Tag: literature in translation

Mired in grief after tragic recent events, State prosecutor Chastity Riley escapes to Scotland, lured to the birthplace of her great-greatgrandfather by a mysterious letter suggesting she has inherited a house. In Glasgow, she meets Tom, the ex-lover of Chastity’s great aunt, who holds the keys to her own family secrets – painful stories of unexpected cruelty and loss that she’s never dared to confront. In Hamburg, Stepanovic and Calabretta investigate a major arson attack, while a group of property investors kicks off an explosion of violence that threatens everyone. As events in these two countries collide, Chastity prepares to face the inevitable, battling the ghosts of her past and the lost souls that could be her future and, perhaps, finally finding redemption for them all. Nail-bitingly tense and breathtakingly emotive, River Clyde is both an electrifying thriller and a poignant, powerful story of damage and hope, and one woman’s fight for survival.

Simone Buchholz was born in Hanau in 1972. At university, she studied Philosophy and Literature, worked as a waitress and a columnist, and trained to be a journalist at the prestigious Henri-Nannen-School in Hamburg. In 2016, Simone Buchholz was awarded the Crime Cologne Award as well as runner-up in the German Crime Fiction Prize for Blue Night, which was number one on the KrimiZEIT Best of Crime List for months. The critically acclaimed Beton Rouge, Mexico Street and Hotel Cartagena all followed in the Chastity Riley series, with River Clyde out in 2022. She lives in Sankt Pauli, in the heart of Hamburg, with her husband and son.

My thoughts: this was told in a really interesting, fractured style, with the river Clyde itself as one of the voices. Following the events of Hotel Cartagena the characters of Chastity and her friends/colleagues are still reeling and struggling to recover.

As Chastity heads for Glasgow, her drinking is excessive, and she has so many questions about her family and where she comes from. The aunt she’s inherited a house from is completely unknown to her, and she roams the city’s bars trying to drown out her worries and questions.

Her relationship with Stepanovic is on hold while she’s away, but she’s never out of his thoughts even while he investigates some dodgy individuals and their connection to an explosion and several murders.

The end doesn’t draw everything together, some people are still struggling with the after effects of the previous book, which feels realistic, trauma doesn’t just go away. There are still things to carry on with. As Chastity returns to Germany, how things will change is all still to be seen.

Incredible writing, moving and clever, at times a bit mind bending, there is a lot going on and different plots weave around each other and leave the reader with questions and an urge to re-read to see what else can be teased out.

*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in the blog tour but all opinions remain my own.

Danish journalist Heloise Kaldan is in the middle of a nightmare. One of her sources has been caught lying, and she could lose her job over it. Then she receives the first in a series of cryptic and unsettling letters from a woman named Anna Kiel.

Wanted in connection with the fatal stabbing of a young lawyer three years earlier, Anna hasn’t been seen by anyone since she left the crime scene covered in blood. The police think she’s fled the country until homicide detective Erik Scháfer comes up with a lead after the reporter who originally wrote about the case is found murdered in his apartment. Has Anna Kiel struck again, or is there more than one killer at large? And why does every clue point directly to Heloise Kaldan?

Meanwhile, the letters keep coming, and they hint at a connection between Anna and Heloise. As Heloise starts digging deeper, she realizes that to tell Anna’s story she will have to revisit the darkest parts of her own past–confronting someone she swore she’d never see again.

The Corpse Flower is the first in the #1 bestselling Danish crime series, the Kaldan and Scháfer mysteries.

My thoughts: this was really, really good, I’m glad it’s now available in English as I would otherwise have missed out on this utterly gripping, thrilling book. It’s an intelligent and compelling thriller that sees journalist Heloise Kaldan investigating the whereabouts of a murderer on the run – Anna Kiel, who has been writing her slightly cryptic letters.

As the story unfolds we learn more about the circumstances around the murder Anna committed, and Heloise is placed in considerable danger from a shadowy figure who wants her to stop digging. Which of course makes her want to dig more. Along with detective Schàfer, Heloise finally starts to get some answers, answers that will rock society and take up the front page as a series of arrests are made. But will Anna be brought to justice? And will the man who had Heloise attacked be stopped?

The writing was excellent, I could not put this down. I really hope the rest of the series also gets translated and published here as it’s cracking stuff.

*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in the blog tour but all opinions remain my own.

His colleague is dead. His daughter may be next. It’s time to do things his way… Two of Nordic Noir’s most accomplished writers return with the explosive, staggeringly complex and unbearably emotive third instalment in the international bestselling Blix & Ramm series.

When police investigator Sofia Kovic uncovers a startling connection between several Oslo cases, she attempts to contact her closest superior, Alexander Blix, before involving anyone else in the department. But before Blix has time to return her call, Kovic is shot and killed in her own home – execution style. And in the apartment below, Blix’s daughter Iselin narrowly escapes becoming the killer’s next victim. Four days later, Blix and online crime journalist Emma Ramm are locked inside an interrogation room, facing the National Criminal Investigation Service. Blix has shot and killed a man, and Ramm saw it all happen. As Iselin’s life hangs in the balance, under-fire Blix no longer knows who he can trust, and he’s not even certain that he’s killed the right man…

Jørn Lier Horst and Thomas Enger are the internationally bestselling Norwegian authors of the William Wisting and Henning Juul series respectively. A former investigator in the Norwegian police, Horst imbues all his works with an unparalleled realism and suspense. Thomas Enger is a journalist-turned-author whose trademark has become a darkly gritty voice paired with key social messages and tight plotting. Besides writing fiction for both adults and young adults, Enger also works as a music composer. Death Deserved was Jørn Lier Horst & Thomas Enger’s first co-written thriller, closely followed by Smoke Screen, and the series has sold more than two million copies worldwide, outselling Jo Nesbo in their native Norway, Sweden and Germany. @LierHorst @EngerThomas.

My thoughts: this was a shocking book, starting with the violent death of Blix’s friend and colleague Sofia Kovic and the brutal kidnapping and assault of his daughter Iselin. Blix is off the case but can’t stay away from trying to solve it. With the help of blogger Emma Ramm, he’s determined to work out why Sofia and Iselin were targeted and by whom.

I could not put this down, it was so tense and gripping. It was also really sad and awful at times, neither Sofia or Iselin should have had to suffer, but Sofia had spotted a link between a series of cases, and was determined to pursue it and the killer couldn’t let her stop him. Blix will have to finish her work. But in doing so Blix comes into the spotlight and risks his career.

*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in the blog tour but all opinions remain my own.

Fresh from rehab, PI Varg Veum faces his most complex investigation yet, when a man is found drowned, a young woman disappears, and the case of a missing child is revived. The classic Nordic Noir series continues…

PI Varg Veum has returned to duty following a stint in rehab, but his new composure and resolution are soon threatened when three complex crimes land on his desk. A man is found dead in an elite swimming pool. A young woman has gone missing. Most chillingly, Veum is asked to investigate the ‘Camilla Case’: an eight-year-old cold case involving the disappearance of a little girl, who was never found. As the threads of these three apparently unrelated cases come together, against the backdrop of a series of shocking environmental crimes, Veum faces the most challenging, traumatic investigation of his career.

A stunning, sophisticated, tension-packed thriller – the darkest of hardboiled Nordic Noir – from one of Norway’s most acclaimed crime writers.

One of the fathers of Nordic Noir, Gunnar Staalesen was born in Bergen, Norway, in 1947. He made his debut at the age of twenty-two with Seasons of Innocence and in 1977 he published the first book in the Varg Veum series. He is the author of over twenty titles, which have been published in twenty-four countries and sold over four million copies. Twelve film adaptations of his Varg Veum crime novels have appeared since 2007, starring the popular Norwegian actor Trond Espen Seim. Staalesen has won three Golden Pistols (including the Prize of Honour); Where Roses Never Die won the 2017 Petrona Award for Nordic Crime Fiction, and Big Sister was shortlisted in 2019. He lives with his wife in Bergen.

My thoughts: this was really good. After a stint in rehab Varg Veum is back on form and tracking down a killer after literally finding a dead body. This case seems to be connected to several tragedies from some years before – a missing child and the accident that returned a young woman to a childlike state.

As he digs in, more and more details come to light, and could these tragic events be connected by more than just the date?

Gritty, clever and with echoes of today’s climate crisis, this is a compelling and gripping read and one where for once I couldn’t figure out whodunit in the first few pages. Masterly work.

*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in the blog tour but all opinions remain my own.

What makes life perfect? Insurance mathematician Henri Koskinen knows the answer because he calculates everything down to the very last decimal. Until he is faced with the incalculable, after a series of unforeseeable events. After suddenly losing his job, Henri inherits an adventure park from his brother – its peculiar employees and troubling financial problems included. The worst of the financial issues appear to originate from big loans taken from some dangerous men who are very keen to get their money back. All improbable and complicated problems. But what Henri really can’t compute is love. In the adventure park, Henri crosses paths with Laura, a happy-go-lucky artist with a chequered past, whose erratic lifestyle bewilders him. As the criminals go to increasingly extreme lengths to collect their debts and as Henri’s relationship with Laura deepens, he finds himself faced with situations and emotions that simply cannot be pinned down on his spreadsheets…

ABOUT ANTTI TUOMAINEN Antti Tuomainen was an award-winning copywriter when he made his literary debut in 2007 as a suspense author in 2013, the Finnish press crowned Tuomainen the ‘King of Helsinki Noir’ when Dark as My Heart was published. With a piercing and evocative style, Tuomainen was one of the first to challenge the Scandinavian crime genre formula, and his poignant, dark and hilarious The Man Who Died became an international bestseller, shortlisting for the Petrona and Last Laugh Awards. A TV adaptation is in the works, and Jussi Vatanen (Man In Room 301) has just been announced as a leading role. Palm Beach Finland was an immense success, with Marcel Berlins (The Times) calling Tuomainen ‘the funniest writer in Europe’. His latest thriller, Little Siberia, was shortlisted for the CWA International Dagger, the Amazon Publishing/Capital Crime Awards and the CrimeFest Last Laugh Award, and won the Petrona Award for Best Scandinavian Crime Novel of the Year. In total, Antti Tuomainen has been short- and longlisted for 12 UK awards.

My thoughts: this is a very funny book, I giggled all the way through. My sense of humour is a bit weird. I think Henri would be confused as to why I found his misadventures so funny.

Henri is part of what makes it so entertaining, he has a very precise way of seeing the world, he is an actuary after all. Everything he does he weighs up and runs the numbers.

Having worked at an indoor soft play centre (known as Hell to staff) I could picture the adventure park Henri inherits from his financially disastrous brother very well. The hordes of screaming children, the deeply obnoxious parents, the dead eyed staff. I doubt our bosses ever had the bright idea of turning it into a bank though. Or getting involved with criminals who like to bake. Mostly because I’m pretty sure they were the criminals.

But Henri decides to save the park, his oddball employees, and the giant rabbit by the entrance with his rather crazy idea, and that means getting involved with loan sharks, avoiding the police inspector who’s showing a keen interest in the park, and generally trying not to panic.

It’s all utterly hilarious and charming, especially as his only ally is Schopenhauer the cat, who can’t exactly help out. And maybe Laura, who he’s rather charmed by. But Henri is determined to prevail and win the day. It’s that or a rather ugly death at the hands of the baking loan shark. I loved this book, it was over far too quickly and I need to know what became of Henri and Laura.

*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in the blog tour but all opinions remain my own.