“Hilarious” is certainly not a word that immediately comes to mind when thinking of Icelandic writing. Arnaldur Indridasson, the most famous contemporary writer in Iceland, pens mysteries which are among the darkest, gloomiest, and most haunting ever written, the pinnacle of Nordic noir. Clearly, life in Iceland can be tough. So when I stumbled across The Pets, by Bragi Olafsson, in the “used” section of my favorite bookshop, I was amazed to see it described as “hilarious”—a book written by a young author who still lives in Iceland and who manages to find humor, even slapstick humor, in life in this cold, dark country. Main character Emil Halldorsson has been away in London, celebrating his million-kronur lottery win (about $8500) with a two-week vacation from the hardware store where he works. While he is gone, a man in an anorak and a plastic bag visits his house but does not leave a message. When Emil returns, he recognizes who it is, and when the man breaks in, Emil hides under the bed, at which point the man makes himself at home and invites all Emil’s friends to a party. Hilarious, indeed.
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In his fourth novel featuring Dr. Quirke, a Dublin pathologist at the Hospital of the Holy Family with unusual insights into forensics, Booker Prize-winning author John Banville, writing as “Benjamin Black,” reveals yet another grim side of Dublin life in the early 1950s. When Dublin Detective Inspector Hackett investigates the gruesome death of “Diamond Dick” Jewell, a wealthy man whose head had been blown off in what was thought to be a suicide, he calls Quirke, who has helped him on several occasions in the past and who agrees that this death had to have been murder. “Few outside the family circle and few inside it, either, considered his demise a cause for sorrow.” As Hackett investigates, he finds himself relying on Quirke more and more, since Quirke has access to the elite of Dublin society, people who know all the powerbrokers in the business community, in politics and the church, and on both sides of the law. Whom you know is more important than legal fine points, and Hackett trusts Quirke to provide him with information he might not otherwise obtain.
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Posted in 9a-2011 Reviews, England, Humor, Satire, Absurdity, Literary, Mystery, Thriller, Noir, Psychological study, Social and Political Issues on Jun 11th, 2011
Described on Amazon and elsewhere as “the first credit crunch novel,” something that, frankly, would never have lured me into reading it, Get Me Out of Here is much more like an adult version of Patrick McCabe’s novel of psychological horror, The Butcher Boy, than it is a broad satire of the London business community at large. The book focuses almost exclusively on Matt Freeman, a thirty-three year-old Londoner who is trying to run his financial business, an overly-driven young urban professional, with all the stereotypical hang-ups about appearances, brand names, personal connections, and the toys of success. Matt, as narrator, conveys every thought that enters his mind, every twisted bit of false logic, every sensation, every hope for the future, and every self-deluded justification for the crimes he commits—and he commits a lot of them. We know his personal friends, all his lovers, and his neighborhood–he is individualized, not the generic stick figure we usually see in satires. The focus here is on the small, not the broad and universal–the life of one young man whose problems are so extreme that he cannot be considered “typical,” even among psychopaths. Full of wonderful, grim humor and irony.
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It is Christmas, and Nick Goodyew has not seen his father, Ken, in fifteen years, or Pearl, his mother, in twenty. His parents’ acrimonious life together, and their divorce, have come to typify the family’s way of dealing with issues—escape, a way of life for virtually all of them. His father, however, now believes he is going to die, and, despite the on-going rancor, typified by the Christmas phone call, he still wants to get the family together to make peace with the past. The ensuing novel is a witty and touching examination of all the members of the family as they finally examine their lives, their memories, and their relationships. Author Louise Dean, with her dark sense of humor and her breath-taking ability to suggest attitudes and psychological states through description, arouses sympathy for her characters as they search for ways to communicate and, perhaps in time, forgive each other for the past. On my list of Favorites for 2011.
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In The Snowman, the latest of five Nesbo novels to be translated into English, is a complete surprise with its element of horror, but it may soon become his most popular novel here in the U.S., a breakthrough novel which may finally put to rest the misperception that the Norwegian Nesbo, with a total of sixteen award-winning novels, is some kind of “successor” to the Swedish Stieg Larsson. A series of disappearances and/or murders, all involving a snowman on the site, challenge Harry Hole and his men as they try to find a serial killer who began his killings in 1992 and has continued to 2004, as the novel opens. The novel is detailed and intelligent, and will keep even the most jaded mystery lover intrigued and wanting to see how it is all resolved. When the last little piece falls into place at the end, every detail at every point in the novel suddenly all makes sense—and provides a satisfying sense of finality to this challenging case. A non-stop thriller that may very well keep you up reading till the wee hours—and great fun!
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