Liking this series more and more. Can get involved enough that I do not feel I am wasting time. Love the French language everywhere, forcing me to GooLiking this series more and more. Can get involved enough that I do not feel I am wasting time. Love the French language everywhere, forcing me to Google pronunciations and meanings. This is also a complicated story of past terrorism in Europe...one that almost lost me several times. France's relationship to the Basque freedom movement, and the pan-European communist movements are at the forefront. Brutal, secretive, post-individual movements that have no pity.
Bruno once again puts his township at the center of his concerns and enjoys the company of his animals, lovers, hunting and drinking partners. ...more
Who woulda thought Black Diamond was not about skiing but instead about truffles? This mystery veered into danger territory when the author decided toWho woulda thought Black Diamond was not about skiing but instead about truffles? This mystery veered into danger territory when the author decided to talk about several threads at once, clearly not at ease with the Asian portion.
Market stall owners of Asian descent are set upon by Asians of different nationalities and the immigration/fakes/drugs issues that crop up are all thrown in for flavor. The complicated nature of the relationships threaten to overcome the slow pace of Saint Denis but somehow Bruno manages to come out on top once again.
The similarly complicated relationship between Pamela and Bruno presents choices I wouldn't make the way they do, I don't thin change that might be necessary. Wrenching change is offset by pleasant additions to the character list, like Hector....more
I skipped around a little. This is Book #13 in the series, published in 2020 and it has so much current events featured that it seemed especially timeI skipped around a little. This is Book #13 in the series, published in 2020 and it has so much current events featured that it seemed especially timely. The main action takes place at Chateau Rock which is owned by an aging British rock star. The musician's son is in love with a wealthy Russian who comes to the chateau to visit with her bodyguard and a friend, who happens to have Ukrainian family history.
One of the parts I liked best was Bruno's 1) involvement with Isabel, who works for French and European intelligence, but also 2) Balzac's mating story, his first encounter with the female of his species. Really quite involving, to one who's never been involved in such doings.
Very fast paced starting midway, but the rest is as wonderful and slow as one would hope a French village market would be... ...more
I just inhaled this--it was so good. Not used to reading novels these past few years, at first I found the chapters just slightly too long. But I soonI just inhaled this--it was so good. Not used to reading novels these past few years, at first I found the chapters just slightly too long. But I soon settled in and I just loved the characterizations, the language, the descriptions of heat, the language, the handcrafts of the main characters, the language, the immediate sense of danger one gets from a father returning home and from having a teenager in the house.
I should have kept her first book in the series because I wanted to go back and reread it, to enjoy it once again. I loved that one, too, and we don't absolutely need the first to understand the second, but one wants to enjoy the full span of it, the American settling in to a small Irish town. It is a little painful. French gets everything right in this, I thought...she pulls us this way and that and the end is a total surprise and unexpected, though we knew it wasn't working out the way the headlights were pointed.
It is unlikely that we have ever heard a history like this one about political leadership in America before, during and after WWII. The focus is intimIt is unlikely that we have ever heard a history like this one about political leadership in America before, during and after WWII. The focus is intimate and at the same time national: the author’s grandmother, Eunice Hunton Carter, was the most widely known Black Republican working as a deputy assistant district attorney in New York City during the second world war. She was instrumental in the conviction of Lucky Luciano of mob control of the prostitution racket in New York City in the 1930s.
Back when the history of Black Americans was still being ignored by the mainstream white press, Eunice Hunton Carter was blazing a path and creating her own weather. Eunice Carter was Black royalty, being the daughter of two leaders, William Alphaeus Hunton and Addie Waites Hunton, who were instrumental in the development of YMCA/YWCA and NAACP from the earliest days.
Her grandson, Stephen L. Carter, a lawyer and award-winning novelist, had plenty of material to use for this book because Eunice’s every move was covered by a mostly adoring Black press, first as a member of Harlem “sassiety” and especially after she ran for office [and lost]. Not winning public office left her open to accept another opportunity. A special prosecutor, Thomas E. Dewey, was appointed to try the mob in NYC court; he hired twenty lawyers. One was Eunice.
What so fascinates me is the way we get all turned around in party politics at this time. Democrats in New York were crooks, all part of Tammany Hall’s criminal coterie…and racist. Republicans were racist also, but at least made noise about giving opportunity to qualified Black Americans, for honoring those who fought in WWII and for ending discriminatory practices. Eunice never had all the opportunities her talents promised and was never paid what she was worth, but she was respected.
This book presents a look at 1940s and 50s history that we have never had the opportunity to read: what life was like for Black people, even well-educated and well-traveled Black people. The author tells of Governor Dewey running again and again for president with fervent and furious campaigning help by Eunice Carter, and finally, famously, losing to Truman.
The author is careful and generous with his grandmother’s memory. He picks out her many failures to advance–she was a striver and had a thirst for responsibility– and tries to be evenhanded with the reasons for those failures. There was plenty of blame to spread around: Eunice was charming and ‘regal’ is a word that is used by observers, but perhaps not as warm and ordinary as those who make friends easily. She was honored and admired.
Her own family life seemed a little like her own, growing up: the children were left to someone else. Schooling was distant, with limited opportunities to spend what we now call ‘quality time’ with parents. Eunice had a son, Lisle, Jr., who became an important federal appointee later, in the late 60s. Eunice was a Republican in a time when Democrats were in ascendancy. She never got her appointment to higher office in Washington, though she wouldn’t have said no if the opportunity called. ...more
This summer the Iranian government issued a postage stamp on the novelist Dowlatabadi’s 74th birthday commemorating his lifetime of work. Despite the This summer the Iranian government issued a postage stamp on the novelist Dowlatabadi’s 74th birthday commemorating his lifetime of work. Despite the regime’s professed respect for the art of the novelist, Dowlatabadi’s The Colonel is still not published in his own country. It was first published in Germany, where it was shortlisted for the 2009 Haus der Kulturen Berlin International Literary Award. After publication in Britain, the novel was longlisted for the 2011 Man Asian Literary Prize and it won the 2013 Jan Michalski Prize for Literature based in Switzerland.
This novel was begun by Dowlatabadi in the 1980’s and periodically added to and amended until the author declared it ready for publication in 2008. It relates the story of a man, a military man of discipline and principles, who appears torn asunder by the change sweeping his country and his family in light of the 1979 revolution against the Shah which was the end of a 2,500-year history of monarchies. His wife is dead by his own hand for her adultery, and three of his children have been killed, two for their anti-Islamic tendencies, and one as a martyr for the cause of the new Islamic state under Khomeini. Two children remain, but the eldest son is sunk in an unresponsive nihilism as a result of the failure of the Communist faction he supported, and his daughter Farzaneh is married to an opportunist who shifts his allegiances with the changing political leadership.
One of Dowlatabadi’s great skills as a novelist is reputedly to use language in an earthy yet lyrical way. We cannot enjoy the original Persian, but we can see the straightforward way in which he draws his characters, exposing their weaknesses and failures while at the same time acknowledging that one could not have done differently.
"The colonel had always let his children find their own way in life...But now he could not help but wonder whether the dreadful fate that had overtaken every one of his children was in fact due to his laissez-faire approach. But no, this did not really provide the old man with an easy answer, either. He firmly believed that he had bequeathed to his children only the most natural of rights, namely the right to determine what they wanted to do with their lives...In the end, perhaps the colonel's wish that his children lead independent lives was a reaction on his part against a life which he felt had been imposed upon him. He felt that he had been short-changed by never having had the freedom to live his own life. This made him feel like some sort of cripple...At least one of you should look out for himself. It's not as though you were carrying the weight of all history on your shoulders! I'm not as strong as you think I am. That's what he really wanted to tell his children."
Dowlatabadi describes an interrogation session, torture, and what jail is like. He describes the total confusion and uncertainty among family members and the general populace for years after the revolution when the political winds shifted to and fro. He describes the agony of a parent who is despised by his children and who has to bury his tortured 14-year-old daughter on a rainy night without help from his family. He describes the guilt and desperation of educated and serious patriots who no longer believed in god or goodness as a result of what they have seen and how their understanding of their most basic rights as humans felt violated. Even though I have not had much opportunity to read Persian literature, there can be little doubt about how such an open and painful account of despair would be received by a sitting government.
"The colonel felt guilt, too--guilty for the very existence of his children, or lack of it, as the case may be."
Apparently the present government in Iran would be willing to publish this novel in Persian if the author would make some changes, which he has refused to do. And yet, for his other work which is widely hailed in Iran as unique and masterful, Dowlatabadi is respected and honored by the postage stamp in his honor.
"One would think that boys were born coy, but there lurks within them a dreadful, perverse force that can, in the blink of an eye, turn them into savage beasts, beasts that since the beginning of history have been easily drawn into committing the most appalling of crimes, just to prove themselves. They follow orders to the letter and call what they do acts of heroism. Can we blame them? What about us, the people who send these unformed lumps of soft putty out onto the street, where they fall into the arms of the first merchants of villainy they come across? And we just sit back and wait for them to be turned into rods to beat our own backs..."
This book is an important addition to the literature coming from the Middle East, and one hopes that one will never have read its like again. ...more
This is the stuff of nightmares, and David Grann will once again astonish readers with his ability to synthesize material from god-knows-where and preThis is the stuff of nightmares, and David Grann will once again astonish readers with his ability to synthesize material from god-knows-where and present what looks like a whole piece of sail. But...the winds and waters of south America sound so astounding they cannot be believed. Can you imagine what these folks went through? Nights I slept thinking of the pleasure of my soft bed, knowing I could not have endured...When the end of Grann's telling came, and I am showing the greatest restraint by not telling you what came after their shipwreck, I was open-mouthed at the conclusion.
I am not going to go through the details. The whole point of this book is details. Let me just say that when I heard of this book I naturally enough thought it was about a gamble. I would never have signed on with a ship called 'The Wager.' And I would have been right....more
Percival Everett is quite unlike anyone else. Just like the university course in this novel given by a professor named Percival Everett, this book is Percival Everett is quite unlike anyone else. Just like the university course in this novel given by a professor named Percival Everett, this book is nonsense. A black man who looks like Sidney Poitier is named Not Sidney Poitier, which leads to some absurdist conversations. Not Sidney is rich as Croesus, or rather, as rich as Ted Turner of CNN fame, which allows him to do pretty much whatever he wants. But what does he want?
As with all Percival Everett books, this is worth reading just to see where his mind is going...we can all see his mind is going, but if you want to know where, check this out.
And please. Go see the film American Fiction. It is the film version of Erasure. I am looking forward to seeing it next week....more
This book was originally published a decade ago but we can see from the reportage that so much of what is happening today in Jerusalem has been going This book was originally published a decade ago but we can see from the reportage that so much of what is happening today in Jerusalem has been going on much too long. Some of the same stuff we read about today with horror is in this book.
Delisle is a wonderful cartoonist who includes enough detail to make us feel as though we have a good portrait of a place. Trash and smells come through, gorgeous shiny domes of gold are clearly depicted. But Delisle has no axe to grind so he is almost the perfect cipher. He just draws what he sees and what he sees is breathtaking.
His wife is a doctor with Médicins San Frontières (MSF) or Doctors Without Borders and they work in conflict areas. Therefore, she works in Gaza so one may assume Delisle will have the viewpoint of "the oppressed." He never got to Gaza because of restrictions on his movement, so he concentrates his energies on Jerusalem. There is plenty to see there.
I highly recommend this book for insights gleaned while viewing a place from someone else's eyes. ...more
Do I really need to tell you to read this book? It is not dense, but it is uncomfortable-making. That is a good thing. If you ever dared say you werenDo I really need to tell you to read this book? It is not dense, but it is uncomfortable-making. That is a good thing. If you ever dared say you weren't sure what a microaggression is, you will have example after example of the kind of rubbish Black Americans have had to put up with, like, forever. It pains me, but you can bet it pains them a great deal more.
There is so much we need to learn about the lives of Black Americans, how they were, how they are. I recall thinking when I was a teen that we white people were not privy to the mysteries...there seemed no way to get that knowledge unless one lived together in one neighborhood. And we did not. Shame, in all senses of the word.
One paragraph hit me like a club:
As a measure of the enduring role of caste interests in American politics, the shadow of the Civil War seemed to hang over the 2008 election. It turned out that Obama carried every state that Abraham Lincoln had won in 1860, an election with an almost entirely white electorate but one that became a proxy for egalitarian sentiment and for the future of slavery and of the Republic. "The cultural divide of the Civil War on racial grounds," wrote the political scientist Patrick Fisher of Seton Hall University, "can thus still be considered to be influencing American political culture a century and a half later."
This short shots series is really a great idea. It is basically a book-length short story or a short story with the heft of a novel. It is easy to seeThis short shots series is really a great idea. It is basically a book-length short story or a short story with the heft of a novel. It is easy to see Jassy Mackenzie's influence and it is because of her great thriller-writing skill that I picked this one up. I'd like to ask her why she didn't write another, and if I were to guess...but I shouldn't speculate. I have been wrong before.
This shows South Africa's crime scene, and it is terrifying to contemplate. Parts of major cities that are completely lawless, and one cannot even drive through, or stop one's car for fear of hijacking. But this also looks at the illegal gold mining that takes place and the dangers of mines that are officially closed but still being used by unscrupulous bosses with trafficked workers from elsewhere.
I've never read any Patterson, so the muscular feel may be his influence, but there is a strong female character that saves it from being a vehicle for the tall dark green-eyed body guard....more
What a masterful police procedural this is. Rendell wrote this in the 1980s, shortly after China opened to the West. She beautifully captures the oddiWhat a masterful police procedural this is. Rendell wrote this in the 1980s, shortly after China opened to the West. She beautifully captures the oddities of train travel and life under Communist Party rule, the humid heat of Guangzhou and the strange beauty of the southern mountains in the city of Guilin.
Shortly after the return of famed police Chief Inspector Wexford to England, deaths among those he’d met while traveling in China ties their lives together once again. Rendell was in her fifties and at the height of her powers when she wrote this book and it shows in every sentence. She somehow makes star-crossed love stories believable and the chintz-upholstered, heavily-draped world of the wealthy in England accessible.
Rendell died in 2015 but she remains one of Britain’s mystery greats....more
Amazing book. Fascinating story, stupendous research. Woo keeps researching to the very end, looking at the families that came from the union of Willi Amazing book. Fascinating story, stupendous research. Woo keeps researching to the very end, looking at the families that came from the union of William and Ellen Craft, uncovering details that make the whole feel very real indeed. The world was in turmoil in 1848, you won’t be surprised to learn. But I wasn’t prepared for how the moment is mirrored in what is happening today: the sharp divides, fake news, screaming denunciations and posted threats.
Ellen and William Craft, two slaves owned by different masters, decided one Christmas that the time was ripe for them to escape to the north using a plan they’d prepared in four days. She would dress as a young man and he would be her manservant slave. She’d had experience traveling with her master and so knew how things outside her plantation worked. He was tall and capable and calm under stress, but their plans were upended more ways than one.
The Crafts were received with warmth by abolitionists in Philadelphia though they were cautious to the point of near-refusing the generosity of a Quaker family, the Ivins: “I have no confidence whatsoever in white people. They are only trying to get us back to slavery,” Ellen later reports. Later, Woo describes the sentiment among escaped slaves that included Frederick Douglass in Boston:
“once back in the States [from England], Douglass had grown increasingly angry, disillusioned, and impatient with American abolitionists, who moved so slowly and too often betrayed their own prejudices, subtle or not. Even some in [social reformer and journalist William Lloyd] Garrison’s closest circle were know to utter racial expletives on occasion.”
Once the Crafts were [safely? no…] on the lecture circuit in New England, I sought out Woo’s own explanation of how she did her research. Several of those interviews are on YouTube and in each, the questions and her answers are slightly different, but one comes away with the sense that the narrative propelled research into the time. The Crafts wrote their own personal histories, but with many pieces that Woo wanted to know missing.
The Craft’s escape from slavery wasn’t that long ago, a fact that continues to horrify me. We’re talking the length of two human lives ago. Crazy. But it’s been as chaotic and tempestuous and argumentative in the United States before now, and what we have learned is that people in general do not change until they are absolutely forced to change. Witness slavery. Witness environmental protection. There will still be breakouts of resistance against change going forward, but gradually we will come to see slavery and environmental degradation as great wrongs.
This story of escape is dense. There is so much Woo is telling us that we did not know that three hundred some-odd pages does not feel too long. We sense the depth of research and know there is more to mine from this story. Context is everything. Woo writes sentences that hint at interesting side trails; she names names in the places the Crafts overnighted. Even though it probably should be self-evident that by the 1848 the antislavery movement was well established, this feels new.
One thing that stuck with me is that Ellen Craft was ‘owned’ by her blood sister when she escaped. In fact, Ellen was gifted to that sister Eliza upon Eliza’s marriage because the wife of Ellen’s father and mistress of the house in which she worked was angry that people kept mistaking Ellen for one of that mistress’ white daughters. She looked so much like the husband…But forever after Ellen Craft would not speak ill of Eliza, her sister by blood and her mistress at the time of her abscondment.
Woo speculates that the names of Ellen and William Craft are not better known because their lives were complicated and had no period of ‘happily ever after.’ Perhaps that is true. Certainly it casts a pall over their American story to know how hard it was for them right to the end, and how one obstacle overcome only showed a higher mountain right behind. But it is also true that in America, white folks do not like to be reminded of times when they relied on the labor of slaves to build their fortunes. That could be a reason their story is not retold in schools and in theatre.
This totally fascinating book well deserves the raining plaudits. ...more
Word of this book’s popularity spread and I received the book with assurances I may find it interesting. Indeed, I did. Enraptured with octopus anywayWord of this book’s popularity spread and I received the book with assurances I may find it interesting. Indeed, I did. Enraptured with octopus anyway, I was surprised debut author Van Pelt managed to pull this off as a fiction, but it worked very well after a sluggish first half.
While I am not usually interested in reading about a grumpy older woman, in this case Tove reminded me so much of people of Nordic descent that I have known that I found her approachable. And Marcellus, the octopus, well…he was a wonder and lovable in his invertebrate way. Probably the most disturbing portrait in the story was that of a teenaged boy who imagined himself unloved and who appeared destined to flame out in a drugged and drunken stupor before he even knew the good bits. It felt too real to be comfortable.
Tove is certifiably old, at 70 years, but to keep busy and because she finds it interesting, she works at a cleaner at a local aquarium on the northwest coast of the U.S. She notices that Marcellus appears to watch her from his hiding place and she makes efforts to befriend him. It works! Marcellus loses a bit of his fear and Tove allows him to escape his tank to eat some of the ‘seafood’ in the other tanks at night without telling the management.
Its a reasonable arrangement until Tove hurts herself falling off a ladder. Then things start to unravel and the book takes flight. The second half of the story is propulsive and hard to put down, so involved are we with the lives of these characters. Van Pelt does a great job of writing with enough depth that we understand and recognize the motivations of all players and are grateful for the opportunity to think long and hard about the octopus Marcellus.
I read recently that fishermen are planning to make octopus the center of the seafood menus in restaurants now (now that they have managed to overfish all other types of seafood). I would urge everyone to think more than twice about choosing octopus to eat. We really do not want this species to collapse. Also, if you have access to Netflix, please try to see the film, My Octopus Teacher, written and directed by a South African diver who spent a year befriending an octopus off the west coast of Cape Town....more
Jassy Mackenzie has an adrenaline-fueled writing style that makes portions of her novels difficult to put down and this is a perfect example. There isJassy Mackenzie has an adrenaline-fueled writing style that makes portions of her novels difficult to put down and this is a perfect example. There is often a sexy thread, too, that weaves through the piece…will she or won’t she? But while this title and a couple of Mackenzie’s other novels focus on environmental crimes, this novel feints and gives us a national security and industrial crime: nuclear waste that can be used for weapons.
The central mystery telegraphed to me early, so I read mostly to see how Mackenzie drew it out and for the pleasure of reading her on South Africa again. It is really all local action since the national security aspect takes a second seat, serving only to bump the case to a high enough level to involve de Jong’s love interest, David Patel.
But we are thrown a curve ball with several people seeming to be good choices as bad guys…only to have them turn up dead. We are thoroughly confused as to who is handling the local plant sabotage and who is handling the international transport of the really dangerous nuclear byproduct. A much different book could have come from all this, but I was just as happy to stay in South Africa.
Mackenzie introduced us earlier to a tangential character that she fills in with affectionate strokes in this novel, Warrant Officer Mweli. When Mweli is threatened late in the action, I found myself praying she’ll get through it. I’d love to see her developed further in future books, but this may be the end of the road for Mackenzie, as it was published in 2017 and is the last so far in the series. (I hope not.)
Mackenzie does have another series, apparently, not all available in the U.S. In 2020 Mackenzie published an erotic novella called Switch, but there are others: Soaring (2016), Drowning (2016) and Folly (2013). So, she's still working. Good news for us.
By the way, Mackenzie also had an influence on my interest in handguns. I find myself seeking pictures of different makes to get an idea of size, weight and accuracy. Maybe I’ll have tried a few at the range by the time Jade de Jong is back online....more
Percival Everett is a Black man. And he does something very special in this book—his 1000th, I think, or something like that. He imagines what would hPercival Everett is a Black man. And he does something very special in this book—his 1000th, I think, or something like that. He imagines what would happen when time come for retribution. And it ain’t gonna look like Donald Trump imagines it. (view spoiler)[ The thing is, he’s so funny when he’s telling us what could happen. We’re snickering and really, it is pretty gruesome. But he’s got the whole security pyramid working on the case before they realize exactly what is happening, the FBI, the state police, the local cops…everybody is trying to figure out who is doing these killings.
The thing is, it isn’t just killings. It is mutilations, and inventive ways of killing that are each a little different across the country. To remind folks about Emmett Till, and to take their pound of flesh for what happened to him. But my goodness, to make that funny, one has to be some kind of writer. And Everett is that. (hide spoiler)]...more
Everett does what he has done so often in the past: stares at a thing so long it is burned on the retina. Then he writes about it in a way that is heaEverett does what he has done so often in the past: stares at a thing so long it is burned on the retina. Then he writes about it in a way that is heartbreaking, funny, painful and very human. We move through his fictional world seeing more ironic reality than fiction. But there is a way his fiction is unlike other people’s fiction, and each new fiction is unlike his previous fictions.
There is a distinct sense of Everett literally making it all up as he goes along. Not for him the grand sagas where “it is written…” There is an untidiness and crazy ridiculousness that I love, wondering how his characters, beaten and bruised, are going to get out of this. I mean, at one point in this tale, Ol’ Jim gets shot up by his onetime owner, floats downstream on a log, manages to climb onto a paddle boat plying the Mississippi, gets blown up on said paddle boat and finds Huck Finn, from whom he’d been separated when they started their journey south.
The book ends in a way I wasn’t expecting. Most of what happens in the novel is something I wasn’t expecting. It is a series of painful truths that we should have heard long ago, but should be grateful to be hearing now. In the end, the white people in this book are more afraid of language spoken properly than they are of a gun. They are more afraid of Black folks finding their freedoms than of anything else. After all, gun owners “are not after me” they may imagine. How much of today is explained and revealed by this humorous tale of Huck Finn and Ol’ Jim?...more
We go to the eastern coast north of Durban in this novel, to Richards Bay. Jade is meant to meet her lover David Patel there by the golden sands and iWe go to the eastern coast north of Durban in this novel, to Richards Bay. Jade is meant to meet her lover David Patel there by the golden sands and in preparation Jade takes scuba diving lessons. I found myself unnecessarily jealous of this fictional setup.
Shortly, as is usual for Ms. de Jong, people start dying. And not just dying, but being horribly slain and everyone is looking around for a culprit. In this particular novel, far-flung characters are somehow connected, though just how this is so does not become apparent until the very end.
{spoiler alert} (view spoiler)[ The third in the Jade de Jong series is my least favorite of this series. Mackenzie was stretched in this one, and just barely made it all come together at the end. Also, sorry to say, she told us early in the novel that animals and plants were not her forte, similarly to her father. She knew every brand and type of shooting instrument, but the natural world was not her area of expertise.
So Jade’s understanding of the destruction of the natural world in this novel about crimes to the environment might be perceived as ‘thin.’ We forgive her because she is perfectly willing to admit she knows nothing. Her real horror is reserved for the possibility that the golden sands might no longer be available to hard working cops and business owners rather than for the sea creatures including, ahem, reptiles like leatherback turtles. (hide spoiler)]
It is hard to retain any sense of superiority when Mackenzie writes a smackdown like this stunning description:
"Most of the cars had GP number plates and were also heading west, holiday over, back to Gauteng. Grim-faced at the prospect of returning to world, with their tank tops and shorts revealing deep sun tans and post-holiday flab. Arms as bloated and brown as cooked sausages, feet slapping along in flip-flop sandals. Kids trailing behind them, bored, restless and yelling."
Don’t know about you, but I feel like I am there.
I got a bit lost in the description of the central crime, and I kept losing track of who the bad guys were. But heck, I hope Mackenzie had fun researching this one because Richards Bay sounds gorgeous....more
This tour de force by a celebrated veteran of Swedish police dramas in the van Veeteren series drips along so slowly…like an icicle melting in freezinThis tour de force by a celebrated veteran of Swedish police dramas in the van Veeteren series drips along so slowly…like an icicle melting in freezing temps…that one might be forgiven for thinking the police were doing nothing at all to catch the mysterious killer of a young boy.
And really, they weren’t. Another two murders started to put the wind up and made them look back…but look how easy it would have been to overlook all the clues that would have led them to the killer of the boy. If one of the murdered wasn’t former Chief Inspector Van Veeteren’s son, I think we can safely say an opportunistic mass murderer would have gone free.
The involvement of the now-retired Van Veeteren added to the misty hard-to-get a clear angle on the case, and yet everyone in the station was on their best behavior to solve this case “for the chief.” The chief was, at best, ambivalent about the death of his son, who was recovered from a history of addiction. The scourge of drug addiction broke relationships and a life that barely had gotten started.
So, we are aware of the killer’s motives, actions, plans but we have no way to signal the same to the police. We grow increasingly anxious as the killer seems to have one solution to people finding out about his crime: kill them. Bodies keep accumulating and finally, finally, a clue is found that links the victims. It is the terrible tension that keeps us involved…how long can this go on and what on earth will be the thing to unravel the whole?
The writing and translation are stellar. There is one piece I must recount here:
“On Wednesday, December 9, it was 50 or so degrees, and the sky was high and bright. The sun seemed to be surprised, almost embarrassed at having to display itself in all its somewhat faded nudity.”
Hour of the Wolf ends with a scene in New York, and Nesser captures the cold December feel and the vastness that is New York. Chief Inspector Reinhart of Maardam stayed on the 24th floor of Trump Tower (!) with a view to the north and east of Manhattan. He describes how inhospitable it seemed in the chilly fall weather when the sun set early. (This was long before Trump ran for office, so Nesser had his finger on the pulse.)
First published in 1999, this can already be considered an old one, one of the last of the Van Veeteren series which were still being written, translated and published into the 2000s. Håkan Nesser won the Best Swedish Crime Novel Award three times and prestigious the Glass Key Award once. Around 2006, Nesser moved to Greenwich Village in New York for a couple of years where a new series featuring a Swedish police inspector with Italian roots, Inspector Gunnar Barbarotti, was published.
Nesser’s oeuvre is Scandi classic. Read them all....more
The second of Jassy Mackenzie’s Jade de Jong series is a big book: she opens her narrative to several countries and many seemingly unrelated cases. ThThe second of Jassy Mackenzie’s Jade de Jong series is a big book: she opens her narrative to several countries and many seemingly unrelated cases. The focus is trafficking of women across borders and the story is a desperate one for many unfortunate characters.
Mackenzie manages to capture the work style of every one we meet, from the school principal to the small time bureaucrat and seller of false documents. Even the nicely-dressed and -spoken man who delivers ultimatums about getting fake documents on time is believable, partly because he backs up his threats with action.
There is a particularly memorable scene that shares the experience of minibus taxi-riding in South Africa:
"The taxi driver was busy peeling a banana with his knee propped against the wheel. While he ate the fruit, he conducted an animated conversation with the man in the passenger seat. Lots of unbroken eye contact, reminding Jade of the way David liked to drive.
When he had finished, the taxi driver flung the banana skin out of the window and, still steering with his knee, began to peel an orange.
The vehicle felt wallowy on the road, its uneven progress a testimony to ancient shocks, balding tires, brakes worn down to the rim."
This novel exhibits horrific violence against those who are thought to threaten the system but again, as in previous Mackenzie novels, the pace is blistering. We can’t stop reading even if we want to. This novel particularly had great impetus that led us to a shocking conclusion.
This novel raised my opinion of Mackenzie’s skills even higher and I am thoroughly hooked now and must finish the series. I have already checked to see if there are any more novels in her oeuvre and I am surprised and disheartened to see she may have gone back to her day job. Her character development and braided story lines are far more accomplished than most and I certainly hope she is well compensated for giving up novel writing, if indeed she has.
What she really needs is a film contract for a limited TV series. Her characters and themes rock out loud and are way suitable for a diverse audience....more
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