Cold Hearts - Gunnar Staalesen

'On the exterior, everything looked nice and proper, but who had any idea what corruption was hidden - not only behind these walls but any such walls anywhere in the world?'

Cold Hearts is an excellent crime read featuring Norwegian private investigator Varg Veum looking into the case of a missing woman in Bergen, and uncovering crimes as well as a dark history of sadness and a web of lies as his search develops. 

I liked the opening chapter which gave a little background to Veum's life. Then we are taken back six months to a case involving a missing woman. Her friend Hege comes to him to ask him to help find her. Margrethe was a prostitute and, after turning away from a car one night, she was evidently very frightened. The woman who went in the car in her place returned injured. Margrethe's whereabouts are now unknown, and then shortly afterwards it is discovered that her brother Karl, who was in prison, is also missing. 

The book has a great lead character in Veum, a former social worker who puts this background to good use here when it comes to understanding and handling dysfunctional families, and individuals who haven't had a great start in life and/or those whose lives have taken a bad path. He uses his experience to dig deep and unravel the murky secrets of the past and discover how they have influenced the present. I enjoyed his interactions with the police and others as he pursued the truth. 

This is a well-plotted page-turner of a crime story with a firm sense of place. I really enjoyed the first-person narration by Veum; I liked getting to know his ways of thinking and his methods; when it comes to the investigation, he 'was impatient to get started. I knew from bitter experience that time was a thief. When you arrived where you wanted to go it was often too late.'

There's a dark tone to the tale, there is brutality, and there is a real feeling of sadness about the lives that some people endure and the bleaker aspects of society. Veum ponders '...what was it that caused lives to veer off in different directions? Was it possible to predict, or was it simply woven into your destiny from a very young age? Such fragile boundaries,...'

I am sometimes a little hesitant to read a novel that's part of a series when I haven't read the previous books. I found that despite not having read any other books in this series, I didn't have any problems enjoying this one or understanding anything. 

I thought the translation by Don Bartlett was really well done and read well. I love the blue/turquoise tones of the cover, and the image fits the story. I really enjoyed reading this one, for me it was a really good introduction into what seems to be a strong detective series; I will definitely be looking out for more of this series now.

Thank you to the publisher for kindly sending me a copy of this novel for an honest review.

Published by Arcadia Books
Translated from the Norwegian by Don Bartlett

Under A Silent Moon - Elizabeth Haynes

Needless to say, a new book from a favourite author is always something to get very excited about, and as a big fan of this author, having read and enjoyed all three of her gripping novels thus far, (Into the Darkest Corner, Revenge of the Tide, and Human Remains), I was therefore thrilled to hear about Under a Silent Moon. I grew more excited as I read that the story would comprise of a police investigation, the timespan would run over only six days, and that there would be ‘source material and evidence’ included within it, so that the reader could themselves be party to the clues that the investigation team have to hand, and thus feel involved in the story at a somewhat deeper level.

Elizabeth Haynes introduces us to DCI Louisa Smith, newly-promoted and challenged with leading her team in investigating the murder of an attractive young woman, Polly Leuchars, in the cottage she lived in, part of a local farm. It soon becomes evident that a suspected suicide of another local woman in her car at a nearby quarry may well be linked to Polly’s murder, and it’s up to the team to discover the truth behind the lies, unearth the facts and piece together the clues as to a possible connection between the two deaths. This author hasn’t shied away from darker, sordid or unscrupulous aspects of humanity and relationships in her previous novels, and neither does she here; as well as murder, there are affairs, sexual encounters, there is jealousy, desire and greed.

The novel follows the investigation as it progresses, through witness statements, interviews with witnesses and suspects, chasing up leads. What I found interesting and innovative here is that, as well as the narrative being divided up into the six days of the investigation, and within that the down to the hours and minutes of the day, witness statements, emails, telephone calls and text messages, reports and other items are also presented here within the text using different layouts/fonts and using accurate terminology, so that as I read, it felt like the information before me was very immediate and real, and that I was thoroughly involved in this story as it unfolded.

The author presents an authentic depiction of a murder investigation room, and in particular, through the character of Jason Mercer, she highlights the role of the police intelligence analyst – a role that she herself has held in her working life – in compiling reports and charts and presenting information that can be key to finding the answers in a case like this. 

As well as the police procedural elements of the tale, the story also moves between the activities of the main characters within the village who were connected to or involved with those deceased, so gradually building up a fuller picture for the reader of how everything fits together. Nothing is revealed too quickly, the intrigue is sustained so that I wanted to know just a little more about each of them in order to make my mind up as to whose loss and grief was genuine, and who was hiding something. There is development of main character DCI Louisa Smith beyond her workplace, too, though her relationships do tend to involve work colleagues. I believe that this is the start of a series, so it will be interesting to see how she develops over future novels.

 

Under a Silent Moon is an intricate, intelligent, well-paced crime story that kept me guessing; it was great to see Elizabeth Haynes’ take on a police procedural style novel. The author was successful in making me suspicious of a fair few of the characters from the way her story is weaved, though there are clues and pointers towards what is in fact the right track (easy for me to say looking back having finished the book and discovered the outcome though I suppose!)

An engrossing page-turner that captures human strengths, desires and weaknesses vividly; if you’re like me, you’ll want to sit back, jump in, and not leave your seat until the end!

Source - review copy
Publisher - Sphere - available now as an ebook with print copies due in April 2014.
Follow the author on twitter @elizjhaynes #Underasilentmoon and visit her website here.
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The City of Strangers - Michael Russell - Author Guest Post

I am delighted to feature a guest post by author Michael Russell! 

Michael's new novel, The City of Strangers, is the second to feature Irish detective Stefan Gillespie, and is published by Avon on November 7th 2013.

Author guest post by Michael Russell

THE CITY OF STRANGERS

‘The Yankee Clipper was approaching New York. Stefan saw something, the top of a building… then the city, looking down to Manhattan from the East River. It was exactly as he had imagined it, yet breathtakingly like nothing he could ever have imagined.’

Chandler’s Los Angeles and Hammett’s (and others’) New York are two cities that dominate 20^th century crime fiction. But if Los Angeles has the greatest writer, New York has something else. More than any city it defines the 20^th century. For most of that century it was the most exciting city on earth, especially in the 30s and 40s. No city even looked like it. Someone said there was one other city as exciting in 3000 years of western history, 4^th century BC Athens, but without skyscrapers, movies, jazz, air conditioning, or detective fiction (the only literary genre the Greeks didn’t invent?) – it’s no contest!

My first story about Irish detective Stefan Gillespie, set in Ireland and Danzig in 1935, was about the kind of killings that come out of the darkness that takes hold of ordinary people, but it took Gillespie close to darker events too, the rise of Nazism. I wanted to write a series using the same kind of tale to spin good yarns and to explore Ireland and its compromised ‘neutrality’ in the years before World War II, and during the war itself. I also wanted to ‘visit’ cities playing a role in the war, including neutral ones like New York (initially) and Lisbon. So New York was next when I wrote The City of Strangers.

Everybody falls in love with New York. As Milos Forman said, ‘I get out of a New York taxi and it’s the only city where reality looks better than the postcards’. But the first time I visited New York I was surprised not by how much ‘now’ was around me, but how much of the whole 20^th century. Walking the city - Manhattan isn’t so big you can’t just do that and be absorbed by its mixture of grime, chaos, wonder - you don’t need a gallery to see the art of the 20^th century, just look up. Writing a novel partly set in New York in 1939 was irresistible. So many things came together. Most importantly the World’s Fair in Flushing Meadows; a sprawling, majestic vision of the World of Tomorrow, of democracy, plenty, life-enhancing technology, and hope for humanity. Almost every country on earth was there, though many were still colonial territories, but the great absentee was Germany. Within a year the only existence some countries had was a pavilion at the Fair; Czechoslovakia and Poland were gone. There was another vision. It wasn’t a fairground. It was about to plunge Europe and much of the world into the dark.

And that darkness was already in New York, despite its energy, despite the World’s Fair. When Garda Sergeant Gillespie arrives to bring a suspected murderer back to Dublin, he finds what he left behind has followed him. In Times Square American fascists fight anti-fascists in the street. Arguments about American neutrality and isolationism seem arguments about which side you’re going to be ‘neutral’ on. But it comes closer to home for Stefan. Some Irish-Americans, like some in Ireland, see war as an opportunity to rid Ireland of Britain for good. IRA plans for cooperation with the Nazis are hatched in New York as in Dublin. If Stefan thinks he’s a long way from what’s going on at home, the dead body of an old friend soon tells him otherwise. And when he offers to help an Irish woman who is in trouble as a result, he finds himself mired in unlooked for danger.

The story takes Stefan home before that danger is faced. On the way it follows him through Manhattan and Long Island, upstate to Lake Ontario and Canada. New York in 1939 is worth visiting. The City of Strangers is one way to get there. Don’t forget Duke Ellington is playing Small’s Paradise in Harlem, and watch for falling bodies if you’re heading to 7^th Avenue on West 59^th. When I started writing about New York in 1939 I had three things in my head: Duke Ellington playing Caravan; a newsreel of the NYPD marching in the St Patrick’s Day Parade; the island of Manhattan seen from a Yankee Clipper that had flown from Ireland. That’s often how stories start. Not always character and plot, but a place, an image, a memory. Small things you can’t get out of your head.

The next Stefan Gillespie novel will be set in 1940. It starts with Stefan investigating a seemingly motiveless murder in the Wicklow Mountains that leads him to discover that the accidental death of his wife Maeve eight years ago was murder too. It’s something that is going to turn his life upside down. The search for the killer will take him to the edge of the war in Europe, to the neutral city of Lisbon, packed with refugees escaping the carnage to come; to Franco’s Spain where a dying Irish International Brigade officer is still imprisoned; and to bitter retribution in England, as the Battle of Britain begins.

~~~~~

Many thanks to Michael Russell for this wonderful guest post.

Find Michael on twitter @ForgottenCities and visit his website here.

The first novel featuring Stefan Gillespie is called The City of Shadows, published by Avon

Find The City of Strangers on amazon here

The Twelfth Department - William Ryan

‘It’s said you get the job done, no matter what the risks or the obstacles.’

This is the third adventure in the now established series of historical crime novels from William Ryan set in 1930s Stalinist Russia, and featuring the brilliant lead character Captain Alexei Korolev of the Moscow Militia. I've really enjoyed this series thus far, each book has offered intriguing storylines set during a fascinating time and place in history with just enough period detail, and this third novel is no exception. 

This time, it's 1937 and Korolev's investigations into the murder of a top scientist lead him to become more involved than ever with the NKVD, the feared State Security service, becoming caught between two different departments who are at odds with each other. When another scientist is killed, and Korolev starts to discover what they were working on, things start to get rather complicated and dangerous to say the least.

Amongst all this, Korolev also finally has a visit from his son Yuri, who he sees very little of. He had planned some time off to spend with him, however, both the time off work and the happiness of this reunion are shortlived, and soon there is great anxiety for Korolev as young Yuri goes missing, making this investigation very personal.

There are so many conflicts for Korolev; wanting to do the right thing, yet not step out of line, making sure to be seen to be adhering to the will of his superiors, but solve the crime thoroughly and as effectively as he'd like to – he ‘always gets his man, come hell or high water’ – plus he has to find his missing son whilst not neglecting his investigations - so difficult and thus giving plenty of depth to his character and to the tale. As Korolev himself exclaims, in a great little exchange with Dubinkin, describing his difficult situation, ‘It feels like I’m a football being kicked around a field.’

I've said before that Korolev is an engaging, affable and moral lead character and I'll stick by that opinion here. He's imbued with humour and a sense of decency, and is liked by others, and he’s able to form working relationships with people from all levels of the society he exists in. I particularly liked the interaction between Korolev and Count Kolya, Chief of the Moscow Thieves, in this installment.

I love the author's writing style. There's a definitive, distinctive voice there telling the story; not intrusive, but certainly in control, and with a nice touch of dry humour at times. It feels as though the author has grasped the atmosphere of the times and conveyed it in his story so that as we are reading, the past is evoked for us and we get a real sense of the fear, secrecy and paranoia coursing through this society. 

There's enough here for a reader new to the series to pick up the background and enjoy it. Nevertheless I'd recommend reading the first two novels ideally (links to my reviews below) to get the most enjoyment out of it. 

I am firmly hooked on this series now and already wondering what is next in store for Korolev.

My reviews of The Holy Thief  and The Bloody Meadow.

Published by Mantle, an imprint of Pan Macmillan

Find the author on twitter @WilliamRyan_ and visit his website here to find out more - it's a really interesting companion to the books.

Thank you to the author and the publisher for kindly sending me a copy of this novel to read and review. 

Dead Simple - Peter James

'For the first time since he joined the Force, Roy Grace had recently begun wondering whether he should ever have become a policeman. From earliest childhood it was all he had wanted to be,...'

A group of friends are out on a stag night, and they have something unusual planned for the groom. Not long after they've carried out their plan, four of the friends out that night are found dead and no one seems to know where on earth Michael Harrison, the groom, is. Ashley Harper, Michael's fiancee, is distraught and frantic and, with only three days to go before her big day, she contacts the police. 

Enter DS Roy Grace. Grace has his own loss that he carries with him each day; his own wife Sandy disappeared one day nine years ago and he has never seen or heard from her since. He's an interesting character in many ways, one of which is his propensity to use somewhat unconventional methods such as the supernatural in aiding him with solving crimes. Grace is coming up to his fourtieth birthday as we meet him in this book, and there's plenty of other details to flesh out his character, including that 'he had a memory that bordered on photographic, he loved puzzles, and he was physically strong.'

This is the first novel in the Detective Superintendent Roy Grace series by Peter James and set around Brighton, with Grace part of the Sussex Police Force. I’ve been wanting to try this series for quite a while now, having heard so many good things about the books from other readers, and I wanted to ideally start at the beginning and give myself the chance to then follow the books through in order if I enjoyed it. 

And I did! I found it a very quick, engrossing, page-turning crime read with the well-structured short chapters that suit this kind of tale and make it hard to put down as it makes the reader want to see how each strand of the story will move on, and how the strands will ultimately be brought together. It had plenty of mystery, some intriguing twists and some genuinely nervy moments.

Needless to say, I'm looking forward to reading more of this series and seeing both how the stories progress and how this interesting and likeable main character develops. I've already bought the second book, Looking Good Dead. Here's a link to the Fantastic Fiction website which lists all the titles in the series in reading order; there are nine so far.  

Published by Pan 

I bought my copy of this novel.  

I read it as part of my 2013 TBR pile challenge.