Here are this week’s arrivals of note:
Shadow and Light, by Jonathan Rabb. Was I sleeping when Rabb’s Rosa--a 2005 thriller about Rosa Luxemburg--came out to fine reviews, including one from the much-missed John Leonard? (Rosa was also chosen as one of January Magazine’s favorite books of 2005.) I guess so. Anyway, I've just ordered a copy of Rabb’s sequel, Shadow and Light, with my own money (alert the media ...). Imagine a Bernie Gunther-type German policeman, Chief Inspector Nikolai Hoffner, investigating a suicide (ho ho ho) at the Ufa film studios in 1927,
aided by director Fritz Lang and a fascinating little crime boss called Alby Pimm. Hoffner watches as his beloved Berlin falls apart, bloated with corruption and Nazis dressed in brown--like demented UPS drivers. Look for Shadow and Light in March.Nemesis, by Jo Nesbø. Once again, I must have been absent when Nesbø, Norway’s ace noir writer, economist, musician, and all around great guy, invented my favorite private detective name--Harry Hole. In The Redbreast (2006), a disgraced and often drunk Harry got involved in crimes old and new in Oslo, including one that involved some neo-Nazis with a frightening link to World War II. Its sequel, Nemesis, is another great Harry Hole adventure. Grainy footage shows a man walking into a bank in Oslo and putting a gun to a cashier’s head. He tells her to count to 25. When he doesn’t get his money in time, he kills her. Hole is assigned to the case. While Harry’s girlfriend is away in Russia, an old flame gets in touch. He goes to dinner at her house ... and later wakes up at home with no memory of what happened during the past 12 hours. That same morning, the girl is found shot dead in her bed. Nemesis goes on sale in early January.
Also just arrived, but as yet uncracked: The Secret Speech, Tom Rob Smith’s follow-up to Child 44. Due out in May. Watch this space.
2 comments:
Jo Nesbo is right up there withthe best crime writers in Europe. The three Harry Hole books The Redbreast, Nemesis and The Devil's Star [there are others not yet translated] are superb and involve several separate but connected plot lines that weave there way through the books to their violent conclusion. Not to be missed Nemesis is unusual and you will struggle to work out the solution but The Devil's Star is even better.
I hope you won't be too disappointed to learn that Harry's last name is pronounced something like "Hurler." Though I suppose Americans can go on pronouncing it anyway they like so long as the Brits blithely mispronounce Wallander in their television version of Mankell's books.
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