Readers who enjoyed Danish author Jussi Adler-Olsen’s first mystery to be translated into English, The Keeper of Lost Causes, which I found “as close to perfect as a mystery can be,” will probably become as captivated by this second novel as they were by the first. The Absent One, however, is somewhat different in its focus from the first novel, spending less time on establishing the character of Detective Carl Morck, who has been assigned to run Department Q of the Copenhagen Police Headquarters. Morck described in the previous novel as “lazy, surly, morose, always bitching, and [constantly] treating his colleagues like crap,” has experienced the trauma of having one partner killed while another, the gentle, six-foot, nine-inch giant Hardy has ended up paralyzed from the neck down in a fight from which Morck himself escaped serious injury. He has always blamed himself for the terrible outcome and has had little interest in doing much of anything at work, as a result. This case concerns a group of friends whose relationship goes back to prep school. With one major exception, all have become immensely successful – and wealthy. The only female of the group disappeared long ago. As Morck, Assad, and Rose investigate, the female, Kimmie, is tracked by the rest of the gang, fearful of what she might reveal.
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Fans of the previous five novels in the Quirke series by “Benjamin Black,” the pen name of Booker Prize-winning author John Banville, will celebrate the publication of this sixth novel of the Dublin-based series, set in the 1950s. Continuing all the main characters from previous novels, Black spends little time rehashing the sometimes sordid history of their relationships. Instead, he picks up where he left off with A Death in Summer, with few references to the characters’ backgrounds from previous novels. Quirke become involved with an investigation at the beginning of this novel when Victor Delahaye, the main partner in Delahaye and Clancy, an old company with a flourishing automobile repair business, invites the young son of his partner Jack Clancy to accompany him on a sail. Young Davy Clancy hates sailing, and has no idea why Jack, whom he does not know well, makes such an issue of having him as the only passenger. This trip does not make Davy like sailing any better. When he and Delahaye are far from land, Delahaye pulls out a gun and kills himself. Another death occurs shortly afterward. Those who have read the previous novels may be less enchanted with this one than those who are coming to it “fresh.”
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Daniel Silva, who was a journalist for years before he became a novelist, has always taken care to create plots that relate directly to current political and historical realities. In this novel Silva goes way beyond the facts that we all understand from the media, elucidating the complexities and the heartfelt commitments of both the Arabs and the Jews to preserving “their own” piece of the land in what is now Israel, and especially Jerusalem. Allon is restoring “The Deposition of Christ,” widely regarded as Caravaggio’s finest painting, working at night in the Vatican, when the body of a female curator in the antiquities department is found beneath the Michelangelo-designed dome of the basilica. While this is being investigated, Allon learns from Shimon Pazner at the Israeli Embassy that Hezbollah, aided by Iran, may be planning a major attack on some Israeli site in Europe. Eventually, these two plots coincide, but not before Silva has explored the complexities of the financial dealings at the Vatican; the personal alliances within the Vatican and within Rome itself; the financial and cultural interconnections between the Palestinians, Hezbollah, Iran, and the antiquities market; and the extreme actions suicide bombers are willing to commit to advance their agenda. No compromise seems possible in dealing with any of these issues as the reader becomes newly aware of the increasing tensions of the area and the unlikelihood that any solution, other than war, will be the result.
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In the wake of the popularity of Scandinavian mystery writers like Jo Nesbo, Arnaldur Indridason, Henning Mankell, Jussi Adler-Olsen, and Stieg Larsson, this mystery by wildly popular Austrian novelist Wolf Haas has just been translated into English, the first of seven novels featuring Simon Brenner to be available in the U.S. Here the novel’s smart-alecky and in-your-face first person narrator, with his appreciation of irony and his uniquely hilarious observations, keeps the reader smiling even as horrific murders are taking place. The narrator himself does not appear to take the characters in his story seriously, and the novel’s resulting style is closer to that of an “entertainment” or farce, in which the narrator becomes the main character directing the show, than it is to the dark and often cynical mysteries clearly identifiable as “noir.” Brenner, a former policeman, is now working as a chauffeur for “The Lion of Construction,” a fifty-year-old man named Kressdorf, who runs a major development company with offices in Munich. Kressdorf’s much younger wife, a physician, works in Vienna, where she operates a clinic offering abortion services. The Kressdorfs’ two-year-old daughter Helena is kidnapped when Brenner stops to fuel up on his way to Munich. There is no dearth of suspects. The novel has some problems with structure and its tone, but it is likely to be wildly popular here, as it is in Europe.
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Cayetano Brule, an unemployed Cuban who is living in Valparaiso with his well-connected Chilean wife, escapes the tedium of a cocktail party one evening by disappearing into the library of the estate where the party is being held. Appropriating a wing chair, he begins to muse, perhaps even doze, until he hears footsteps behind him and meets Pablo Neruda who is also escaping. Neruda is dying, and he has a task for Cayetano – to locate Dr. Angel Bracamonte, whom he has not seen for thirty years. Though the doctor has been researching local plants used in native cancer treatments, Neruda wants to see him for other reasons, personal ones. Cayetano’s task takes him to Mexico, Cuba, East Germany, and Bolivia. While the search is on, author Roberto Ampuero also reveals the political situation in Chile from 1971 – 1973, with the main characters, including Neruda, being supporters of Marxist president Salvador Allende. The situation becomes tense as the two plots overlap. “Machismo” takes on new meaning as the book builds to its climax in revolution.
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