Book Group Report – a German classic novella…

Tags

Crime, Murder, Translated, German, Village life, Forests, 18thC

The Jew’s Beechby Annette Von Droste-Hülshoff

Being a German novella from 1842, this book was an unusual choice for our Book Group. It came about in conversation because one of our group’s sons was studying it at uni, and another who teaches German, owned a copy in German which she’d never read. Luckily, translations are available from Oneworld Classics and online at Project Gutenberg.

Annette von Droste-Hülshoff was born into Westphalian aristocracy and given an excellent education.  She became an esteemed poet and musician, however, this novella was her only work of fiction.  The central story is based on a real murder. It’s often been viewed as a prototype of the crime thriller and also has Gothic elements – you could say ‘Grimm’.

For a novel of a scant one hundred widely-spaced pages, upon reflection and after lots of discussion, we realised that a lot actually happens in this story.

It follows the life of Friedrich Mergel from birth to his death. The first half tells the story of his drunken wife-beater of a father, and how his uncle Simon adopts him after his father died, putting him over his ignored pig boy Johannes Niemand who might be his illegitimate son.

They live in a village in the middle of a heavily forested area of Germany and the first half of the story concentrates on village life, including all the gossip and tittle-tattle that thrives therein, under the eye of the local barony.  It’s a hard life for these peasants and their living relies on forestry.  It’s not until a band of tree-poachers starts chopping into their livelihood that things take on a more sinister turn, when one of the village foresters is found in the wood with an axe through his skull. Did the ‘blue-cloaks’ as the poachers are called do it? No-one is sure.

Cut to later on, and a wedding in the village. Friedrich, who’s grown up to be a bit of a dandy for a forester makes a bit of a fool of himself, especially in front of Aaron, the Jew, who demands to be paid for the silver watch bought on tick that Friedrich is showing off. Aaron will later be found murdered in the forest, near a big beech tree, and suspicion falls on Friedrich, who promptly runs away, shadowed by Johannes…

Many of the big problems of the age, seen under the lens of village life are observed – poverty, poor Johannes steals a pound of butter at the wedding feast, and then stands in front of the fire; also bigotry and anti-Semitism.   But there are also nods towards Gothic fantasy – the blue-cloaks seem to spirit themselves into and out of the woods, leaving no tracks; the dark forests themselves are foreboding and the stuff of fairy tales, Grimm’s having first been published in 1812.  The villagers are quite superstitious, and there is (to us) a bizarre episode where someone went to dig up a horse’s head that had been buried years before as a talisman against sorcery.

Here it might be appropriate to compare the two translations we read between us:

Next morning the fountain in the garden would not work, and it was discovered that somebody had moved a pipe, apparently to look for the head of a horse which had been buried there many years before – this was reckoned to be a guaranteed protection against witches and apparitions. (trans Lionel and Doris Thomas, 1958)

The next morning the fountain in the garden would not play, and it was discovered that some one had removed a pipe, apparently to look for the head of a horse’s skeleton which had the reputation of being an attested instrument against any wiles of witches or ghosts.   (trans Lillie Winter, Proj Gutenberg)

The feeling was that the Thomas’s translation was a little uninteresting, and that the Winter one had more charm despite being more directly word for word. Our German teacher commented that at least the author wrote in sentences of reasonable length unlike her contemporary Heinrich Von Kleist.

So, to recapitulate, this odd little story generated a great discussion in our book group.

Next month, we’re reading another crime novel in translation – but this time contemporary and French – Fred Vargas’ first novel The Three Evangelists.

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The Jew’s Beechby Annette Von Droste-Hülshoff, Oneworld classics paperback.

A rather good British gangster movie

Tags

Bent coppers, Cinema, Crime, Gangsters, London, Murder

Welcome to the Punch

It’s so nice to go to the pictures to see a thoroughly satisfying contemporary British thriller – they’re few and far between these days, mind you they were never a common thing (IMHO!) – The Long Good Friday and Layer Cake come to mind.

Welcome to the Punch is directed by Evan Creevy who cut his teeth on Layer Cake, and is Exec Produced by Ridley Scott. It’s a relatively simple tale of police corruption, gangsters, and a maverick detective out for revenge. Not always an easy view, (one older couple walked out when I saw it), it’s full of ultraviolence, alternating with long moments of deep stares and reflective hard breathing from its leads.

James McAvoy is the maverick detective, Max Lewinsky, out to get Jacob Sternwood, (Mark Strong) who shot him in the knee while escaping from an audacious heist in the City of London.  A few years on, Sternwood has returned to the UK, as his son has been shot in a deal-gone-wrong of his own. Naturally, this gives Max the ideal opportunity to finally get his man. What he doesn’t reckon on is that Sternwood’s son was part of a larger conspiracy that involved many bent coppers, and that he will be at great personal risk …

Almost the entire film takes part at night; the city’s buildings all lit up look magnificent, contrasting with the seedy dives and night watchmen’s offices. Into this comes Sternwood after his son, and Lewinsky hot on his tail and this film belongs to its two charismatic leads.

Mark Strong is such a great baddie, tall and swarthily handsome, with a firm bestubbled chin and shaven head – but it’s his eyes that grab you, capable of a dark direct stare that holds you in its gaze.  In contrast, James McAvoy as Max is twitchy, emotional and always on the edge, only held back initially by his colleague Sarah (Andrea Risborough).  Strong and McAvoy are ably supported by Peter Mullan as Sternwood’s UK fixer,  and David Morrissey as Max’s boss.

I really enjoyed this intelligent British thriller with its wonderful British cast. Its ultraviolence may owe a lot to Tarantino, but it was all the more thoughtful bits in between that made it different.

In UK cinemas now, cert 15.

Nick loves Amy, Amy loves Nick, don’t they?

Tags

Crime, Deep South, Psychodrama, Thriller, Unreliable narrator

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

This book is our book group choice for discussion this month – I would normally wait until after we’ve met to put down some thoughts about our reading, but after devouring this novel in two sittings, (I started at bedtime last night, and finished it when I woke up this morning – which did mean I got up rather late!), I feel compelled to give some instant reactions.

Ever since this book was published, it’s been making news but, for each glowing review I’ve seen, there’s been a ‘meh’ one.  I think that you can guess which camp I fall into …

Nick and Amy are a seemingly golden couple, recently moved back to Carthage, Missouri from NYC, so Nick can care for his ailing parents.  Everything changes on their fifth wedding anniversary, when Nick comes home to find Amy missing.  No body is found, and Nick is naturally the obvious suspect. He is adamant that he didn’t do it, but can’t explain many oddities or provide a full alibi that would take him out of the investigation.  So what has happened to Amy?

To say any more would be to say too much, however, it wouldn’t be spoiling things to tell you that the novel twists and turns so much that you’ll change your allegiance chapter by chapter. I gasped at some of the reveals, and then felt pleased with myself for making links – some of which would be dashed later, every little thing seeming to have its place in the narrative.

The chapters cleverly alternate between Nick and Amy’s versions. At first, Nick’s are current; Amy’s are historical from her diary entries since they first met. It becomes clear very fast that all is not right between them…

Nick – The day of:
When she spied me lurking there in grubby boxers, my hair in full Heat Miser spike, she leaned against the kitchen counter and said, ‘Well, hello, handsome.’
Bile and dread inched up my throat. I thought to myself. Okay, go. (page 8)

The plot of this novel reminded me very much of the convoluted plots of British psychodrama queen Sophie Hannah. If you like one, you’ll do well with the other. Neither Hannah’s books, nor Gone Girl stop to take breath, the action is relentless and most of what happens is usually nasty, not nice!

I’m convinced that the best way to read thrillers is total immersion, to devour them in as few sittings as possible, letting the action flow around you and not over-analysing what happens in the pages until after you’ve finished.  For me, a good roller-coaster of a plot always benefits from this approach. In this way, even the ridiculous elements of something like The Da Vinci Code can be overlooked so that you can enjoy the ride. There, I’ve said it! (I read it in one sitting on holiday years ago, and it was fun at the time.)

Gone Girl is much, much cleverer than that.  Although the plot drives the narrative, the two main characters are so well conceived, that Flynn is able to add many extra layers to the story. It will be interesting to see if any of our Book Group have the same experience, and if I still feel the same about the book in a week’s time …

How was it for you?
How do you read thrillers?

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I bought my copy. To explore further on Amazon UK, please click below:
Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn, Phoenix paperback, 463 pages.

The adventures of a gentleman thief

Tags

Crime, Parody, Sherlock Holmes, Victorian

Raffles: The Amateur Cracksman by E W Hornung

Those of a certain age like me, may well remember the 1970s TV series Raffles with some fondness. It starred Anthony Valentine (right) as the titular gentleman thief, and Christopher Strauli as Bunny, his sidekick. A pair of dinner-suited scoundrels fleecing a bunch of toffs to fund their own lavish lifestyle, combined with a bit of cricket, made for fun watching.  Since his first appearance in the late 1890s, Raffles has been adapted many times, notably in films portrayed by Ronald Coleman in 1930 and David Niven in 1939.

After the dolour of reading Hardy’s Jude the Obscure for Book Group last month, we  chose its contemporary, the first set of Raffles stories – Raffles: The Amateur Cracksman for our February read – the two couldn’t have been more different.

The Raffles stories are narrated by Bunny Maunders, and the first one, The Ides of March, tells how Bunny who is on his uppers and near suicidal, meets his old school pal Arthur Raffles. Desperate to save his reputation, when Raffles suggests a burglary will solve both’s financial woes, Bunny goes along with it, and so starts his life of crime.

In the following chapters, Raffles and Bunny have many adventures, sometimes only escaping by the skin of their teeth. They steal jewellery, paintings and more and end up on an ocean liner after a giant pearl…

Raffles is also a sportsman; cricket is his game, and he is, Bunny tells us, ‘a dangerous bat, a brilliant field, and perhaps the finest slow bowler of his decade,’ but is not really interested in the game per se, for ’What’s the satisfaction of taking a man’s wicket when you want his spoons?‘ To Raffles, cricket is a game of mental exercise, looking for weak spots and using your cunning in bowling – all good practice for thieving.

Raffles never does anything for anyone else; Bunny is only tolerated because he can’t do jobs alone.  This amoral quality made one of our group give up on him after just a couple of the stories, and it stands out in one tale where another thief is onto Raffles, and he and Bunny contemplate what more they can do…

 ’What more?’ said Raffles. ‘Well, murder – for one thing.’
‘Rot!’
‘A matter of opinion, my dear Bunny; I don’t mean it for rot. I’ve told you before that the biggest man alive is the man who’s committed a murder, and not yet been found out; at least he ought to be, but he so very seldom has the soul to appreciate himself. Just think of it! Think of coming in here and talking to the men, very likely about the murder itself; and knowing you’ve done it; and wondering how they’d look if they knew! Oh, it would be great, simply great! But, besides all that, when you were caught, there’d be a merciful and dramatic end of you. You’d fill the bill for a few weeks, and then snuff out with a flourish of extra-specials; you wouldn’t rust with a vile repose for seven or fourteen years.’

Raffles’ lack of morality aside, we mostly enjoyed these tales which are entertaining, but lack a je ne sais quoi, something that a certain great detective has in spades, which brings me to Sherlock Holmes …

You see, Hornung was Doyle’s brother in law, and this volume is dedicated to him. Raffles comes across as something of a parody of Holmes, but he is no Moriarty. Bunny is no Doctor Watson either; he hero-worships Raffles and happily lets himself be Raffles’ doormat.  We found ourselves wishing that Raffles had more to him, a bit more Holmes, a dash of Flashman perhaps.  It is not quite enough that Raffles’ marks mostly deserved what they got.

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I bought my copy. To explore further on Amazon, please click below:
Raffles: The Amateur Cracksman by E W Hornung. Atlantic Crime Classics paperback, other editions available.

Getting to grips with the phenomenon that is Lee Child

Tags

Crime, Deep South, Murder, Police procedural, Thriller

Killing Floor: (Jack Reacher 1) by Lee Child

Lee Child is a phenomenon. Made redundant by Granada TV at the age of forty, the Sheffield man who had initially studied law turned to writing and created the series of thrillers featuring Jack Reacher – there are now seventeen of them. Child is a worldwide bestselling author and now divides his time between the USA and the South of France.

I’d always treated this series with slight suspicion – they’re much beloved by the male side of my family, but I didn’t believe they would live up to the hype.  But then I saw Mariella gushing over Child  on a Sky Book Show programme, and thought – well maybe I ought to try one, I shouldn’t be so snobbish about it.

I started at the beginning – with the first novel, Killing Floor, published in 1997.  In a moment of serendipity, the day I picked up the book was October 29th.  That day you see, is Lee Child’s birthday, and Reacher’s too – the latter I knew from the first page where there is a CV of Reacher.

Reacher is an imposing chap – six foot five, dirty blond hair, fifty inch chest, and ice blue eyes. A former military policeman, he was demoted from a major to captain, but left as a major again.  Father a US Marine, so Jack and his brother grew up wherever their Dad was based.

No birth year given though.  Reacher is obviously a bit of a younger and maybe hunkier version of Child himself – who is very tall and slim with dirty blond hair.

So why, oh why, is shorty Tom Cruise playing him in Jack Reacher the movie (based on the 2005 novel One Shot) which will hit screens soon?  This is certainly a case of being glad to have formulated my own vision of the character from the book before seeing him on the screen.

Reacher is the modern day equivalent of Clint’s High Plains Drifter or Alan Ladd’s Shane. He’s a drifter and maverick, going where he pleases, paying no taxes, owning just the clothes on his back and what’s left of his army payoff. He arrives, shakes things up and leaves.

In Killing Floor, Reacher picks the wrong time to arrive in the town of Margrave, Georgia.  It was a sudden decision to get off the bus early to visit the town where a legendary bluesman had died decades before.  As soon as he arrives in town, having walked fourteen miles in the rain from the bus, he’s in trouble. The night before, there was a murder – he’s the stranger in town … he must have done it according to the policeman who takes him in.

Of course, these corrupt officers have picked the wrong buy to take the fall. Reacher is very soon able to free himself, and finds that the chief detective, Finlay, who is not part of the cabal, is under pressure. Reacher is able to put his years of expertise at the disposal of Finlay, and together with the overlooked policewoman Sgt Roscoe (who will naturally fall for his charms), they start to investigate the case. The bodycount will mount, and the layers of corruption in this little town are many; they will need all their skills to outwit the bad guys, however, by this time it’s personal for Reacher once they identify the first body …

I’m pleased to say all my preconceptions were wrong – this was a cracking good crime thriller.  Reacher is strong, physically and mentally. He’s a hard man, but one with a heart; he can love and show compassion, but won’t hesitate to kill if needed.  It’s a great move for Child to make his hero effectively a deputised sheriff rather than just a gun for hire, and it gives what would otherwise be a standard police procedural an edge.  The plot is complicated, and needs most of the 523 pages to be resolved, but it moves apace and keeps you guessing. A satisfying mystery with a charismatic hero – give me more!  (8.5/10)

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I bought my copy. To explore further on Amazon UK, please click below:
Killing Floor: (Jack Reacher 1) by Lee Child. Paperback.
High Plains Drifter [DVD] – directed and starring Clint Eastwood
Shane [DVD] [1953] starring Alan Ladd.

Crime always soars in a heatwave …

Tags

Barcelona, Crime, Spanish

The Summer of Dead Toys by Antonio Hill

translated from the Spanish by Laura McGloughlin

Inspector Héctor Salgado is a hot-blooded Argentine working in Barcelona. As the book opens, he has recently returned from enforced leave after he beat up a suspect in a Voodoo/paedophile trafficking ring.

Investigation 1231-R
Salgado
Resolution Pending

Three short lines noted in black felt-tip pen on a yellow post-it note attached to a file of the same colour. So as not to see them, Superintendent Savall opened the file and looked over its contents. As if he didn’t already know them by heart. Statements. Affidavit. Medical reports. Police brutality. Photographs of that scumbag’s injuries. Photographs of that unfortunate Nigerian girls. Photographs of the flat in the Raval where they had the girls corralled. Even various newspaper cuttings, some – very few, thank God – deliberately narrating their own version of the facts, emphasizing concepts like injustice, racism and abuse of power. He slammed the file shut and looked at the clock on his desk. Ten past nine. Fifty minutes. He was moving his chair back to stretch out his legs when someone knocked on the door and opened it almost simultaneously.
‘Is he here,’ he asked.

Still suspended from active police work, Salgado’s boss asks him to unofficially look into the death of a teenager from one of Barcelona’s richest families. He quickly finds that there are many skeletons to be pulled from their closets, whilst the fallout from the Voodoo case continues.

I liked Salgado – he’s rarely called Héctor. Being an Argentine, he’s an outsider, divorced with a teenaged son and living on his own. He’s obviously a bit of a maverick, and he has vices – all good things for a fictional policeman!

I wasn’t so taken with the two policewomen working with him on the two cases though – I tended to get confused between them – they blended into each other. Salgado’s boss is unusally not a caricature either which, funnily, still makes him a little one-dimensional – but he’s only a bit player.

The book was terribly slow to get going – stifling itself in Barcelona’s heat, and then once on the move, there were twists and turns galore. A bit more pace in the early stages would have made it a more gripping read. Considering that the novel is set over just five days, the first couple seemed more than twenty-four hours long. One day I long to visit Barcelona, but its attractions barely featured in this novel which could have been set in any Mediterranean city.

I enjoyed the book enough to finish it, and would probably read another Salgado mystery, hoping for more development of character and setting in subsequent outings. (6.5/10)

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I received this book to review via the Amazon Vine programme. To explore further on Amazon UK, please click below:
The Summer of Dead Toys by Antonio Hill, pub May 2012 by Doubleday, Hardback 320 pages.

A short, sharp German legal thriller…

Tags

Crime, German, Legal system

The Collini Caseby Ferdinand Von Schirach, translated from the German by Anthea Bell

The author of The Collini Case, a prominent German defence lawyer himself, honed his writing on short stories – case histories of gruesome and shocking crimes, of people who get away with murder and the like. His first novel, a courtroom drama, isn’t long either, but he does pack a whole lot of story into its 160 pages.

It starts with a murder. A prominent German businessman is killed by Fabrizio Collini, a quiet Italian who has worked for Mercedes Benz for decades. Caspar Leinen, a young defence lawyer takes on the case – a good result will make his name. However, after accepting it, he finds out that the victim was known to him and he is unable to get out of the case. Collini admits guilt, but refuses to give a motive – it doesn’t look good for Leinen’s reputation. We read about how Caspar got to where he is, and his relationship with the deceased. We see how the German justice system works; Leinen’s case is surely doomed – and before we know it, we’re at page 100. Then he makes a discovery. Everything changes and the rest of the novel is turbocharged by its results towards a dramatic courtroom conclusion.

It’s a taut novel, which has been a best-seller already in Germany. It doesn’t get bogged down with court procedure, keeping to the essentials only, and not over-dramatising the lawyers’ performances. There’s no melodrama here, yet the book works brilliantly as a gripping legal thriller that can be read in one sitting. I enjoyed it so much I almost wished it had been longer, but its brevity is a large part of why it was so good!  (8.5/10)

Von Schirach has an interesting history which obviously influences and informs his own writing, for his grandfather was tried for Nazi war crimes at Nuremberg. There was an interesting article in the Guardian which you can link to here, which tells more (slight spoiler alert though). You can also read Simon S’s reviews of his short stories here – I’m keen to read the first collection, Crime, in particular now.

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I received an ARC of this book from Amazon Vine.
To explore further on Amazon UK, please click below:
The Collini Caseby Ferdinand Von Schirach. Pub Sept 13 by Michael Joseph, Hdbk.
Crime by Ferdinand Von Schirach – short stories, 2011.

A fascinating setting for a crime novel…

Tags

Crime, Desert, Islam, Religion, Saudi Arabia

City Of Veilsby Zoë Ferraris

This is the first novel I’ve read set in modern day Arabia. It gives a tantalising glimpse of life in Jeddah, particularly how men and women live, and combines that with a complex crime story.

The mutilated body of a woman is found on a beach.  Detective Osama Ibrahim initially suspects it is another housemaid murder, something that happens all too often in this city.

Osama had once been very proud of the country’s murder rate – it was one of the lowest in the world. He had always believed that the harshness of their punishments had the intended deterrent effect. But that was before he’d joined homicide.

However, one of the forensic lab techs, Katya, a young woman who is quietly ambitious, discovers that the body was no servant, but that of Leila Nawar. Leila was a student and was making a secret film project about sexual attitudes and exposing the contradictions prevalent in this society.

Katya is determined to be part of the investigating team, and when Osama needs a female to question Leila’s best friend, for propriety forbids him from doing so, she’s in.  However, she continues on with the investigation outside work with her friend Nayir, a desert scout.

Katya stood just outside the entrance to the station. It was lunchtime and her burqa was down so that no one would recognise her. She didn’t want people to start asking questions if they saw her getting into Nayir’s Jeep. Is that your husband? Why do we never see him pick you up after work? The only problem was that with her burqa down, Nayir might not recognise her either.

Meanwhile an American woman arrives in Jeddah to be with her husband, and finds him missing.  Eric had shunned living in one of the compounds where most ex-pats reside, and Miriam finds herself stuck in a flat in a country where she can’t go out unattended and is at her wit’s end, presuming Eric to have gone native.  When Katya and Nayir turn up asking questions linked to Leila’s murder, it seems Eric may have been involved in something bad…

City of Veils is Ferraris’s second novel, and shares the same main characters as her first, Night at the Mi-raj (called Finding Nouf outside the UK). I didn’t know that when I read it and it didn’t matter.  Within a few pages, I was swept up into this different world and fascinating culture.  I confess I am totally ignorant of the way that Muslim families live in Saudi Arabia; the way that men and women live apart within the same houses for most of their lives, only coming together as man and wife; also the difficulties facing women who want (or need) to work.

Osama is an enlightened detective, having a touch of the maverick about him in his work. He is not afraid of his superiors in picking Katya out of the labs to assist in the investigation. His home life is becoming complicated though and that’s a different thing to handle. Nayir is a complex character. He’s falling for Katya (and she for him), and being devout, shouldn’t even look at her – he’s conflicted and you fervently hope that they will find a way through the social and religious minefield that can allow them to find each other.

The combination of strong characters, a fascinating setting, the different culture, and the lure of the desert, made this an irresistible summer crime read. I will definitely read the author’s first novel, and she has a new one out now too.  Members of our book group agreed, all having enjoyed it. With its setting and angle focussing on the rich society in which its characters live such ordered lives, it made for a good discussion.  (9/10)

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I bought my copy. To explore further on Amazon UK, please click below:
City Of Veilsby Zoë Ferraris. Abacus paperback.
The Night Of The Mi’raj

Who killed the penguin?

Tags

Crime, Forensics, Germany, Nuns, paranormal

Morgue Drawer Next Door by Jutta Profijt, translated from the German by Erik J Macki.

This unusual crime novel is narrated by Pascha – he used to be a car thief – the best young one in Cologne. Pascha has become a sort of detective, teaming up with Dr Martin Gänsewein, a forensic examiner for the city. They have a bit of a love-hate relationship, Martin is very good at his job, but is a little set in his ways; Pascha can be like an annoying dog, always nipping at his heels. Martin does believe in justice though, and Pascha’s heart is in the right place for an ex-car-thief.

They met in the morgue, when Martin was performing Pascha’s autopsy – yes, Pascha is a ghost! Martin is the only person he can communicate with, which drives him mad – but the two do work together well. The story of their meeting, in which they investigate Pascha’s own murder, is told in the first book of this series Morgue Drawer Four, which I’ve not read, (but would now like to).

In Morgue Drawer Next Door, the unlikely pairing have a new case to investigate. A convent in the posh area of Cologne, has a fire in which one sister perishes, and another is burned to a crisp, but hangs on in ICU. The run-down convent needs a lot of expensive restoration work done and the police are inclined to think that the fire was an accident. One person knows differently however – the nun who died, Sister Marlene. Marlene’s spirit lingers – she has a mission to accomplish before passing on.

When Pascha finds her, he takes her under his wing and vows to help. The only problem is that Martin is a) not supposed to be back at work yet after having been stabbed (in the previous novel), and b) would rather Pascha was not around so he can progress his fledgling romance with the lovely Birgit. Pascha becomes go-between, for Marlene can only communicate with him, and goaded on by the two ghosts, Martin grudgingly gets on the case.

Martin is gloriously grumpy and reluctant to get involved in another case – after all, he got stabbed the previous time. He also wants more downtime from Pascha being in his head. He’s not a policeman, he’s a pathologist, but knowing that the fire was no accident, he can’t leave it. He must find a way of getting the right information on how to solve the crime to the police without them condemning him as a crackpot who talks to ghosts! Luckily for Pascha, Martin’s new girlfriend Birgit is game for helping him out, and has no idea about the ghosts.

This brings me to Pascha and Marlene. Their interplay is so sweet and funny. You can imagine how a middle-aged nun would react to the testosterone-led mindset of a young man, yet there is no-one else for her to turn to to show her the ropes of being a ghost. Sister Marlene soon realises that, and the chalk and cheese pairing are soon whooshing all over the place and manipulating situations to find the proof they need.

Although this all sounds delightful and irreverent, which it is, there is a more serious side to the novel regarding the work of the convent. Amongst other things, they run a night shelter for the homeless, and none of their neighbours like it. The surrounding area has gone up in the world, and the new posh inhabitants don’t want bums on their doorstep, nor do the allotment owners nearby, or right-wing groups. The nuns are under pressure on all sides to shut up and ship out.

The novel is narrated throughout by Pascha, who maintains that he is writing a book, and there are frequent asides about his Editor. Initially, this was slightly irritating, but you can’t help warming to Pascha. There is a lovely bit where he tries to justify his having been a car-thief to Marlene – generating wealth in insurance, people buying new cars etc, and keeping the manufacturers in work.  Marlene too, although pious, is humane and does have a good sense of humour for a nun – something she had needed in her work one surmises.

If you enjoy crime novels with humour and a lot of heart, this may be one for you. Knowledge of the first volume is not necessary to enjoy this one, but I certainly want to read it now I’ve read the second. (8.5/10)

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I received my book to review from Amazon Vine.
To explore further on Amazon UK, please click below:
Morgue Drawer Next Door by Jutta Profijt. Amazon Crossing paperback, Jul 2012, 256 pages.
Morgue Drawer Four - the first book in the series.

An evening with Vera and Jimmy … and Ann Cleeves

Tags

Crime, Northumberland, Shetland, TV

I spent a great evening hearing about two fictional British detectives yesterday. Two totally different people – the frumpy, middle-aged Vera Stanhope (pronounced Stannup) from Northumberland, and the descendant a Spanish sailor from the Armada who was shipwrecked at Fairisle in the Shetlands.

Both were created by Ann Cleeves, who had escaped for the evening from a writers retreat at St Hilda’s college in Oxford to come and talk to us at Mostly Books in Abingbdon.

Anne talked at length about her two detectives, how they came to life and the experiences that gave her the ideas for the novels.  Ann was really witty and entertaining, telling us about some of the funny little details that she believes make novels. She also told us of her love of translated crime novels – particularly Henning Mankell’s spectacular beginnings, (cf Sidetracked).

She also spoke about the experience of having them transfer to the small screen: Vera is 2 series in on ITV starring Brenda Blethyn; and Shetland’s Jimmy Perez will be on the BBC this November, portrayed by Dougie Henshall, (who lacks the Jimmy of the book’s Mediterranean ancestry, but Ann thinks will be great).  Although having had to hand over her characters for the TV series, Ann was very pleased to have been involved throughout the process, and is particularly delighted that parts of Shetland were filmed in situ, bringing work there and helping to promote tourism.  She met her husband while working on Fairisle as a cook at a bird sanctuary many years ago, and they return to the Shetlands regularly.

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Which brings me to Raven Black - the first novel in the Shetland Quartet…

It’s New Year’s Eve and Magnus is ready for visitors, revellers, not that he’s expecting any, but you never know. He doses, then he’s woken up by a banging on the door …

‘Come in,’ he shouted. ‘Come in, come in.’ He struggled to his feet, stiff and aching. They must already be in the storm porch. He heard the hiss of their whispers.
The door was pushed open, letting in a blast of freezing air and two young girls, who were as gaudy and brightly coloured as exotic birds. He saw that they were drunk. They stood, propping each other up. They weren’t dressed for the weather yet their cheeks were flushed and he could feel the health of them like heat. One was fair and one was dark. The fair one was the prettier, round and soft, but Magnus noticed the dark one first; her black hair was streaked with luminescent blue. More than anything, he would have liked to reach out and touch the hair, but he knew better than to do that. It would only scare them away. (page 2)

It’s not giving the game away to tell you that one of the girls will soon end up dead, and that, for various reasons, suspicion will fall on Magnus who has a murky past. Inspector Jimmy Perez has to get the investigation started, and call in the crime scene experts from the mainland; it’ll be his first murder case. The pressure is on to solve it before Up Helly Aa – the Shetlanders’ Viking fire festival later in the month. They send in a team from Aberdeen to speed things up, and Inspector Taylor, a hyperactive Scouser, takes charge. He and Perez take to one another and work together to solve the case, (working together – unusual for a crime novel!).  Taylor’s expertise and Perez’s local knowledge will both be needed to unravel the tangled webs of relationships on this island where everyone knows everyone, or at least think they do.

As Ann explained, the major theme of this novel is outsiders.  The old guy Magnus is an outsider because of his past; the murdered girl’s family are incomers from London; and Perez – although an islander, is from Fairisle outside the main island group, and with his Mediterranean heritage is also an outsider of a sort. That’s not to say that Jimmy doesn’t know how Lerwick’s society works though – when he was eleven he’d had to come from Fairisle to stay with the other pupils from outlying islands in the hostel for school. Perez is conflicted between his love for Fairisle and the possibility of returning to become a crofter, and the love of his job and the possibility of a more exciting life.

I liked Jimmy Perez very much, and am really looking forward to the next in the quartet, White Nights, which is set at midsummer.  Raven Black won Ann the first Duncan Lawrie Dagger Award (which replaced the CWA gold dagger). If you’re not read any of the Quartet, Ann recommends starting at the beginning, whereas the Vera novels are more standalone.

Despite being a crime novel set in the depths of winter, Shetland is a really alluring setting. That, combined with Jimmy and a plot that is strong on interrelationships made Raven Black a brilliant read. (9/10)

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I bought my copy. To explore further on Amazon UK, please click below:
Raven Black (Shetland Quartet 1) by Ann Cleeves. Pub Pan Macmillan. Pbk 320 pages.
White Nights (Shetland Quartet 2)
The Crow Trap (Vera Stanhope 1)
Vera Series 1-2 [DVD]