Set in Spain in 1941 during the rule of General Franco and the Falangists, with their connections to the Nazis, and again in 1981, in the run-up to the first real democratic elections, debut author Victor del Arbol creates a whirlwind of mysteries within mysteries that will keep even the most demanding reader entertained. Filling the novel with twists and turns, surprises, and action that doubles back on itself, the story line constantly changes, rewriting the information we think we already know, and creating new complications to ponder as we try to reconstruct what we think is happening. The interrelationships among the main characters and their families continue for the forty years of the time span, becoming ever more complex as motivations, betrayals, lies we have accepted as truth, and characters who are not who we think they are become central to the action.Complex and challenging in its plotting, the novel is also energetic and fast-paced. The characters are memorable, in part because none of them are perfect, and several are trapped into committing terrible acts because they believe they have no choice. The interrelationships between guilt, innocence, chance, and fate keep the reader engrossed, and though the violence is sometimes excessive and melodramatic, the author avoids neat “fictional packaging” in his ending. Fate rules.
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James Sallis’s novel Drive, the story of a man who works as a stunt driver by day and as the driver of getaway cars by night, is full of violence, and the body count in the book and film is extremely high, some of the deaths coming at the hands of Driver as payback for egregious betrayals. At the end of the novel and film, Driver leaves this life behind and drives off, seriously wounded. Driven, its sequel, begins six years later. Driver has been keeping a low profile under the pseudonym of Paul West in Phoenix, and he has been successful in avoiding trouble—and in falling in love with Elsa. Suddenly, without warning, he and Elsa are attacked at 11:00 a.m. on a Saturday. Driver manages to disable one attacker, but the second one fatally stabs Elsa before Driver takes care of him. He has no idea who the attackers are or why. In the course of the next few weeks, several more attacks occur, but, still, Driver has no idea who is behind the attacks or why. Eventually, the trail leads to New Orleans, but his connection remains obscure. As one of Driver’s friends comments, “Do the dots connect? Could be all random. Separate storms. And in the long run what does it matter?” Fans of the book and film of Drive will enjoy seeing how Driver’s life evolves after that novel concludes.
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In this seventh novel in the Harry Hole series to be translated into English, author Jo Nesbo, with over eleven million thrillers in print, continues to detail Harry’s fight against the symbolic “white whales” of injustice. Here, all Harry’s experience and knowledge as an Oslo policeman are readied for the biggest fight of his life, one to which he willingly makes a complete emotional commitment. Though he has lived in Hong Kong in self-imposed exile for three years, Harry has just learned that Oleg, the son of Rakel, the love of his life, is now jailed on remand in Oslo for the murder of a drug dealer and is, surprisingly, a drug addict himself. Harry himself has always had problems with alcohol, bureaucratic nonsense, and self-control, even during his career with the Oslo Police, and he has battle scars, both visible and invisible, which have made him a cynical man. He immediately returns to Oslo to review the case, hoping that he can save Oleg, who has always thought of him as “Dad.” Now “clean,” Harry sets to work to find out more about Oleg’s involvement in this case that he must win.
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Posted in 0-2012 Reviews, Australia, Book Club Suggestions, Coming-of-age, Historical, Literary, Mystery, Thriller, Noir, Social and Political Issues on Feb 26th, 2012
If there is such a genre as “Australian Gothic,” this novel would be one of its best-written examples. The sights, sounds, and smells of the bush, filled with storms, heat, dust, and exotic birds and animals, vibrate with life—and death—both physical and spiritual. Set in remote and sparsely populated Western Australia in the early 1940s, this 2008 novel recreates the life of Perdita Keene, a ten-year-old child not wanted by her British expatriate parents, who had hoped she would die at birth. Perdita, whose childhood is formed by the aborigine women who nursed her in infancy, develops a strong friendship with Mary, an aborigine girl five years older, and Billy, the deaf-mute son of the Trevors, white people who run a local cattle station. All three children are outcasts for various reasons, and their bonds with each other are total and life-affirming. The murder of Perdita’s father, described in the opening pages, is at the core of the novel, and the circumstances surrounding the case are not clear. All three children witness the crime, but Perdita, the narrator for most of the novel, is so traumatized that she cannot remember details. Lyrical, sensual, and full of passion, Sorry is a novel that is dramatically intense, full of emotion.
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This novel was WINNER of the 2005 Naoki Prize for Best Novel in Japan, and also WINNER of both the Edogawa Rampo Prize and the Mystery Writers of Japan Prize for Best Mystery. Mathematical genius Tetsuya Ishigami and his equally brilliant friend Manabu Yukawa, from the physics department at Imperial University in Tokyo, are at the heart of Keigo Higashino’s complex and satisfying murder mystery from Japan. From the outset the reader knows who has killed a loathsome and terrifying bully; the big question is whether or not the person will ever be caught. As Prof. Yukawa says, “The investigators have been fooled by the criminals’ camouflage. Everything they think is a clue isn’t…[it] is merely a breadcrumb set in their path to lure them astray. When an amateur attempts to conceal something, the more complex he makes his camouflage, the deeper the grave he digs for himself. But not so a genius. The genius does something far simpler, yet something no normal person would even dream of, the last thing a normal person would think of doing. And from this simplicity, immense complexity is created.” With two characters who resemble Sherlock Holmes and Moriarty in their battle of wits, the novel also contains the kind of abrupt dialogue and thin characters of Conan Doyle. Outstanding and very clever.
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