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Weekly Words about BooksMarch 2, 2014
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Two Scandinavian Mystery Series Offer Fresh Thrills
| Cockroaches by Jo Nesbo. Readers in the U.S. were first introduced to detective Harry Hole in 2007 with the publication of Redbreast, bu t that book was actually the third in a series that now numbers 10. Nesbo's Norwegian police inspector is a brilliant investigator who fights personal demons as much as criminals, and the series has rightfully made mystery fans forget Stieg Larsson. Its popularity has led the publisher to release the first two books in the series here in America, The Bat last year and Cockroaches last month - both in paperback
For those who have read other Hole novels, this is a chance to me et a less beleaguered Harry; for new fans, it's a great introduction. In this installment, Hole is sent to Thailand, where the Norwegian ambassador has been found dead in a Bangkok brothel. The plot takes Harry through the city's notorious red-light district in search of clues and tempted by the booze and drugs that will threaten to derail him throughout the series.
Conspiracy of Faith by Jussi Adler-Olsen. This is book three in Danish crime writer Adler-Olsen's thoroughly entertaining Department Q series (the first two were The Keeper of Lost Causes and The Absent One), and it's just out in paperback. Police detective Carl Morck and his unconventional team investiga te cold cases long abandoned by the Copenhagen Police Force, this time going up against a truly fiendish kidnapper. Morck is an old-school curmudgeon who, in the first book, is stuck in a basement office and assigned the job of trying to solve old cold cases. Naturally, he succeeds and in the process puts together a quirky band of colleagues who have become regulars in the series. Morck's Syrian assistant Assad is a particularly appealing and resourceful sidekick, and the crimes are appropriately gruesome and puzzling. And if you like Conspiracy of Faith, the good news is that the fourth in the series, The Purity of Vengeance, will arrive in paperback this summer.
By the way, if you are interested in the genre of Scandinavian crime thrillers, you mig ht start with one of the 10 Martin Beck mysteries written by the husband and wife team of Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo. The couple is often credited with launching the genre in the 1960s with their taut series of police procedural novels, which have been re-released over the years by Vintage Crime's Black Lizard paperback imprint. The first book is Roseanna, and some of you may recognize their best-known title, The Laughing Policeman, which was made into a movie in the 1970s starring Walter Matthau.
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| | The Good Luck of Right Now by Matthew Quick. It took a while for Quick's best-known novel, published in 2008, to make its mark, but once the movie version of The Silver Linings Playbook was released, the book was discovered. Now, Quick has written another engaging story featuring unusual, fallible and ultimately likeable characters.
The protagonist is 38-year-old Bartholomew Neil, who has lived at home with his mother all his life. Her death leaves him bereft and suddenly having to manage his own future. Finding a form letter from Richard Gere buried in his mother's underwear drawer, he begins a one-sided correspondence with the superstar, triggering a series of events that culminates in a life-altering road trip to Canada with a motley crew of misfits. They are searching for Bartholomew's biological father, but Quick's humor and the quirky bends in the road he provides make it increasingly clear that it is all about the journey, not the destination.
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WHERE TO
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A LITTLE BIT ABOUT ME
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My name is Hut Landon. I'm a former bookstore owner who now runs the Northern California Independent Booksellers Association (NCIBA) in San Francisco.
My goal with this newsletter is to keep readers up to date about new books hitting the shelves, share what booksellers are recommending in their stores, and pass on occasional news about the book world.
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