The World of Books

The Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet today published an article that stated that the manuscript for Stieg Larsson’s fourth and unfinished book will neither be completed nor finished.

The family confirms that there exist a draft for a fourth book. Approximately 200 pages have been written. However, Stieg Larsson’s familily strongly feels that it would be inappropriate to have somebody else finish Stieg Larsson’s final work.

So, that seems to be it. No more wonderful Stieg Larsson books. We will have to make do with the wonderful books that he did manage to complete (reviews here).

Ann Patchett is a talented American story teller and writes beautifully. She is the author of, among other books, Bel Canto and the excellent and marvelous The Magician’s Assistant, a great novel that also became a very entertaining movie.

This is a different, but equally interesting story. Since their mother’s death, Tip and Teddy Doyle have been raised by their loving, possessive, and ambitious father. As the former mayor of Boston, Bernard Doyle wants to see his sons in politics, a dream the boys have never shared. But when an argument in a blinding New England snowstorm inadvertently causes an accident that involves a stranger and her child, all Bernard Doyle cares about is his ability to keep his children—all his children—safe.

Set over a period of twenty-four hours, Run takes us from the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard to a home for retired Catholic priests in downtown Boston. It shows us how worlds of privilege and poverty can coexist only blocks apart from each other, and how family can include people you’ve never even met.

As in her bestselling novel Bel Canto, Ann Patchett illustrates the humanity that connects disparate lives, weaving several stories into one, and by doing this, creating surprising and endlessly moving narrative. Suspenseful and stunningly executed, Run is ultimately a novel about secrets, duty, responsibility, and the lengths we will go to protect our children. A fabulous book, and one I am sure you will like as well.

The context for Frederick Forsyth’s Icon is post-Glasnost Russia. The country is in crisis, and a new post-Fascist political party emerges, with a new, strong presidential candidate. A highly popular and charismatic politician, victory was all but guaranteed for Komarov.

Then a secret document surfaces in the West. The document contains extremely very sensitive information regarding Komarov’s future policies as president, indicating some relatively problematic tactics: restoration of slave camps, creation of a one-party state, destruction of political opponents, invasion of neighboring republics, and genocide of Russia’s ethnic and religious minorities.

The West must do something. But what? And how? A game with high stakes, espionage, and intrigue is started. And the snowball turns and twists.

Icon is a wonderful read!

Icon is among Forsyth’s best. Definitely!

For reviews of all of Forsyth’s books, see Leserglede’s Forsyth-page!

Bestill Icon (på engelsk) fra Bokkilden for kr. 120,-

I like the Masters of Rome by Colleen McCullough a lot, and have read all the books in the series. Therefore I have been looking forward to Antony and Cleopatra for a while.

This is the follow-up to The October Horse. After the death of Julius Caesar in 41 BC, Mark Antony, Caesar’s ambitious and brash cousin, and Octavian, Caesar’s adopted son and designated heir, agree to jointly administer the far-flung empire: Antony in the East and Octavian in the West. It’s not a happy, nor a very stable, arrangement.

Also in this book, Colleen McCullough turns her attention to the legendary romance of Antony and Cleopatra. The love affair between Mark Antony and Cleopatra is a strange story, in a sense a timeless tale of love, politics, and power. However, in McCullough’s version, it doesn’t really come off as a steaming hot affair, nor as a tale of Mark Antony the seducer, but much more as a story of the seduction of Mark Antony by a determined and strong-willed Cleopatra. Cleopatra has an agenda of her own: to replace Antony and ultimately Octavian with Caesarion, the son she had with Julius when he came courting. This is her motive for wanting to seduce Antony, and she succeeds!

Antony and Cleopatra is another good Masters of Rome entry. I enjoyed reading it. Of course! Colleen McCullough is, after all, a master storyteller. The history is thick with plots and intrigue, the battles are fierce, the characters are brash and haughty, and the female characters every bit as strong willed and determined as the male ones.

Overall, a wonderful set up for a great book. Nevertheless, I have to say that among the books in the Master of Rome series, this is the book I have liked the least. It is hard to pinpoint the exact reason, but there are at least two that comes to mind.

The first is has to do with the characters. Mark Antony and Octavian are simply not nearly as interesting as, say, Caesar and Sulla - neither in a historical perspective, nor as characters in this book. McCullough does not manage to makes these characters, or Cleopatra for that matter, really come alive. Antony is particular comes across as more or less stupid.

Secondly, the action moves too slow in this book, compared to the earlier books in the series, and the battles lack smartness and stuff that make me fascinated.

So, yeah, an ok read, but Antony and Cleopatra is definitely not up to my expectations this time!

David Baldacci is a great thriller writer, and writes the best conspiracy thrillers. His plots are interesting and the action is fast.

However, the Camel Club books (three now, and this is the first), differ a lot from his other books. The main reason for this is the Club itself. It consists of four misfits, drawing near to nearing senior citizen status, who form a secret conspiracy watchdog organization. Their ringleader is a person named “Oliver Stone,” a man with a very secret and pretty mysterious past. The way Baldacci writes about the Club and its members is charming, funny, and full of surprises. 

In this book, while meeting in a park during off-hours, the four members of the club witness the murder of a Secret Service agent, Patrick Johnson. Unfortunately, the killers realize they have witnesses. The Camel Club, on the other hand, decides not to report the murder to the police. Instead, they go on the offensive, trying to discover not only the identity of the killers but also their motivation. So now the game gets going.

The Camel Club, and the followers in this series, is entertaining in the extreme. Not only is the plot great, but the mysterious members of the Camel Club and their strange discussions are highly interesting in their own right too. And, as it turns out, their members are much more resourceful than I believed them to be. So to me, this was a book that both had the qualities of a conspiracy thriller, but that also made me smile and even laugh.

The Patterson bestseller factory has turned out another high-drama thriller, this time in collaboration with Honeymoon coauthor Howard Roughan. You’ve Been Warned may not be his best, but it is good.

Kristin Burns, a New York City nanny and aspiring photographer, is devoted to the two children under her care, but her desire for their father, Michael Turnbull, leads her to a risky, torrid affair with him.

Kristin’s anxiety about her guilty secret is heightened by a series of frightening nightmares centering on a vision of four body bags being loaded onto gurneys in front of a prominent Manhattan hotel. Her nightmares also feature recurring encounters with dead people, including her father and the pediatrician who abused her as a child. Kristin’s breathless, superficial narration doesn’t generate a lot of reader sympathy or interest in figuring out the source of her macabre experiences.

See our reviews of other Patterson books: The Jester, Cross, Black Market, and Beach Road. Other interesting books by this highly productive writer are, among other, The 6th Target, Step on a Crack, and The Quickie.

Hakan (Håkan) Nesser is another of the brilliant Swede crime writers who have been translated into English recently. He is a skilled writer, with well developed plots in his books, and has written a series of books about Inspector Van Veeteren. As you will see when you read The Return, Van Veeteren is a likable, smart, passionate and fully drawn character. Furthermore, all of Nesser’s books have the feel of authentic police investigations throughout. His books are generally police procedurals.

The storyline in The Return revolves around an inquest conducted by Chief Inspector Van Veeteren and his squad of detectives in the Maardam police department. A decapitated corpse also missing hands and feet was discovered wrapped in a carpet by a pre-school child in a wooded area during a class outing. Immediately the investigation was two pronged. Exactly who was the victim and who was his murderer?

The detectives soon discover that the victim was one Leopold Verhaven. The notorious Verhaven, once a world class middle distance runner, had served two separate 12 year prison terms for the murders of two young women he was romantically involved with. As Van Veeteren looks back at the evidence from the previous killings he gets the feeling that Verhaven might have been innocent.

The reader is taken through many routine interrogations in a murder investigation which only very gradually add up to a solution to the case. The case itself is bizarre and convoluted, involving the murders of three people, including a convicted murderer recently paroled from prison. While the central figure in The Return is Chief Inspector Van Veeteren, his junior colleagues get most of the story space and their characters are well developed and credible. Still, Van Veeteren really shines through, after his serious surgical procedure he’s in a lighter, more philosophical mood with more humor and irony surfacing.

The Return is a great crime novel, and very psychological. The action is intriguing and interesting, the plot good, and the characters rich and attractive. You will enjoy! Highly recommended.

For more reviews of Hakan Nesser and other Swedish Crime writers, take a look at www.ScandinavianBooks.com!

Other great books by Hakan Nesser include Borkmann’s Point: An Inspector Van Veeteren Mystery and Münsters Fall.

I suspect this is a great question with a multitude of possible answers. Like beauty, hot-ness most likely resides in the eye of the beholder. Even when the topic is crime books.

Regardless of the pitfalls involved in raising and attempting to answer this question, Maxim Jakubowski of Guardian attempted to do this a few years ago. His answer seems a bit UK-centric, but is still of considerable interest. Here’s what he said:

So, who’s big today? Ferociously dark and realist Americans like Michael Connelly, Carl Hiaasen, Dennis Lehane, James Ellroy, Patricia Cornwell (queen of the forensics genre), Walter Mosley, Andrew Vachss and James Patterson. For legal thrillers, head for Scott Turow and John Grisham. Sleuthettes extraordinaire are on offer from Sara Paretsky, Linda Barnes, Marcia Muller, Sue Grafton, Janet Evanovich and Sarah Dunant. The younger British school is worth investigating: John Harvey, Ian Rankin, Stella Duffy, Nicholas Blincoe, Lauren Henderson, Mike Phillips and Lee Child. Those who swim in deep psychological waters include Val McDermid, Minette Walters, Mo Hayder and Reginald Hill, while the ever more popular historical mystery crowd includes Lindsey Davis and Steven Saylor (Roman remains); Ellis Peters (medieval monasticism); Peter Tremayne (Celtic crimes); Paul Doherty (twelth-century London) and Edward Marston (Domesday-era dirty deeds). Lastly, there are the entertainers: Dick Francis, Michael Pearce, Kinky Friedman, Mike Ripley.

Not a bad answer! Lots of interesting books, but, of course, being a few years old, this list completely misses a number of authors, like the rising stars of the Scandinavian Crime Author wave. That Sjöwall & Wahlöö is missing is somewhat strange. Still, a nice list and lots of stuff for the starting crime reader!

The Great Train Robbery, an old thriller by Michael Crichton (first published in 1975) takes us to the underground world of betrayal and crime in Victorian England.

We witness, first-hand, probably the most intriguing money hoist in history. We travel with Edward Pierce, a criminal mastermind, and discover how he puts together a team of specialists to complete the hoist.

In the shaggy town of London, a train always leaves at the same time carrying two safes loaded with about two million dollars worth of gold. Legend has it that these safes are impenetrable, but of course this only make them even more attractive for some. The combination of a vast sum of money and a challenge never ends to compel criminals all over the city.

One of those criminals is Edward Pierce. A criminal legend, he comes out of jail and plans this crime from the ground up. He goes around the city, offering his old partners in crime a share of the money if they accept. The crew he chooses includes Robert Agar, the locksmith; Clean Willy Williams, the snakesman (a little kid who can squeeze into really tight spaces); Barlow, a big man who can carry a lot of weight; and Miss Miriam, who helps in setting up distractions. He has planned the crime for six years, from the train schedules to the drop-off points to the breaking of the safes.

The Great Train Robbery is old Michael Crichton at his very best. Not a book to put away easily, a real page turner, full of excitement and surprise. Still worth reading.

Jeffrey Archer is another of my favorite authors. He is a strange fellow. Made an ultra-rapid political career, had to withdraw. Have recently spent some time in prison. Has been made a baron -  Baron Archer of Weston-super-Mare. And much more strange stuff. However, regardless of all that, he is a wonderful writer and a pleasure to read.

The title of this book, As the Crow Flies, is an idiom meaning “by the most direct way; along a straight line between two places”. This is a suitable description of the tale of Charlie Trumper. He flies. How straight is open for discussion.

Charlie Trumpers story is based on a rags-to-riches theme, which is a fairly typical Archer-theme - seemingly both in real life and in his writings. A young barrow boy from the Whitechapel area of London’s East End, Charlie masters the fine craft of becoming the best fruit and vegetable man in all of the East End. This is a talent he hones at his grandfather’s side and one that stays with him for life and gives him his greatest thrill.

The reader watches Charlie grow from eight-year-old urchin to World War I soldier and chairman of his own London department store. Along the way both triumph and tragedy are his companions, but it is his bitter and hate-filled feud with the Trentham family that will leave you aghast and shocked, but always mesmerized and turning the pages. As the Crow Flies is a wonderful, very entertaining read.

A wonderful read. A few years old, admittedly, but I still love it. Leserglede has more reviews of Jeffrey Archer’s books!