BookGazette

Silence of the Grave, by Arnaldur Indridason

Peter — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 00:51:12 +0000

In this second installment of Arnaldur Indridason’s Reykjavik Murder Mysteries, Erlendur Sveinsson, the somewhat jaded Reykjavik police detective – so full of regrets – is back. We met him previously in the first novel in the series, Jar City (a k a Tainted Blood). Now a skeleton has been found while excavating a new housing project. It has been determined to be decades old, and is assumed to be the victim of a murder. But who is it? How did he or she die?

So, once more the worn, worried, introspective detective Erlendur and colleagues must investigate Reykjavik’s hidden past. As with Jar City, Silence of the Grave too is alive with tension and atmosphere and feels disturbingly real. This excellent novel, for which Arnaldur Indridason was awarded the Glass Key award in 2003 and the Crime Writers’ Association Gold Dagger Award in 2005, is an outstanding continuation of the Reykjavík Murder Mysteries.

This is a black novel – very noir fiction – and contains some tough and almost repulsive descriptions. We follow Erlendur into the abysses of drug abuse, needles and crack vials; a depressive journey into the dark spots of the otherwise bleak and barren setting of Iceland. We learn of a horrifying story of domestic abuse set during WWII. And a search for missing persons unearths almost-forgotten dark family secrets involving some of the city’s most prominent citizens. Out of the silence of the grave pours secrets that perhaps had best remained hidden for eternity. In this book there is misery and more misery.

Inspector Erlendur Sveinnson’s trail is cold indeed. But he has personal reasons for a deep interest in missing persons, and does not give up. And as we learn more about Erlendur – his background, his family – we understand his fatalism and his dogged style.

Arnaldur Indridason is one of the many great Scandinavian crime fiction writers. This is an exceptional, deep, slowly moving, excellently and very intelligently plotted dark crime fiction novel. It is suspenseful and compelling, written in a manner that feels just right. Silence of the Grave is a book you should not miss out on.

Paradise, by Liza Marklund

Peter — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 00:35:55 +0000

A hurricane sweeps across Sweden, leaving chaos in its wake. Two men lie dead in Stockholm, shot in the head at point-blank range. A cargo of cigarettes, worth 50 million Swedish has disappeared. And a young woman runs for her life from a relentless, invisible killer. She finds refuge in Paradise, a private foundation dedicated to those whose lives are in danger.

Paradise is funded by Swedish social welfare agencies, and helps people to disappear completely.

This is the start of Paradise. Paradise is the third thriller featuring Swedish newspaper reporter Annika Bengtzon, and the follow-up on Studio Sex, taking place about two years later.

Newspaper sub-editor Annika Bengtzon is trying to piece her life back together following the violent death of her fiance, and covering the story of Paradise is just the break she needs.

Then Annika receives a call from Aida, who is afraid and needs help. Annika recommends her to seek refuge in Paradise. Shortly after, Aida is found murdered. Thus Annika feels compelled to investigate more closely about Paradise – what it is, and what it does. She quickly notices things that do not fit the image that it presents to the world. She begins to get hints of trouble: ‘Don’t trust Rebecka,’ a Paradise client whispers, referring to its director.

The plot in Paradise is exciting and tense. The side story about Annika Bengzon’s private life is woven nicely into the main story.

Liza Marklund writes with lots of energy and force, and the story is fast paced. Annika Bengtzon is a very likable heroine. Paradise is a great crime novel, strongly recommended!

The Templar Knight: Book Two of the Crusades Trilogy, by Jan Guillou

Peter — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 22:17:39 +0000

The second book in the Crusades Trilogy by Jan Guillou, The Templar Knight, is every bit as good as the first, The Road to Jerusalem. We follow Arn Magnusson, born in 1150 to an aristocratic Swedish family and educated at a Cistercian monastery. He has become a master archer and swordsman under the tutelage of the giant Brother Guilbert, a former knight.

In this book, Arn, who has been sent to the Holy land for 20 years as a punishment, becomes a highly respected Knight Templar in the Holy Land. As an occupation officer in Palestine, he discovers that the infidel Saracens don’t appear to be quite as brutish and uncivilized as they are portrayed in Christian propaganda. On the contrary, in love and war, he learns from the example of his noble adversary Saladin that there’s another side to the teachings of the Cistercians. At the same time, events in his native Sweden signal that something important is about to happen.

The Templar Knight is a brilliant and very dramatic recreation of the world of the crusades, and is full of suspense and intrigue. It also has an extremely appealing young Swedish hero and a very touching love story.

The book is excellently written and translated (by Steven T. Murray), has interesting and intelligent interpretations of the historical subject matter, and is very suspenseful. This is one of the best series of historical novels of the medieval age, and an exciting and extremely entertaining read. One of my personal favorites, which I strongly recommend!

Praise:

“Thrilling and inspiring, bloody and romantic; utterly of its time and utterly modern” — Tom Holland

The Bricklayer, by Noah Boyd

Peter — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 17:31:17 +0000

This is the debut novel of Noah Boyd, and very likely also the first book in a series featuring the ex-FBI agent, now bricklayer, Steve Vail. A very interesting and promising debut!

Steve Vail is a former FBI agent who has some serious issues with authority and didn’t fit well in the huge bureaucratic machinery that the FBI is. So he got fired and started laying bricks in Chicago – an honest trade, no bosses.

However, one Friday afternoon he goes to the bank and finds himself taken hostage by two desperate bank robbers. And ends up doing something he is quite good at – he foils the robbery by hurling the robbers through the bank’s windows.

Even though he sneaks away afterwards, he catches the attention of the FBI. As it turns out, the FBI is being blackmailed in a case where prominent people are being killed in a systematic fashion, and where someone inside the FBI seems to be involved. So the FBI is in need of exactly the kind of talent Steve Vail represents – a trained investigator, a man of action, and a guy that can follow a trail.

Thus FBI Deputy Assistant Director Kate Bannon turns up and makes Vail an offer. The FBI needs him, and will even let him be his own boss and name his compensation. But as Vail says: “There is always a boss. … The trick is to never take a job you can’t walk away from. Especially when the bosses get to be insufferable, which I think is now a federal law.”

The investigation Vail gets himself into in The Bricklayer is complex, and Vail and Bannon follow a convoluted trail full of dangerous traps in pursuit of a terrorist group. Often the lone wolf Steve Vail – who isn’t all that concerned with legal boundaries – completely outshines the FBI and aggravates the powers that be in the organization.

There is lots of intelligent action in this book, and the plot is smart too. There are times when the solutions to the various problems facing Vail present themselves in a slightly too convenient fashion, but overall this is a great debut novel. In my opinion both the author and the characters in this book, especially Steve Vail who really is an enjoyable and smart guy, hold great promise!

I found The Bricklayer to be very entertaining and quite suspenseful. I read it very quickly, which to me is always a good sign. The story is fun and nonstop. I recommend it!

Dino Vicelli – Private Eye, by Lori Weiner

Peter — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 23:13:51 +0000

This is a cute, strange book. A different crime fiction, in a lot of ways. It takes place in an alternate-reality version of New York City, where walking, talking dogs interact with human beings and live lives like humans. In fact, the detective is Italian Greyhound Dino Vicelli. He loves to dress smartly and enjoys an expensive cigar. In his New York City, talking dogs are the norm.

Dino makes his living and even pays for his expensive tastes by working as a Manhattan PI. Dino’s company is called Vicelli and Vicelli, with the motto “Will snoop out anything”.

One beautiful morning a tall Afghan blond with lots of legs enters his office. She is stunning. She calls herself Jezebel, and hires him to do a missing person investigation.

It seems a simple case, but it turns out to be complicated in the extreme. Murders, kidnappings, people and dogs appearing out of place, some really shady biological experimentation and a police department seemingly completely out of whack are the ingredients. Along with a man who wants to dominate the world.

It took me a little while to get into this book, but with some dogged determination I did, and found that this actually is an entertaining little book, a satirical canine caper of sorts. Full of dames in distress and scheming men and dogs. And Dino is a charmer – a detective that really can – and does – sniff things out. A different detective.

So if you like fast moving dialogue, a little confusion here and there, satirical reads, and perhaps even dogs, this book will probably give you a few laughs. Dino Vicelli, Private Eye is a neat and original take on the detective genre. The mystery is not the main ingredient here – the language and the dogged fun are.

The Protégé, by Stephen Frey

Peter — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 20:53:07 +0000

This is the second book by Stephen Frey which features the financial wizard Christian Gillette. The first was The Chairman, a great book.

Here we meet a Gillette firmly in control of his investment firm, Everest. And now in the process of finishing up the process of raising 15 billion dollars for the firm’s eight big fund, after a string of successes with the previous funds.

Christian Gillette is a great character. He is a man with a lot of resources, a quick brain, and not afraid to seek assistance when he encounters problems he doesn’t quite know how to handle with. And he is a likable, multi-facetted guy that actually is quite likable, even though he is stinking rich and works in the financial industry.

Now the Gillette needs all his wit. The problems are mounting, and he is being manipulated by an ultra-secret government organization as well as the Mafia. And once again, he is in a situation where people he has connections to are dying left and right. And not only is his work situation getting tough – he has problems in his personal life as well. A new and very pretty young female partner, an attractive heiress to a great family fortune, seems to want more than a partnership at the firm, and his girlfriend is not very happy.

One of his most trusted employees, a man he wants to elevate to his right hand positions, David Wright – The Protégé, is in deep trouble as well. He has “accidentally” killed a prostitute in the course of a heavy session: “He kept replaying that awful scene in the bondage chamber in his mind. His foot hitting the block of wood, the awful sound of her neck snapping like a brand new Ticonderoga pencil between two thumbs.”

This is a book with a lot of plots and side-plots, and with surprising twists and turns. And this time Frey manages to keep them all in the air and let the suspense build. The Protégé is very good and very interesting. A great financial thriller, of the kind Frey excels in writing. One of the best books so far by Stephen Frey in my opinion.

The Guy Who Gave Away Billions – Hank Paulson

Peter — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 19:34:44 +0000

Hank Paulson was the guy that gave away billions of hard earned tax payer dollars. Personally, I don’t think there was any systemic threath – AIG could and should have fallen and the owners should have paid for the excessive risk taking of the financial institutions. But Paulson, of course, did think and still thinks otherwise. And now he has written On The Brink to defend his position.

Hank Paulson was the former CEO of Goldman Sachs when he was appointed in 2006 to become the nation’s next Secretary of the Treasury. A year later, he would find himself at the very epicenter of the world’s most cataclysmic financial crisis since the Great Depression. Major institutions, including Bear Stearns, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Lehman Brothers, AIG, Merrill Lynch, and Citigroup, literally teetered at the edge of collapse. Panic ensnared international markets. And the credit crisis spread to all parts of the U.S. economy and grew more ominous with each passing day. All across America people lost jobs, the housing market collapsed and the financial security millions of families was in question.

This, then, is Hank Paulson’s first-person account. From the man who was in the very middle of this perfect economic storm, On the Brink is Paulson’s fast-paced retelling of the key decisions that had to be made with lightning speed. Paulson puts the reader in the room for all the intense moments as he addressed urgent market conditions, weighed critical decisions, and debated policy and economic considerations with of all the notable players-including the CEOs of top Wall Street firms as well as Ben Bernanke, Timothy Geithner, Sheila Bair, Nancy Pelosi, Barney Frank, presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain, and then-President George W. Bush.

More than an account about numbers and credit risks gone bad, On the Brink is an extraordinary story about people and politics-all brought together during the world’s impending financial Armageddon.

I don’t agree with Mr. Paulson. I never did. But even so I consider this book an invaluable source to understanding what went on when the US government decided to intervene and spend tax dollars on major financial institutions. Will Paulson go into history as the man who wasted a record amount of money or as the man who saved the country from a nightmare of a crisis?

Elling, by Ingvar Ambjornsen

Peter — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 16:25:56 +0000

Elling is a beautiful, very funny, endearing and sensitive novel about two men with difficult backgrounds and strange characters living on the fringe in Norway. A very heartening novel about a pair of odd-couple bachelors discharged from a mental asylum who set up an unusual household. They are two guys that experience everyday life as orders of magnitude more complicated and difficult to handle than you and me.

Everyday life is not at all something to float through and take for granted – in fact it is full of novelty and challenges as well as a bit scary and traumatic. At least if as Elling you’re a neurotic mama’s boy in your forties who suddenly has to make it on your own out there in the big, wide open world where everybody sees you and where doing the right things and doing them right all the time is so fundamentally important.

And it is not at all easy if the only person helping you cope with the huge challenges of everyday life is a guy who is completely sex-obsessed, lacking more than a little in social grace, and very mentally confused, such as Elling’s friend Kjell Bjarne.

In Elling we follow the guys as they settle in a new apartment, gradually come out of their shells, adopt two eight-week-old kittens, and start frequenting a local restaurant. For these guys tasks such as grocery shopping, eating in a restaurant, and using a telephone are terrifying activities. And we also follow them as they rescue a drunk, pregnant woman, make new friends, and when a poem is published. It is a madcap recovery adventure.

Kjell Bjarne and Elling are the two main characters in Ingvar Ambjornsen’s novel Elling. They are as chaotic a pair as you will ever encounter. And letting us see the world as it is for these two guys – with its mounting challenges and slim opportunities – in a warm humorous and very compassionate manner, Norwegian writer Ambjornsen has written a novel that is a literary pearl. In this, as in all his novels, Ambjornsen speaks the outsiders’ cause. And with his warmth and empathy, Ambjornsen has written a book that is serious, raises important issues, is very sensitive, but is at the same time among the most amusing and funny books I have ever read.

Elling is the kind of person who annoys you. He always has to elaborate everything he says, he comes four hours too early to a dinner party, and he behaves like a precocious little boy. He gets very easily offended – extremely. Despite all this, you just can’t help loving Elling.

Three of the books in the series have also been adapted to the screen, and Elling, based on this book, was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 2002. The Elling story has also been performed on stage all over the world.

Norwegian book readers love Elling. He has become a cultural icon there. There are four books in the Elling series, and all of them have been bestsellers in Norway and the author received the Norwegian literary prize “Brageprisen” for the second one. Elling is actually based on the third book in the series. It is a book you should not let pass you by!

Star: How Warren Beatty Seduced America, by Peter Biskind

Peter — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 04:28:42 +0000

Warren Beatty is – or at least was, probably still is – a very sexy guy. I don’t know whether he seduced America or not, but he did apparently seduce an astonishing number of American women – more than 12,000 is a number that’s out there. Add to that the fact that he is (has been) a huge star, and you have more than sufficient reason for America’s fascination with Mr. Beatty.

So therefore a number of books have been written about Warren Beatty over the years. Warren Beatty (1985) by John Kercher, Warren Beatty and Desert Eyes: A Life and a Story (1988) by Davis Thomson, Warren Beatty: The Last Great Lover of Hollywood (1994) by John Parker, SIX DEGREES OF WARREN BEATTY: a hollywood novel (2003) by Clayton Moore, The Sexiest Man Alive: A Biography of Warren Beatty(2004) by Ellis Amburn, and Bad Boy Drive: The life and fast times of Marlon Brando, Warren Beatty, Jack Nicholson and Dennis Hopper (2009) by Robert Sellers, are only some of the books. In addition there are tons of magazines and articles, of course.

And now there is one more. This month, on January 12th, Star: How Warren Beatty Seduced America, by Peter Biskind, will be added to the already long list. And it is a very readable, very revealing, very surprising and very balanced biography this time. Peter Biskind, who was the author of the film classics Easy Riders, Raging Bulls and Down and Dirty Pictures, has written what is probably the best and definitely the most intimate book so far about Hollywood legend Warren Beatty.

Warren Beatty is quite famous as a playboy, and rightfully so. But he is more than just that. Beatty has also been one of the most ambitious and successful stars in Hollywood. Several Beatty films have passed the test of time, from Bonnie and Clyde,Shampoo, Heaven Can Wait, Reds (for which he won the best director Oscar), Bugsy, and Bulworth. And many of those movies are epic, and Warren Beatty’s acting in them outstanding and memorable.

Few filmgoers realize that along with Orson Welles, Beatty is the only person ever nominated for four Academy Awards for a single film – and unlike Welles, Beatty did it twice, with Heaven Can Wait and Reds. Biskind shows how Beatty used star power, commercial success, savvy, and charm to bend Hollywood moguls to his will, establishing an unprecedented level of independence while still working within the studio system.
Beatty’s private life has been the subject of gossip for decades, and Star confirms his status as Hollywood’s leading man in the bedroom, describing his affairs with Joan Collins, Natalie Wood, Leslie Caron, Julie Christie, Michelle Phillips, Diane Keaton, and Madonna, among many others.

And, when you add to all of this that Warren Beatty also has been interested in politics and quite influental as well, then you see that there is much to write about, and lots of interesting reading to be had. As recently as a few years ago, Beatty was speaking out about California politics and contemplating a run for governor.

Biskind explains how Beatty exercised unique control, often hiring screenwriters out of his own pocket (and frequently collaborating with them), producing, directing, and acting in his own films, becoming an auteur before anyone in Hollywood knew what the word meant. He was arguably one of the most successful and creative figures in Hollywood during the second half of the twentieth century, and in this fascinating biography, Warren Beatty comes to life — complete with excesses and achievements — as never before.

One to read?

The Woman from Bratislava, by Leif Davidsen

Peter — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 22:58:54 +0000

Leif Davidsen writes with an eye for detail. He is one of the best Danish thriller writers. This very authentic and suspenseful novel begins when a seemingly invincible NATO fighter plane is shot down during a bombing raid in Yugoslavia. It soon becomes clear that there is a leak within the military alliance.

In Bratislava, Teddy Pedersen, a visiting Danish university lecturer, receives a visit from an Eastern European woman who reveals herself to be his half-sister and informs him that their father was a Danish SS officer who had officially been declared dead in 1952 but had in fact lived on in Yugoslavia for many years. When Teddy’s older sister is arrested in Copenhagen on suspicion of being a Stasi agent, a murder leads him — and the Danish intelligence service, with Per Toftlund in charge — to investigate the relationship between these two women, one in Denmark and one in Bratislava.

As international tensions mount, the link Teddy discovers proves to have far-reaching personal and political consequences is this engaging and intricate thriller.

This is a large-scale suspense-filled thriller. To my mind the best so far from Davidsen! The Woman from Bratislava is very enjoyable!