The Force – Don Winslow

The Force by Don Winslow
Publisher: Harper Collins
Published Date: 22nd June, 2017
Genre: Crime
Pages: 400

Rating: 5 / 5

Our ends know our beginnings, but the reverse isn’t true …All Denny Malone wants is to be a good cop. He is the “King of Manhattan North,” a highly decorated NYPD detective sergeant and the real leader of “Da Force.” Malone and his crew are the smartest, the toughest, the quickest, the bravest, and the baddest–an elite special unit given carte blanche to fight gangs, drugs, and guns. Every day and every night for the eighteen years he’s spent on the “Job,” Malone has served on the front lines, witnessing the hurt, the dead, the victims, the perps. He’s done whatever it takes to serve and protect in a city built by ambition and corruption, where no one is clean.What only a few know is that Denny Malone himself is dirty: he and his partners have stolen millions of dollars in drugs and cash in the wake of the biggest heroin bust in the city’s history. Now Malone is caught in a trap and being squeezed by the feds, and he must walk the thin line between betraying his brothers and partners, the Job, his family, and the woman he loves, trying to survive, body and soul, while the city teeters on the brink of a racial conflagration that could destroy them all.

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The Power of the Dog is one of my favourite books of all time, and it is the reason why I will never not read a Don Winslow book. Following the global success of the smash hit The Cartel, The Force is Winslow’s latest offering in the dopewar genre. All of Winslow’s works are a whirlwind tour de force through the vicious, unforgiving, cruel underworld of druglord kingpins and district gang wars, and The Force is no exception. Bringing the fight back to the States, Sergeant Denny Malone is one of New York’s elite, working tirelessly to keep the streets clean.

Winslow plunges the reader into an incredibly high stakes environment with a dark edge. Layer by layer we realise that people are not what we thought they were and things are not always as they seem. The Force leaves some heavy questions in the mind. Where is the line drawn? Does a hero have to be perfect? What even makes a hero in the first place? This book forces the reader to look at some harsh realities, and begin to question the values that society holds so high and whether they are worth the price that is paid. It looks controversial, and very contemporary, issues straight in the eye and doesn’t back down. Winslow is an unapologetic writer, willing to confront issues which are not easy to remain neutral on. Particularly in fiction it is very easy to see a character’s opinion as a direct reflection of the author’s, but whoever’s voice you think is speaking it is undeniable that The Force certainly leaves the reader with something to think about.

One thing that is not so apparent in The Force, but more so in The Power of the Dog and The Cartel, and still a credit to the author, is the massive amount of research that goes into these books. It’s unusual for a fiction writer to include a bibliography in their work, especially a bibliography that consists primarily of front line dopewar bloggers from Mexico’s most deadly cities. It is evident to see just how much care and interest Winslow has taken in his writing, and it shines through brightly, woven into an intoxicating storyline.

Plot building, backstabbing and blistering changes of direction keep the reader hooked, and I couldn’t put this book down until I’d devoured every last word. The Force is easily one of my top books of 2017 and I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend Winslow to anyone.

The Dinner by Herman Koch

The Dinner by Herman Koch
Publisher: Atlantic Books
Published Date: 1st August, 2012
Genre: Mystery, Thriller
Pages: 311

Rating: 3 / 5

A summer’s evening in Amsterdam and two couples meet at a fashionable restaurant. Between mouthfuls of food and over the polite scrapings of cutlery, the conversation remains a gentle hum of polite discourse – the banality of work, the triviality of holidays. But behind the empty words, terrible things need to be said, and with every forced smile and every new course, the knives are being sharpened.

Each couple has a fifteen year old son. The two boys are united by their accountability for a single horrific act; an act that has triggered a police investigation and shattered the comfortable insulated worlds of their families. As the dinner reaches its culinary climax, the conversation finally touches on their children, and as civility and friendship disintegrates, each couple show just how far they are prepared to go to protect those they love.

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The Dinner is somewhat of a cult classic, but not quite a favourite. It’s always on recommendations lists for Nordic Noir, but never quite at the top because it’s a bit different than true classics of the genre. It’s in the psychological thriller bracket, but not exactly because the twists are all for the reader and not the character, so the emotional attachment isn’t the same. Put simply, The Dinner is a good book, but not a great book.

The story takes place over the course of one meal in a posh restaurant, a setting which may seem too small but in which extensive detail is added through the first person narrative and numerous side stories. As the book progresses, it becomes clear that there is more than meets the eye about all of the characters involved, and there is most definitely a darker side to this innocent family dinner.

The book is certainly thought-provoking, touching on issues of mental illness and in my opinion most interestingly, about how we view and treat other people. There is a lot of discussion around labelling and being judgmental, and its impact on our own lives and the lives of others, which I took away as the high point of The Dinner.

I think that perhaps the biggest issue I had with The Dinner is that I just didn’t buy it. The people involved are getting together to have a serious discussion about a private family matter, so why have they gone to a public restaurant when it is the sort of conversation best had in private? I felt I understood Paul’s mindset by the end, but I definitely didn’t understand his wife Claire. She made the strangest decisions, and overall just seemed like a person who would never exist in real life. I struggled to place any of the story into a realistic situation, and that for me is where The Dinner really fell down compared to other similar books.

As I said, The Dinner is a good book. It ticks a lot of boxes that a book of its kind should tick, but overall it doesn’t quite bridge all the gaps needed to rate it higher.

Sleeping Giants by Sylvain Neuvel

Sleeping Giants by Sylvain Neuvel
Publisher: Penguin
Published Date: 26th April, 2016
Genre: Science Fiction
Pages: 378

Rating: 5 / 5

Sleeping Giants is a thriller fueled by an earthshaking mystery—and a fight to control a gargantuan power.
 
A girl named Rose is riding her new bike near her home in Deadwood, South Dakota, when she falls through the earth. She wakes up at the bottom of a square hole, its walls glowing with intricate carvings. But the firemen who come to save her peer down upon something even stranger: a little girl in the palm of a giant metal hand.
 
Seventeen years later, the mystery of the bizarre artifact remains unsolved—its origins, architects, and purpose unknown. Its carbon dating defies belief; military reports are redacted; theories are floated, then rejected.
 
But some can never stop searching for answers.
 
Rose Franklin is now a highly trained physicist leading a top secret team to crack the hand’s code. And along with her colleagues, she is being interviewed by a nameless interrogator whose power and purview are as enigmatic as the provenance of the relic. What’s clear is that Rose and her compatriots are on the edge of unraveling history’s most perplexing discovery—and figuring out what it portends for humanity. But once the pieces of the puzzle are in place, will the result prove to be an instrument of lasting peace or a weapon of mass destruction?

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Sometimes I decide to take a break from crime fiction and dive into something different, and this time it well and truly paid off! Sleeping Giants is a sci-fi novel about the events which unfold after a young girl discovers a giant mechanical hand underground in the forest. Reminiscent of the film The Arrival, Sleeping Giants is an incredible story of human nature and reaction in the face of the unknown.

Told as a series of interviews with an unknown person, the tale follows central characters as the discovery escalates, ultimately resulting in potentially devastating consequences. The events are so reminiscent of what has been seen in countless disaster and sci-fi movies, as well as real life, that it almost feels like it could all really happen right now. The reader is totally sucked in, immersed in finding out what will happen next, and there are a fair few surprises along the way.

What makes Sleeping Giants great is, in my opinion, the same thing that made Interstellar great, or The Martian or The Arrival. Books and films which concern the ‘unknown’, when done correctly, have an incredibly humbling way of making us feel insignificant. The revelations of ‘what could be’ have the ability to leave the reader wondering about the possibilities for days, and that’s exactly what Sleeping Giants does. The realism and the research that has gone into the story shines through, and makes reading this book so enjoyable.

Sleeping Giants is a fantastic read for sci-fi fans and I can’t wait to pick up the sequel, Waking Gods.

The Crow Girl by Erik Axl Sund

The Crow Girl by Erik Axl Sund
Publisher: Vintage
Published Date: 6th April, 2017
Genre: Crime, Thriller
Pages: 768

Rating: 4 / 5

It starts with just one body – tortured, mummified and then discarded.

Its discovery reveals a nightmare world of hidden lives. Of lost identities, secret rituals and brutal exploitation, where nobody can be trusted.

This is the darkest, most complex case the police have ever seen.

This is the world of the Crow Girl.

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Erik Axl Sund is the pen name used by Swedish writers, Jerker Eriksson and Hakan Sundquist, and The Crow Girl was originally written in three volumes which have been combined into one book for English publication. The Crow Girl is an extremely dark and violent story, following an incredibly complex plot woven through the lives of many different characters. And it was fantastic. Not for a minute did the plot lose me, and the number of plot twists and shocking reveals was too many to count.

However, The Crow Girl is a book about repulsive people doing abhorrent things, and you need to have a strong stomach to get through it. I personally like my crime books to have a dark side with some really twisted characters, but The Crow Girl was like nothing I had ever read before. Not for a moment did it feel unnecessary or gratuitous, however there were numerous times where I felt very shocked by what I had read. This is all done with purpose, and without it I do feel that The Crow Girl wouldn’t be half the book it is, however it is just a warning that this book contains graphic descriptions and accounts of horrendous acts and it should not be picked up lightly.

Aside from the gore and horror, The Crow Girl is also an incredibly thought-provoking account of mental illness. The reader is taken on a deep-dive tour of the mind of an unreliable narrator, and the things that are found throw up a lot of questions about where the plot of the book is really going. The Crow Girl is a story about the darkest, worst parts of human nature, where they truly come from and what effect they have on those caught up in its grip.

The Crow Girl is a hard read. It is a nasty book and it talks about some of the very worst things that we see in society all the time. It is upsetting and I would not recommend it for everyone. However, often real life can be upsetting too and The Crow Girl is a frank, unapologetic account of the effects of evil acts, and the paths of redemption and recovery that may be found for those involved.

Nightblind by Ragar Jónasson

Nightblind by Ragnar Jónasson
Publisher: Orenda Books
Published Date: 1st December, 2015
Genre: Crime, Mystery
Pages: 280

Rating: 5 / 5

Siglufjörður: an idyllically quiet fishing village on the northernmost tip of Iceland, accessible only via a small mountain tunnel. Ari Thór Arason: a local policeman, whose tumultuous past and uneasy relationships with the villagers continue to haunt him. The peace of this close-knit community is shattered by the murder of a policeman – shot at point-blank range in the dead of night in a deserted house. With a killer on the loose and the dark arctic winter closing in, it falls to Ari Thór to piece together a puzzle that involves tangled local politics, a compromised new mayor, and a psychiatric ward in Reykjavik, where someone is being held against their will. Then a mysterious young woman moves to the area, on the run from something she dare not reveal, and it becomes all too clear that tragic events from the past are weaving a sinister spell that may threaten them all.

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Nightblind is the second instalment (in the English publication order) of the Dark Iceland series by Jónasson, and a return to the world of policeman Ari Thór Arason a few years after the events of Snowblind.

I’ll start by saying that I enjoyed Nightblind quite a lot more than Snowblind, for a number of reasons. Firstly, the crime is darker and the general theme and tone of the book is more sinister and threatening. It feels like a more grown up Ari Thór in this book, as he juggles new responsibilities with investigating an almost never-seen-before crime occurring in his small Icelandic town. In my opinion, this slight change in direction is welcome, and takes the series to a more serious place. I deeply enjoyed Snowblind, but felt that at times it could have easily slipped into the ‘jolly murder mystery’ category with its range of eccentric characters and theatrical settings. Nightblind edges closer to the thriller side of crime fiction, delivering tense atmosphere and page-turning twists to keep the reader hooked.

Once again, I didn’t guess the killer until the big reveal at the end, which always rates a crime novel highly in my opinion. Jónasson is a master at weaving story threads together, interlocking the lives of his characters in the perfect small-town setting, and pulling it all together right in the last pages. There are always a few sections which feel like subplots or side stories, and yet even these smaller details come back to play big parts in the wider tale. Jónasson definitely leaves hints for the reader, if you’re willing to work to find them, which gives the reading a satisfying edge as well as the engrossing drama and action.

Nightblind was left on a bit of a cliffhanger, wide open for the third book to pick up on, which definitely left me wanting to find out what happens next. I’m not too keen on cliffhangers in relation to the main plot of a book but the crime in Nightblind was neatly wrapped up, with the ending relating more to character development and room for a new story, which was a big plus and I am excited to pick up the third book, Black Out.

I feel like Nightblind is a big step up from Snowblind, and is a thoroughly fitting second instalment into what is shaping up to be a fantastic series. Jónasson’s books are perfect for the Agatha Christie fanatic; if you like your crime novels to be all about the guesswork and less about the gore, this series is one for you.

The Bird Tribunal by Agnes Ravatn

The Bird Tribunal by Agnes Ravatn
Publisher: Orenda Books
Published Date: 1st January, 2017
Genre: Thriller
Pages: 192

Rating: 5 / 5

TV presenter Allis Hagtorn leaves her partner and her job to take voluntary exile in remote house on an isolated fjord. But her new job as housekeeper and gardener is not all that it seems, and her silent, surly employer, 44-year-old Sigurd Bagge, is not the old man she expected. As they await the return of his wife from her travels, their silent, uneasy encounters develop into a chilling, obsessive relationship, and it becomes clear that atonement for past sins may not be enough. Haunting, consuming and powerful, The Bird Tribunal is a taut, exquisitely written psychological thriller that builds to a shocking, dramatic crescendo that will leave you breathless.

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The Bird Tribunal is absolutely fantastic. A deeply chilling tale of two people with secrets to hide and a creepy atmosphere building right from page one, I was desperate to know what happened next and finished the whole thing in under 24 hours. I cannot recommend this book enough, it really is outrageously good and I am amazed at how much of a twisted plot Ravatn has managed to create with just two characters in a short 192 pages.

The story, and the behaviour of the characters, is totally unpredictable and left me wide eyed and shocked on more than one occasion. Allis, the narrator, is a troubled character and at first I didn’t know what to make of her. She came across as quite stupid and self-centred, in an unlikeable way, and by the end of the book I still felt that she was both of those things but with a worryingly relatable twist. Allis makes all of her decisions out of desperation; desperation of an escape, of acceptance, of approval. And as the book continued I found myself beginning to understand her choices, at least on some level. The way that Ravatn makes the reader feel some sort of kinship with a narrator who makes numerous poor choices, and is so desperately needy in the worst ways, is a little disturbing but a true credit to her writing.

There is also no punctuation used for dialogue, which made for an interesting read and I didn’t quite understand the reasoning at first. However, for me at least, it definitely added to the atmosphere as the book went on. Allis’ confusion about Bagge’s true nature was intensified for me as the reader through the lack of punctuation, and amplified my own confusion about when and how he was speaking. There was also one moment in particular, at the very end of the an extremely intense scene, where I had to re-read a certain word to work out if it had been spoken or thought. For me, whether it was Ravatn’s intention or not, it worked perfectly. The word in question is how Allis sees herself, and she definitely feels that it is what other people think about her as well. Upon first read it is unclear whether she thought it, she said it, or Bagge said it – and all of these are viable options given how the story has progressed up to this point. It is fantastic writing, and brings to life all of Allis’ fears about how she is viewed by other people and her desperation to run away from her old life.

The Bird Tribunal is an absolutely brilliant read that I couldn’t bear to put down until it was finished. If you are looking for a creepily atmospheric psychological thriller, this absolutely must be at the top of the list.

My May ‘TBR’

The past couple of weeks have been spent primarily at work, revising for my upcoming exams and slogging my way through Anna Karenina (a difficult, yet rewarding read), and I have found myself both neglecting my blog and longing for a nice lazy afternoon on the sofa with a coffee and a good book. With just over two weeks left to go until my exams are done for the year, the end is well and truly in sight so with that in mind I have compiled a list of books that I want to tackle in May.

The Bird Tribunal by Agnes Ravatn

I have seen a lot of this book around social media, with outstanding ratings all round, and once I read the plot summary I knew it had to be next up on my reading list. The reviews promise a ‘compelling and unusual’ story, and a ‘masterclass in suspense’, which sounds perfect for me! Once I learnt that this was a story from my favourite crime genre, and published by Orenda Books (who I have not had a bad read from yet!), there was no way this book wasn’t jumping straight to the top of May’s TBR.

Night Blind by Ragnar Jónasson

I finished Snow Blind in March and absolutely loved it (you can read my review here: https://areadingcorner.wordpress.com/2017/04/02/snowblind-by-ragnar-jonasson/), so I immediately went out to purchase the rest of the series. Night Blind is next in the English publication order, and I am extremely excited to dive back in to the world of Ari Thór! This is also another Orenda Books offering, and they just can’t seem to do wrong in my eyes.

In Search of Lost Time (Vol 1: Swann’s Way) by Marcel Proust

This one is a world away from the others on the list, but one that I am determined to read all the same. In Search of Lost Time is a collection that I have wanted to read for a while but is one that, quite like Anna Karenina, will take a bit of force from myself to get going. Classics don’t tend to have the excitement and fast-paced action of crime and thriller novels, but are equally rewarding in their own way. This is a collection I want to be able to say I have read, so I need to make a strong start with Volume 1.

After The Crash by Michel Bussi

After the Crash by Michel Bussi
Publisher: Orion Publishing
Published Date: 27th August, 2015
Genre: Thriller
Pages: 432

Rating: 3 / 5

On the night of 22 December 1980, a plane crashes on the Franco-Swiss border and is engulfed in flames. 168 out of 169 passengers are killed instantly. The miraculous sole survivor is a three-month-old baby girl. Two families, one rich, the other poor, step forward to claim her, sparking an investigation that will last for almost two decades. Is she Lyse-Rose or Emilie?

Eighteen years later, having failed to discover the truth, private detective Crédule Grand-Duc plans to take his own life, but not before placing an account of his investigation in the girl’s hands. But, as he sits at his desk about to pull the trigger, he uncovers a secret that changes everything – then is killed before he can breathe a word of it to anyone.

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After the Crash was a bit different to my usual crime reads, focusing much more heavily on the mystery angle, and whilst I did enjoy it I also realised why I enjoy crime over mystery so much. After the Crash revolves around a plane crash in 1980, in which a baby girl was the only survivor. Fast forward to 1998 and that baby girl is now a young woman, and the findings of an eighteen year investigation into her true identity are coming to light. There were two babies on the plane, and given the lack of DNA science at the time, it was impossible to tell for certain which baby survived. After the Crash follows the stories of both families through the next eighteen years of their lives, centring on the two siblings, the sister of one girl and the brother of another.

Bussi certainly knows how to build suspense, and this book is full of twists and turns taking the story down a new and unexpected path every time. I truly did not guess the ending until I was at the very last pages, which is one of the things I loved most about this book. If you are after a mystery that keeps you guessing, going for ‘just one more page’ after another to find out the answers, then this book is the one for you! The concept is fantastic, and is a truly great setting for a mystery that you will be eager to finish.

The fall back for me personally was the realism. I struggled with a few components of the story, primarily the number of characters who seem to be able to carry guns in public without an issue, and a few characters who die without the police ever seeming to realise. Whilst I understand that the procedural detail would bog down the story, which is not at all desirable for a fast paced page-turner, it just brought an element of disbelief for me which I struggled to get over throughout the story. My love of crime fiction is largely a love for the procedural, methodical detail and character building that goes on behind the scenes of the plot. For a mystery-thriller combination, this is definitely not necessary which is why I feel that although I didn’t personally enjoy this aspect of the novel, I feel that it would make little to no difference to readers who are solely reading the book for the action filled plot and not to get to know the people involved.

Overall, I feel that After the Crash is a fantastic mystery with a great dose of thriller thrown in, and for a reader who is looking for a fast-paced, action-packed story to get into this is the perfect book. However if you, like me, prefer to end a novel feeling like you’ve got to know a character, this is perhaps not what you’re looking for.

Snowblind by Ragnar Jónasson

Snowblind by Ragnar Jónasson
Publisher: Orenda Books
Published Date: 25th June, 2015
Genre: Crime, Mystery
Pages: 252

Rating: 4 / 5

Siglufjörður: an idyllically quiet fishing village in Northern Iceland, where no one locks their doors – accessible only via a small mountain tunnel. Ari Thór Arason: a rookie policeman on his first posting, far from his girlfriend in Reykjavik – with a past that he’s unable to leave behind. When a young woman is found lying half-naked in the snow, bleeding and unconscious, and a highly esteemed, elderly writer falls to his death in the local theatre, Ari is dragged straight into the heart of a community where he can trust no one, and secrets and lies are a way of life. An avalanche and unremitting snowstorms close the mountain pass, and the 24-hour darkness threatens to push Ari over the edge, as curtains begin to twitch, and his investigation becomes increasingly complex, chilling and personal. Past plays tag with the present and the claustrophobic tension mounts, while Ari is thrust ever deeper into his own darkness – blinded by snow, and with a killer on the loose.

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Snowblind is the first in the Dark Iceland series by Jónasson, where we are introduced to young policeman Ari Thór on his first placement in the remote Icelandic town of Siglufjörður. I have to be honest, the first thing that intrigued me about this book, and the entire series really, is the absolutely stunning covers. Perhaps this is wrong of me, but I have little shame in admitting that a bad cover will put me off a book. After all, my books take pride of place on various shelves in my home and so I want them to look good, and the Dark Iceland series has some of the best covers I have seen in a while! Orenda Books has done a fantastic job here and a big credit to them for making an unknown series catch my eye and draw me in on the first look.

The cover of Snowblind is a perfect representation of what you’ll find inside. A foggy, claustrophobic story, creeping deeper and deeper under your skin with every page, it is an absolutely sensational first book and I cannot recommend it enough! The atmosphere building and imagery is fantastic, Jónasson builds a truly vivid world which I found myself totally immersed in. Ari Thór’s sense of panic and claustrophobia was immensely palpable and I completely understood his feelings and fears in this new, distant town with a colourful cast of secretive strangers.

The only negative I found was that the ‘reveal’ was over a little too quickly, and I didn’t quite catch how Ari Thór worked all of it out. There were hints dropped along the way, as well as a fair few red herrings, which definitely left many paths open for the story to follow, however whilst I understood the majority of conclusions that Ari Thór came to, there were some things that just left me a little bit confused as to how he had found them out. Despite this, I was happy with the ending and it was left perfectly open for a sequel which I can’t wait to get into!

Snowblind is a fantastic addition to the Nordic Noir genre, and Jónasson is certainly up there with Arnaldur Indriðason for Icelandic crime fiction. I cannot recommend this book enough. It’s a thoroughly enjoyable read, a perfect start to a new series to get stuck into over the summer.

The best introductions to Nordic Noir

Nordic Noir, also known as Scandinavian Noir, is a niche genre within the much wider realm of crime and mystery and it produces, in my opinion, some of the best fiction around. Heralding from Scandinavia, Nordic Noir tends to come in the form of a classic procedural mystery focusing on a main character who is at the centre of the investigation, usually the investigator or detective involved. The thing that takes Nordic Noir away from other crime books, is its much gritter and darker edge. These books tend to be more brutal and twisted than your standard ‘jolly murder mystery’ and personally, whilst they do focus heavily on the day-to-day procedural aspects of an investigation, I think they makes for a much more exciting read.

Although stemming from a relatively small group of countries, the number of works in the Nordic Noir range is vast and can seem overwhelming at times. For those taking their first steps into this fantastic new world of fiction, or for those who are already in deep but are looking for something new, here are my recommendations for the best introductions to Nordic Noir.

The Millennium Trilogy by Stieg Larsson
The Millennium Trilogy is probably the most famous Nordic Noir series around, although so many people aren’t aware of the fantastic genre that these books are a part of. Stieg Larsson’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo quickly became a cult classic upon its English translation being published in 2008, and the following two instalments are fantastic follow-ups to an iconic novel.

Truthfully, these books are significantly bigger than your usual Nordic Noir read, weighing in at an average 600 pages per book. Whilst the size may be intimidating at first, I believe that the Millennium series is an absolute must read for any crime fiction fanatic, not just fans of Nordic Noir.

Sadly Larsson died of a heart attack in 2004, meaning the Millennium series was published posthumously and we can expect no more work from him. However, the series has been continued by David Lagercrantz, with The Girl in the Spider’s Web being published in 2015. Whilst I haven’t had the chance to dig into this one yet myself, I have heard good things and it’s definitely on my To Be Read list!

Jar City by Arnaldur Indriðason
This is the first book in a currently 14 book series starring Detective Erlendur Sveinsson, three of which are prequals focusing on a ‘young Erlendur’ starting out in the police force. Indriðason, often heralded as the master of Icelandic crime fiction, creates a dark world with a perfectly matched gloomy detective brooding over his own fair share of dark secrets.

If you’re looking for a happy book, Jar City is not it. Depressing, stubborn and outright twisted at times, the characters that inhibit this novel are not easy to like, however Erlendur’s dedication and back-story are enough to keep the first pages turning, after which it’s almost impossible to not get sucked in.

The first few books in this series start at an easy 200 to 250 pages, increasing to around 450 later on. A good place to start if you’re into the darker side of police investigations, with a solid dose of personal tragedy on the side.

Mercy by Jussi Alder-Olsen
Mercy is the first in the Department Q series, and was published under the name The Keeper of Lost Causes in the US and other countries. Carl Mørck is the starring lead in these books, which definitely take a more light-hearted approach to murder investigations than other offerings. Whilst Carl has his fair share of personal dramas (newly divorced with a grumpy teenager and an ex-wife turned serial dater), Alder-Olsen throws in enough humour to balance him out.

There are plenty of touching moments, such Mørck’s slowly thawing relationships with his Muslim immigrant assistant-turned-partner, Assad, and his bipolar-dressing secretary Rose, and the Department Q novels are probably the most procedural-based on this list, with a lot of time spent in the basement office of the police station that the department occupy. However there is still plenty of plot to go around – Alder-Olssen pulls out far-thrown, elaborate plots every time, and yet always manages to pull it off and often with a reasonably happy ending which is rarely found!

A strongly recommended series for anyone who wants to take a lighter-hearted approach to Nordic Noir without getting weighed down in a heavy, depressing world.