Review: Last to Die, Tess Gerritsen (USA)

Title: Last to Die

Author: Tess Gerritsen
Publication: 2013/New York: Ballantine Books
ISBN #: 978-0-345-51552-0
# of pages: 423
Discovered by my brother who let me and my mother fight over who got it next!
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Also available in e-book format
Link to author’s website: Tess Gerristsen
 

Some teenagers have it rougher than others. Claire Ward just wanted to hang out with her friends but her foster parents tracked her down late one night…and almost got her killed. Teddy Clock lived in a wealthy neighbourhood with all the material benefits….and barely survived his foster family’s slaughter. Once Detective Jane Rizzoli hears about both cases, she is sure they are linked, even though they occurred in different cities. Her friend, Boston medical examiner Maura Isles, has a safe place for Teddy to stay while the two of them try to work out what is happening and determine if the events can possibly be connected.

Rizzoli also has to contend with her newly engaged mother’s wedding plans and her father (but not quite ex-husband) who is bent on derailing them. And if that wasn’t enough, the senior detective, Crowe, completely disagrees with Rizzoli’s assessment of the Clock case and will not assign her the resources she needs to explore her theory. Then a third case pops up that increases the urgency of solving the case…or more people will die.

As a keen follower of the “Rizzoli & Isles” TV series, I was curious to read one of the books in the series. It was a bit confusing at first as some of the characters are different (for instance, the mother’s fiancé in the book is Rizzoli’s ex-partner in the TV series).  This story had more substance than the TV shows; as much as I like them, they really are entertainment fluff. It was challenging trying to work out how the cases might be connected and who was behind the murders. The scenes at the special school were also interesting: even children with a major challenge in common still find a way to divide up into the “cool kids” and the “nerds”.  However, the plot was rather over the top and  the support Rizzoli gets from a senior officer is unlikely to happen in the real world. That said, I enjoyed the story, great bedtime reading.            

Rating: (°_°)      Worth reading

Author Gerritsen is a retired physician who began writing romantic thrillers while on maternity leave. Ten years later, she switched to medical thrillers, one historical thriller and finally to the Rizzoli and Isles series in 2001, of which there are currently 10 books. She is now writing full time.

 

Review: Black Star Nairobi, Mukoma wa Ngugi (Kenya)

Title: Black Star Nairobi
Author: Mukoma wa Ngugi
Publication: 2013/Brooklyn, New York: Melville House Publishing
ISBN #: 978-1-61219-210-9
# of pages: 267
Discovered by scanning all the shelves at a bookstore, looking for new authors
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Also available in e-book format
Link to author’s website: Mukoma wa Ngugi

For the past three years, Ishmael and Odhiambo, known simply as O, have operated the Black Star detective agency. Fortunately O is still a police officer and his boss Hassan tosses them the odd case, which is keeping them in business. This latest case is very odd, the decomposing body of an African-American killed execution style and left to rot in Ngong Forest near Nairobi. As a displaced African-American, this hits close to home for Ishmael. Their investigation has barely begun when their world is rocked...literally...by an explosion at the Norfolk Hotel. Ishmael strongly believes the incidents are connected so they set out to see what is happening at the hotel.

Ethnic tension bubbles just below the surface in Kenya as the 2007 elections are about to be held. Some Americans...and many Kenyans...were killed at the hotel so fears of Al-Qaeda involvement are running rampant, bringing the CIA into the picture. Ishmael and O are told to back off, which only makes them more curious.

Their investigation quickly takes an ugly turn and they no longer know whom to trust. Muddy, Rwandan genocide survivor and Ishmael’s girlfriend, soon joins their quest for the truth.

This turned out to be more thriller than murder mystery. The Kenyan election backdrop was very interesting, a taste of how quickly a country can disintegrate into violence. The three main characters are strong ones and you soon want to know more about each of their backgrounds. I would like to read the first book in the series to learn how Ishmael ended up in Kenya. The book does go bit astray about halfway through and the plot becomes more convoluted than necessary. However, the story and the lead characters carry the reader through to the end.

Rating: (°_°)             Worth reading

Notable sentence:  “Pulled in to this vortex of violence and more violence, my principles of justice were becoming rudimentary – us against them.”

Author wa Ngugi was born in the USA but grew up in Kenya. In addition to the first mystery in this series “Nairobi Heat”, he has also written poetry, fiction and non-fiction books, political columns and essays. He is an Assistant Professor of English at Cornell University and his father is a renowned African author.  

 

Review: Who Killed Palomino Molero?, Mario Vargas Llosa (Peru)

Title: Who Killed Palomino Molero?
Author: Mario Vargas Llosa
Translator: Alfred MacAdam
Publication: 1987/New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Original Publication: 1986/Spain?: Seix Barral (“ƾQuién mató a Palomino Molero?”)

ISBN #: 0374289786

# of pages: 151

Discovered at mysteries in paradise

Read in paper format
Also available in e-book, Spanish

It's northern Peru in the 1950s. A goat herder has called police officer Lituma out to view a body, a horribly mutilated and tortured body of a young man. Lituma quickly determines the young man is Palomino Molero, a beautiful singer who had unaccountably signed up for the army even though he was exempt from military service. He questions Molero's mother who could only say it was a matter of life and death for her son to enlist but she didn't know why. Questions to a few locals reveal that Molero was madly in love and used to serenade a girl near the air base before he joined up. Did he enlist to follow her?

Lituma’s boss Lieutenant Silva, also madly in love - with the chubby and very married Doña Adriana - works the case with him, teaching him interviewing techniques and the facts of life along the way. They work out of a rundown police station with little equipment and the local cabdriver acts as their chauffeur. They quickly run into roadblocks from the military, mixed with elitism and ethnic discrimination. Silva may suspect who is responsible but can he prove it and bring the culprit to justice?

This book came highly recommended and most of the reviews rate it very well. However, I found it a rough book: horrific murder, rough language, disparaging to women. This may well have been indicative of the times and the setting the author was portraying; I just don't enjoy reading this type of story. Hopefully Lituma is a fairly new police officer as he seems quite inexperienced and naive. Silva - despite his chauvinistic attitude towards his purported love - is a talented police officer, with creative approaches and a willingness to push against the establishment. His investigation is interesting but his treatment of Adriana borders on harassment. A number of topics were raised (power politics, lower class versus upper class, injustice) but they were touched on, not delved into. I reluctantly pushed myself to finish the book yet I have obviously missed what others saw since the majority of ratings were 4 and 5 stars. I was quite surprised to learn the author is a Nobel Prize winner in Literature. So I did miss something!!!    

Rating: (-_°)   Nodded off a few times but finished

Peruvian by birth, Llosa lived abroad for many years, especially after the Peruvian military burned 1,000 copies of one of his books. He returned in 1980, just as democratic rule was being reinstituted, and actually ran for the presidency in 1990. He was president of PEN International for three years and has written critical studies of authors as well as numerous books of fiction. He has received numerous literary honours.

Review: Some Kind of Peace, Camilla Grebe & Åsa Träff (Sweden)

Title: Some Kind of Peace
Author: Camilla Grebe & Åsa Träff
Translator: Paul Norlen
Publication: 2012/New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks
Original Publication: 2009/Sweden: Wahlstöm & Widstrand
ISBN #: 978-1-4516-5459-2
# of pages: 315
Discovered at an airport bookstore
Read in paper format
Also available in e-book and audio formats

The book opens on a young girl dead under an apple tree outside her home. The scene quickly moves to psychologist Siri Bergman’s office where another young girl is discussing her struggles with cutting. Through different patients’ sessions, we come to learn more about Siri, professional therapist by day and wine-loving darkness-fearing widow by night. The sudden death of her beloved husband Stefan a few years ago has profoundly affected Siri and in her grief, she clings to the isolation of her seaside home.

The reader soon learns there is a dark presence stalking Siri. Brief pages share the stalker’s thoughts and plans. Siri begins to feel as if someone is watching her, perhaps following her. She doubts her feelings though and does not even share her concerns with her best friend and fellow therapist Aina. When a body is found outside her home, Siri is forced to confront the fact that someone is after her. The stalker seems to know too much about her to be a stranger. Could they be a patient or someone even closer to Siri, one of her colleagues? The police meet with her regularly to try and advance their investigation but it is up to Siri to search her files and her memories to discover who is behind the escalating acts.

At first, this book seemed a bit disjointed. The chapters weave between the background of Siri’s life with Stefan, her personal struggles and her sessions with patients. The details of the sessions and the mundaneness of some of their concerns were not initially engaging. Siri herself was somewhat annoying at first, a therapist not willing to address her own unresolved issues. Some of her discussions with patients seemed to make their situations worse. At times, she seems quite naïve about situations at work and in her personal life.  Can she really be a competent therapist? However, as the story proceeds, you get caught up in the building suspense and the eerie remoteness of her home. You start reviewing the possible suspects and seeing how they fit into the clues. Definitely worth reading to the end.          
Rating: (°_°)  Worth reading

The authors Grebe and Träff are sisters, Träff putting her psychologist background to good use. They grew up on Swedish mystery books, especially author team Sjöwall and Wahlöö (my favourites as well). This book is the first in the Bergman series, followed by “Strangers” and “More Bitter than Death”.

Review: The Healer, Antti Tuomainen (Finland)

Title: The Healer
Author: Antti Tuomainen
Translator: Lola Rogers
Publication: 2013/New York, Henry Holt and Company, LLC
Original Publication: 2010/Helsinki, Helsinki-Kirirat, “Parantaja”
ISBN #: 978-0-8050-9554-8
# of pages: 211
Discovered on a blog earlier this year that I neglected to write down
Read in paper format
Also available in e-book and audio book formats
Link to author’s website: http://anttituomainen.com/

Johanna Lehtinen, investigative reporter, had been working on a serial killer story when she goes missing two days before Christmas. Her poet husband Tapani is immediately concerned because they keep in touch throughout each day via text and email and he has not heard anything from her for some time. He begins his search at her newspaper’s office and is soon put off by her managing editor’s blasé attitude.

But how can anyone be too concerned about one missing woman in the midst of the torrential rain that has been lashing Helsinki for weeks, the rain that is only one sign of the effects of climate change? Climate change has become a truly apocalyptic event, resulting in wars in the EU, never-ending forest fires in the Amazon and hundreds of millions of climate refugees worldwide, fleeing their homelands and heading north. Civil society has collapsed in Finland, anarchy rules and chief inspector Harri Jaatinen of the violent crimes unit, an officer who still cares, struggles to stay ahead of the dozens of daily incoming reports of violence and missing people, leaving him no time to investigate any of them.  He offers little hope to Tapani that they will get to his wife’s case in the near future.

Tapani decides to find his wife on his own, with some tips from Jaatinen and the support of taxi driver Hamid. Johanna’s character and her strong connection with Tapani are revealed through his flashbacks to happier times.

This was a very intriguing book. Tapani’s search leads him to unexpected places and revelations but for me, it was also the background of climate change that was fascinating. How does one man stay focused on finding his wife when society as we know it is collapsing around him? Never before had I considered the societal effect of climate change and this book creates one possible new world. What makes it scary is that this is a very believable new world.  The climate change theme is an integral part of the story line and yet does not turn the mystery into science fiction. “…fear, building up moment by moment…” keeps you reading to the very end.    

Rating: (°o°)!         Stayed awake all night to find out what happened!

Notable sentence: “Helsinki had finally become an international city. But this wasn’t how we had imagined it.”

Tuomainen was an award-winning ad copywriter in Helsinki until 2007 when he realized his long-time dream to become a writer.  With this book, he wanted to paint a picture of what Helinski would be like under the predictions of the negative results of climate change. He chose a poet as narrator so he could use lyrical and precise language where every word counts. His previous two books are “A Killer, I Wish” and “My Brother’s Keeper”. His fourth book is due out in Finland this year.

Review: The Hound of the Baskervilles, Arthur Conan Doyle (England)

Title: The Hound of the Baskervilles
Author: Arthur Conan Doyle
Publication: ---
Original Publication: 1901/UK: George Newnes
ISBN #: ---
# of pages: 359
Rediscovered as a free download on my Kobo
Read in e-book format
Also available in paper format, audio CD

A fine silver banded walking stick is left in Sherlock Holmes’ office and when the owner, Dr. James Mortimer, returns to claim it, Holmes and his ever-present sidekick Dr. Watson learn about the curse of the Baskerville family. In the 1640’s, the evil Hugo Baskerville kidnapped a local young woman. She escaped, only to have Hugo chase her through the dangerous moors. When his drunken friends caught up, they found them both dead, and a huge black dog, with blazing eyes and dripping jaws, standing over them.  An account of the event was written down in 1742 by a later heir, also named Hugo, and passed down through the centuries. Now the current heir, Sir Charles Baskerville, has died suddenly and with no apparent foul play, however the paw print of a huge dog is found near the body. The next heir, nephew Henry, is returning from Canada and Mortimer fears he will be the next to die.

Although Holmes becomes intrigued by the mystery, he is not available to go to Devon and sends Watson on his own. Watson has a lot to consider. The Barrymores, long-time family servants, seem in a hurry to leave. Jack Stapleton and his sister Beryl have a complicated relationship, especially apparent when Sir Henry falls in love with Beryl. Could Selden, a dangerous escaped convict hunted by the police, be involved? And who is the mysterious L.L.? With reference to his diary and his recollections, Watson recounts the suspenseful events that lead to the unravelling of the mystery of the Hound.

Arthur Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie were among my earliest murder mystery readings and it was wonderful to re-experience this early entry in the genre.  Despite being written more than one hundred years’ ago, it is still a very readable tale. It was a bit disappointing that Holmes was absent in the first half of the story. Holmes’ and Watson’s discussion about what the walking stick tells them about the owner is one of the few times Holmes’ powers of deduction are demonstrated. He does show his usual flare in uncovering the culprit in the latter part though. Unlike “The Moonstone” written some 30 years earlier (see my review ), the writing here is crisp and to the point. There are not many twists in the storyline but the suspense builds steadily, with the foggy brooding moors always on the horizon, and as the end draws near, you do want to keep reading.     Rating: (^_°)   Intriguing

Notable sentence: Sherlock Holmes to Dr. Watson just before telling him how wrong Watson’s deductions are:  “It may be that you are not yourself luminous, but you are a conductor of light. Some people without possessing genius have a remarkable power of stimulating it.”

Doyle was a Scottish physician best known for the 60 stories he wrote about Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. He also wrote other short stories, three largely autobiographical novels, and several historical novels. His medical school mentor, Professor Dr. Joseph Bell, was renowned for his powers of observation and became the model for Holmes. Doyle had actually killed off Holmes in an earlier book so that he could concentrate on his spiritualism writings. Sir Henry’s pondering of whether the supernatural interfere in the affairs of mankind reflects Doyle’s own fascination with spiritualism. Doyle's séances to connect with dead relatives is difficult to equate with the creator of a very rational and logical Sherlock Holmes.

Review: The Professionals, Owen Laukkanen (Canada: British Columbia)

Title: The Professionals
Author: Owen Laukkanen
Publication: 2012/New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons
ISBN #: 978-0-399-15789-9
# of pages: 370
Discovered at Stop You're Killing Me

Read in paper format

Also available in e-book format, Dutch translation
Link to author’s website: owenlaukkanen.com 

Professionals are experts in their vocation. The best aren’t greedy, they have a long term plan and they do their research before starting a new project. Even, apparently, if they are professional kidnappers. Four unemployed university graduates, Pender, his girlfriend Marie, and his two close friends Sawyer and Mouse are disenchanted with life and blame the traders and stockbrokers who got rich while ruining the US economy, leaving them and others like them without work or hope. So why not make them pay for what they did? Kidnap them, ask for a manageable ransom, terrify them into not reporting it to the police – do this carefully and in a mere five years, the group will soon be able to retire to the Maldives. One less than cooperative victim finally reports the incident to the police. Then one research slipup results in them kidnapping the wrong man and they suddenly have more than the police to worry about.

Agent Kirk Stevens of the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension is used to paperwork and everyday crimes, easily solved murders from robberies, drug deals and marital issues. A kidnapping that is not drug related sounds like a true investigative challenge. When the case crosses state lines, he now has to share the excitement with a driven FBI agent Carla Windermere. Will they get to the kidnappers first?

Can you empathize with bad guys? After all, they are kidnapping people who have questionable ethics and no apparent concern for the ordinary person. This was an interesting aspect of the book, a grudging regard for the kidnappers, at least before things went off the rails. Would any one of these four have become a criminal on their own? When do group dynamics take things to an unexpected level? Would you stay true to your friends, no matter what? These are just some of the questions this novel explores. It was engaging and (mostly) believable although some of the group’s escapes required a healthy dose of good luck. I particularly enjoyed how the lead detectives found the reality of the chase became more exciting than the actual resolution. Having been involved in some interesting fraud investigations, I have a sense of this feeling and can only imagine what it’s like in this level of case. Not quite a stay up all night book but I certainly wanted to see how it would end.                   Rating: (^_°)  Intriguing

After graduation, author Laukkanen struggled to find work and finally answered a Craiglist ad which led him  to covering international poker tournaments for a poker website. After three years, he turned back to the creative writing he had studied at the University of British Columbia. This is the first in a series for detectives Stevens and Windermere. The second book, “Criminal Enterprise”, was released this year and two more instalments are in the works.