Category: Crime

Burned by Thomas Enger

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Burned is the first in a new series of crime novels by Norwegian author Thomas Enger. This book is set in Oslo and introduces us to Henning Juul, a journalist working for 123news, an internet-based newspaper. When we first meet Henning he is trying to come to terms with the tragic death of his son, Jonas, in a house fire. On his first day back at work after a long absence, he is asked to cover the story of a young woman who has been found brutally murdered in a tent on Ekeberg Common. Henning’s research leads him from Oslo’s Muslim community to the world of film-making, but will his investigations make him the killer’s next target?

This series has a lot of potential and I’m pleased I could be there at the beginning rather than coming in halfway through the series which is what usually seems to happen to me! Although I didn’t think it was an outstanding book, there was a lot to like about Burned and I’m pleased to have discovered another Scandinavian crime writer whose work I enjoy. With its short chapters and fast-paced plot the book was difficult to put down and despite its length was a quick read.

There were plenty of twists and turns in the plot which helped to keep me interested, but while plot twists can be an important element of a good crime novel, I thought there were too many towards the end of the book. I wasn’t quite sure exactly what was supposed to be happening and I started to get slightly confused. The writing doesn’t always flow very well either, though this could be due to the translation (the book has been translated from the original Norwegian by Charlotte Barslund).

I enjoyed the descriptions of daily life in an internet newspaper office and the processes involved in researching, writing and publishing news items. I’ve never worked as a journalist but it all seemed quite realistic to me (which is to be expected as I believe Thomas Enger has experience in journalism himself). I also really liked Henning Juul and found him an intriguing character. I was left thinking that there must be a lot of aspects of his history and his personality still to explore, and that is why I’m already looking forward to the publication of the second book in the series.

I received a copy of this book from LibraryThing Early Reviewers

Full Dark House by Christopher Fowler

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One of the books I hope to be reading soon for the Transworld Book Group challenge is The Water Room, the second in Christopher Fowler’s Bryant and May series. As I already had a copy of the first in the series waiting to be read and I would prefer not to read them in the wrong order, I decided to read Full Dark House first. And I’m glad I did, because Full Dark House definitely has a ‘first in the series’ feel about it.

Arthur Bryant and John May are two elderly detectives who work for the Peculiar Crimes Unit, a branch of the London Metropolitan Police created to deal with unusual cases. When the PCU office is destroyed in an explosion, Bryant, who was inside the building, is presumed dead. His partner, May, who has worked with him for over sixty years, is determined to find out who killed Bryant and why.

In order to understand who may have been responsible for Bryant’s death, we are taken back in time to November 1940, when Bryant and May worked together on their very first case during the London Blitz. While bombs fell on the city night after night, the two young detectives were investigating the murders of several cast members of a controversial new play at the Palace Theatre. As the story moves backwards and forwards between 1940 and the present day, May searches for a connection between the ‘Palace Phantom’ and Arthur Bryant’s death.

With their different strengths and weaknesses, Arthur Bryant and John May complement each other perfectly and each of them approaches the investigation in his own way. Bryant has unconventional ideas, an active imagination and an interest in the paranormal, whereas May is the more logical and methodical of the two. Setting the story in two time periods sixty years apart was a good idea because it allowed us to watch the two detectives meeting each other for the first time in 1940 and to see how their relationship had developed over the intervening years. I liked both of them and am looking forward to getting to know them better throughout the rest of the series.

I loved the descriptions of black-outs, bomb shelters, rationing and other aspects of daily life in London during the Blitz – it all felt very convincing and realistic. In fact, of all the books I’ve read recently set in wartime London, this is probably the one that evokes the era best, which was something I hadn’t expected. I can tell Christopher Fowler must have researched every part of his book very thoroughly, because as well as all the little details that make his portrayal of London so believable, there are also some very detailed descriptions of the backstage layout of the theatre and lots of information on Greek mythology too.

Apart from a section in the middle of the book where the plot moved forward very slowly and nothing seemed to happen for a while, I really enjoyed my first introduction to Bryant and May. With two mysteries to solve, lots of plot twists, and a large cast of colourful characters both within the Peculiar Crimes Unit and at the theatre, Full Dark House is a great opening to the series.

The Mystery of the Blue Train by Agatha Christie

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Ruth Kettering is an American heiress who receives a set of valuable rubies as a gift from her father. Despite his warnings to keep them somewhere safe, Ruth takes the jewels with her on a trip to Nice. During her journey through France on the famous Blue Train, Ruth is found strangled to death in her compartment – and the case containing the rubies has disappeared. Hercule Poirot, who also happens to be travelling on the same train, promises to help Ruth’s father solve the crime and identify the killer. Suspicion falls first on Ruth’s husband, Derek Kettering, whom she had been about to divorce, and then on the mysterious Comte de la Roche. Is one of them the murderer?

I grabbed The Mystery of the Blue Train from the library shelf without really knowing anything about it. A bit of research now tells me it’s one of Agatha Christie’s less popular Poirot novels and now that I’ve read it I think I can see why. It was written quite early in her career and at a troubled time in her personal life, and apparently the author herself was unhappy with it. The book does have all the elements that should have added up to a classic Christie novel (a rich heiress, a journey on a luxury train, jewel thieves, the South of France – and Hercule Poirot himself, of course) but while I did enjoy it, I still felt there was something missing.

Compared to the other Agatha Christie books I’ve read, which admittedly isn’t all that many, this one was much longer and seemed to take a while to really get started (the actual crime doesn’t take place until about 100 pages into the book). There was a very long wait before Poirot made his first appearance and instead we spend a lot of time being introduced to other characters, which would have been okay had I liked these characters, but I found them a bit stereotypical, from the American millionaire to the French count to the old antiques dealer.

There were also a few sub-plots that I felt didn’t really add much to the story, although I did enjoy the dialogue between Poirot and Katherine Grey, a young woman he meets on the train who becomes involved in the murder investigation. The mystery itself kept me guessing, though I think there were probably enough clues to be able to work out at least part of the solution, if you were paying more attention than I was! The Mystery of the Blue Train was entertaining in places but is probably my least favourite Christie novel so far.

The Darkest Room by Johan Theorin

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“Those who have lived here in times gone by are still here,” said Gerlof, his coffee cup in his hand. “Do you think they rest only in graveyards?”

The Darkest Room is the second in a planned quartet of novels by crime writer Johan Theorin, all set on the Swedish island of Öland. In March I wrote about how much I enjoyed the first book in the series, Echoes from the Dead, and I thought this one was even better. So far I have been very impressed by these books. I would describe them as intelligent, well-written mystery novels with believable characters and one of the most vivid and atmospheric settings I’ve come across. There are surprises, revelations and plot twists but nothing that I’ve found too hard to believe. And in this second novel there’s a touch of the supernatural too, as well as some Swedish folklore.

There are three main threads which alternate throughout the novel. The first follows Joakim and Katrine Westin who have recently moved to Öland with their two young children, Livia and Gabriel. Their new home, the isolated manor house at Eel Point, has an interesting history which is slowly revealed through a number of flashbacks. The second thread features Henrik Jansson and his involvement with a pair of criminals, the Serelius brothers, who are planning a series of burglaries. And the third storyline introduces us to Tilda Davidsson, a police officer who is another new arrival on the island. Add a couple of abandoned lighthouses and a ‘sacrificial peat bog’ and it soon becomes clear that this is much more than just another haunted house story.

Although I personally prefer to read a series in the correct order if possible, it wouldn’t be necessary to read Echoes from the Dead before this one; they don’t really follow on from each other in any way. The only links that connect the two books are the Öland setting and the character of Gerlof Davidsson, a retired sea captain. He’s Tilda Davidsson’s great-uncle and with his knowledge of Eel Point and the superstitions surrounding it, she decides to enlist his help with her investigations. Gerlof, at eighty years old, again plays an important part in solving the mystery as he did in the previous book. I love Gerlof; with his independence, his quiet confidence and his ability to listen he’s a great character and it was wonderful to meet him again.

On the author’s website, Theorin states that his aim in writing the Öland quartet is to set each novel in a different season, so that the atmosphere of the story is influenced by the weather and the changing landscape. Having now read the first two books in the quartet, I can say that so far he has done this very well. The Darkest Room is set in the winter after all the summer tourists have left Öland and the island is at its most deserted. Snow storms, blizzards and relentless cold all add to the mood of the book. Theorin doesn’t give us pages and pages of lengthy descriptions of the scenery; instead, the descriptions are woven into the fabric of the story conveying both the beauty of the island and the sense of loneliness and isolation that give the setting its eerie feel. I’m now looking forward to starting the third book, The Quarry, and finding out what Öland is like in the spring!

Darkside by Belinda Bauer

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When an elderly woman is found murdered in her own home in the sleepy village of Shipcott, local policeman Jonas Holly begins to investigate. A team of detectives soon arrive to take over the case, however, and Jonas finds himself pushed into the background. As the snow falls in Shipcott and tension builds in the village, the killer strikes again and again. Then Jonas himself starts to receive anonymous notes taunting him for his incompetence and he begins to grow concerned that his wife, Lucy, could be in danger…

Darkside is the second novel by crime writer Belinda Bauer. After finding her first book, Blacklands, so impressive when I read it last year I was looking forward to reading this one – and I wasn’t disappointed. But this is a different type of crime novel – while Blacklands featured a highly original plot involving a child killer communicating with a young boy from his prison cell, Darkside is more of a traditional murder mystery.

I hadn’t realised that this book was going to be set in the same village as the previous novel so it was a nice surprise to see one or two old friends making a brief reappearance. However, both books do stand alone and Darkside is not really a sequel. It’s set four years later, the plot is entirely different and the focus is on a new group of characters. The only thing the two novels really have in common is the setting. And the setting, by the way, is one of the strong points of both books. Shipcott feels like a real English village and its inhabitants are so realistic they feel like they really could be the people you live or work with. I love the world Belinda Bauer has created and I’m glad she decided to revisit it.

Jonas Holly was an interesting character. We are told that as a young police officer he had once been very ambitious, but had given up his hopes of career advancement to care for his beloved wife, Lucy, who was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. I thought Bauer’s portrayal of their relationship, with both husband and wife trying to come to terms with Lucy’s diagnosis, was very moving and believable. The other person with whom we spend a lot of time is the head of the murder investigation, DCI Marvel, one of those obnoxious characters who, despite being completely unlikeable, is great to read about.

The only slight problem I had with this book was that the ending felt very dramatic and didn’t really match the tone of the rest of the story. But I didn’t guess who the murderer was until near the end, so it worked in that respect. Looking back the clues were there, but I didn’t pick up on them straight away as I had expected the killer to be someone entirely different to who it actually turned out to be! I loved this gripping novel and can’t wait to see what Belinda Bauer’s next book is like.

Death in the Clouds by Agatha Christie

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Death in the Clouds, first published in 1935, is one of Agatha Christie’s many novels featuring the Belgian detective Hercule Poirot.

Ten people are travelling on a plane flying from Paris to London. During the flight a woman is found dead in her seat – apparently a murder has taken place without anyone seeing it happen. Among the other passengers is Poirot, who can’t believe a crime has taken place right under his nose! The mystery proves a difficult one to solve and after landing in England the suspects are allowed to go back to their everyday lives. As Poirot continues to investigate, he uncovers some secrets about the murdered woman and discovers that more than one of her fellow passengers had a reason to want her dead…

Like many classic mysteries, the crime takes place in a confined space so that we know from the beginning who the suspects are. The fact that this novel is set on a plane makes a nice change from the usual country house! The suspects include a beautiful aristocrat with a cocaine addiction, two prominent archaeologists, a doctor, a dentist, a businessman, a hairdresser – and my personal favourite, a crime novelist, whose inclusion gives Christie a chance to have some fun at the expense of her own genre. The characters don’t have a lot of depth and there are only a few that we get to know well, yet Christie makes it easy to remember who is who. There are plenty of red herrings to make the reader suspect first one person and then another; it’s even possible that Poirot himself could have committed the murder!

I enjoyed studying the seating plan at the front of the book and the list of the contents of the passengers’ luggage in an attempt to work out what had happened – but as usual, I didn’t even come close to solving the mystery. In a way I’m glad that my crime-solving skills are so bad because it means I can be surprised by all the twists and turns of the plot as the author intended.

I’m having fun working through all the Agatha Christie books available from my library’s ebook section, so you can expect some more Christie posts from me in the near future. It’s funny because her books had never held much appeal for me in the past, though maybe I was just unlucky with the ones I was choosing to read. Although Death in the Clouds is not one of the best that I’ve read so far, it was still an enjoyable read.

And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie

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Although I usually enjoy mysteries, I’ve never considered myself to be a big fan of Agatha Christie. I didn’t really like the Poirot books I’ve read (though admittedly I’ve only tried a few of them) and Miss Marple didn’t appeal to me either. If only I had started with this one instead!

At the beginning of the book we are introduced in quick succession to ten people who have all been invited to a house on Soldier Island, off the coast of Devon. Each person has been given a different reason as to why their presence on the island is required, but on arriving at the house the group discover that their hosts are mysteriously absent. When, one by one, they begin to suffer gruesome deaths in accordance with the children’s rhyme “Ten Little Soldiers” it becomes obvious that one of the ten is a murderer.

The thing that makes this book such an exciting and suspenseful read is that all ten characters seem suspicious and the more you learn about them the more it appears that any one of them could be the killer. Halfway through the book I thought I had worked it out as there was one character in particular that I had suspected from the start (although it was more just an instinct rather than anything specific that he or she had done). As the story moved towards the conclusion it looked as if I was going to be right…

Do I need to tell you that I got it entirely wrong? I admit that solving whodunits is not one of my strong points, but I think most people would be baffled by this one! Christie expertly leads you to believe one thing, then a few pages later proves you wrong. I was sure that as more and more of the ten were eliminated one of them would emerge as the most obvious suspect, but that didn’t happen.

Have you read this book? Did you guess the solution to the mystery?