into English.

To be honest it took me quite a while to get used to what appeared to be the author's sardonic tone. He seemed to have a very poor opinion of both the Swedish police and the secret police, the quality of their personnel and their investigative capabilities. Persson also explores the forms that corruption can take. Sometimes I found his cynicism unpleasant to the point of being distracting.

At times I felt lost in the descriptions of political events from 1975 onwards in Sweden in particular although I already had some general knowledge of them. The connections between the events of 1975, 1989 and 1999 weren't obvious at the beginning and made for quite a complicated plot.

Persson explores some interesting philosophical ideas too - among them that justice is not always best served by carrying out the letter of the law. Retribution can come in other forms and can even be self-administered.

Will I read another? I found the characters of Lars Johansson and Bo Jarnebring intriguing, and so I probably will, should another become available in English.

My rating: 4.4

See another review:
EuroCrime - by Laura Root

About the author

Leif GW Persson is the Grand Master of Scandinavian crime fiction. Over three decades, he has taken a scalpel to the political and social mores of Swedish society in his dark and complex crime novels. Persson is also Scandinavia's most renowned criminologist and a leading psychological profiler. He has also served as an advisor to the Swedish Ministry of Justice. Since 1991, he has been Professor at the National Swedish Police Board and is regularly consulted by media as the country's foremost expert on crime. He is the author of nine novels, all of which have been bestsellers in Scandinavia.

Review: DESTINATION UNKNOWN, Agatha Christie

• Format Kindle (Amazon)
• File Size: 400 KB
• Print Length: 292 pages
• Page Numbers Source ISBN: 0312981686
• Publisher: HarperCollins; Masterpiece ed edition (October 14, 2010). Originally published 1954.
• Sold by: HarperCollins Publishers
• Language: English
• ASIN: B0046A9MPE
• source: I bought it

 Synopsis (Amazon)


A young woman with nothing to live for is persuaded to embark on a suicide mission to find a missing scientist…

When a number of leading scientists disappear without trace, concern grows within the international intelligence community. Are they being kidnapped? Blackmailed? Brainwashed?

One woman appears to have the key to the mystery. Unfortunately, Olive Betteron now lies in a hospital bed, dying from injuries sustained in a Moroccan plane crash.

Meanwhile, in a Casablanca hotel room, Hilary Craven prepares to take her own life. But her suicide attempt is about to be interrupted by a man who will offer her an altogether more thrilling way to die…

My Take

Throughout her writing career Agatha Christie showed interest in the darker political forces that she thought challenged the democratic world..

We saw this emerge in the post World War One novels particularly those that featured Tommy and Tuppence.

The spectre of Communism is a common theme from the Russian Revolution onwards and it is obvious that Christie felt the need to raise awareness of what she saw as a threat among her readers.

In DESTINATION UNKNOWN renowned Western scientists have been disappearing, thought kidnapped by  Communist forces.

The setting is  post World War Two and after the establishment of the Iron Curtain. The British secret service is trying to find out what has happened to Tom Betterton, a renowned  nuclear physicist. When his wife of 6 months is killed in an aircaft accident in the Middle East, they seize the opportunity to substitute a young British woman for her. They believe Betterton's wife was on her way to meet up with her missing husband. The substitute, Hilary Craven, is asked to follow the same itinerary and see what eventuates.

And so there follows a rollicking if unlikely thriller where Hilary eventually catches up with the missing husband and a number of other missing scientists.

None of the usual Christie sleuths appear in this novel and there are also some rather predictable romantic elements.

My rating: 4.2

I read this as part of the Agatha Christie Reading Challenge

Agatha Christie Blog Carnival for December 2012

 Many thanks to the contributors to the Agatha Christie Reading Challenge Blog Carnival for December 2012.

The contributions to the carnival are an interesting mixture of reviews and news items.

Agatha Christie Reading Challenge Participants

1. Review: HICKORY, DICKORY, DOCK - MiP 2. Discovery: Review of TOWARDS ZERO at Initiation Rites 3. Agatha Christie's Christmas titles 4. Review: After the Funeral - Margaret @ BooksPlease 5. The Pale Horse@Classic Mystery Hunt 6. Official Agatha Christie newsletter December 7. Progress in 2012: Margaret @ BooksPlease 8. Xmas Murder - en route to the house-party of death - Hercule Poirot's Christmas

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The Carnival for January 2013 is now open.

New-to-me authors: October to December 2012

I read 8 new-to-me authors this last quarter of 2012, making a total of 48 for the year.

I was particularly impressed with Australian authors Jaye Ford and Caroline Overington.

1. 4.3, CHALK VALLEY, Dan Johnstone
2. 4.3, MIDWINTER SACRIFICE, Mons Kallentoft
3. 4.4, BEYOND FEAR, Jaye Ford
4. 4.4, WHO KILLED PALOMINO MOLERO?, Mario Vargas Llosa
5. 4.7, DEATH OF A CARPET DEALER, Karin Wahlberg
6. 4.4, SISTERS OF MERCY, Caroline Overington
7. 4.5, THE BOMBER, Lisa Marklund
8. 4.5, LETHAL INVESTMENTS, K.O. Dahl

Best new-to-me crime fiction authors: a meme: October to December 2012

It's easy to join this meme.

Just write a post about the best new-to-you crime fiction authors (or all) you've read in the period of October to December 2012, put a link to this meme in your post, and even use the logo if you like.
The books don't necessarily need to be newly published.

After writing your post, then come back to this post and add your link to Mr Linky below. (if Mr Linky does not appear - leave your URL in a comment and I will add to Mr Linky when it comes back up, or I'll add the link to the post)
Visit the links posted by other participants in the meme to discover even more books to read.

This meme will run again at the end of  March 2013.
See the summary for September 2012 

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