Tag: Crime

What Happened That Night by Nicci French

~ Veselin ~ Leave a comment

29 years ago, someone killed Leo. The murderer Taylor got convicted and stayed in jail for most of his life. He’s now out of jail under supervision. Out of the million things he could’ve done when out, he decided to gather a group of 10-ish friends in an Agatha Christie type event and tell them it was one of them who killed Leo. That wasn’t very smart of him and lead to another murder, for which he got immediately arrested.

I got strong Agatha Christie vibes, with clues dropped left and right, pointing in different directions. As it turns out, everyone’s business is dirty but not everyone is responsible for a murder. Will Maud O’Conner figure it out? Will you guess the murderer(s) before she does?

Nicci French writes the Maud O’Conner books in distinct parts. First part shows a terribly unfair event. Second part shows Maud O’Conner bringing justice. The first part in this book is clearly separated and about 100-150 pages long. This is actually better than the previous two books, where we had to suffer a lot longer to get to the point. I think the first part shouldn’t have been longer than 30-40 pages.

I gave the book 4/5 on Goodreads. It was quite good, after the first 100-150 pages, may even be my top pick for the month.

Frieda Klein

~ Veselin ~ 3 Comments

I’m reading the series about Frieda Klein by Nicci French.

It’s a series of 8 books, 7 named after days of week, and one final. Frieda is a psychologist with a medical degree who always has a murder case to solve. She has the persistence of Harry Bosch and uses intuition and advanced questioning to untangle the ball of lies in each book.

The only downside of the series is that it has main antagonists who remain untouched over the series, like some kind of comic book supervillains.

I already finished the first 6 books of the series, having 2 left, and a few more with other protagonists. I gave 5*/5 to 5 of the 6 books and 4*/5 to one, which is pretty high for a series like that.

The Chesnut Man by Søren Sveistrup

A Chesnut Man
~ Veselin ~ 8 Comments

The smart homicide detective Naia Thulin has to supervise her colleague Hess, who messed up at Europol. They are faced with a case involving a serial killer who leaves rivers of blood and signature little chestnut figurines.

The book is engaging, well-written, but at the same time unnecessarily gory and disgusting. The main characters are repeatedly praised for being intelligent and brilliant, yet they constantly make silly mistakes that reek of foolishness and overconfidence. Real police officers probably make similar errors, but sometimes it becomes too much. Some of the mistakes feel like they’re straight out of a comedy horror movie—like when someone sits in front of a slowly moving steamroller for 15 minutes without taking the one necessary step to avoid getting hit.

The style is a mix of Chris Carter’s blood-soaked descriptions and the demigod hidden villain trope from The Mentalist. The Chestnut Man is excessively elusive, like Red John, but slightly more believable. His motivation is fully revealed and obvious almost from the beginning of the book. In this regard, The Mentalist falls short. Also, Hess is nowhere near as gifted as his TV counterpart, which makes the story far more interesting.

Naia Tulin is supposedly the lead character, but overall, Hess gets more page time and does more of the actual investigating.

Objectively, I’d rate the book around a 4.5—about 150–200 pages longer than it needed to be for a solid 5. What I didn’t like doesn’t make it a bad book, just slightly incompatible with my tastes.

I’d read other books by this author but maybe not right now.

A Deadly Influence by Mike Omer, Book Review

~ Veselin ~ Leave a comment

A Deadly Influence is a crime thriller about Abby Mullen, a hostage negotiator assisting with a kidnapping case. Somehow, the kidnapping is linked to a cult. Abby Mullen grew up in a cult and is still haunted by the massacre that brought it to an end.

Overall, the book is fantastic—well-written, unpredictable, and somewhat logical. I don’t often read fiction about events that could actually happen.

The only issue was that the publisher used a very tiny font size to save from paper. It was painful to read. They squished a 450-page book into 300 pages.

5*/5.

Exiles by Jane Harper – Book Review

~ Veselin ~ Leave a comment

Jane Harper’s trilogy about Aaron Falk concludes with Exiles – the opposite of an epic thriller.

3 people died over the last years in a small but flourishing Australian town. It’s all written off as accidents but a body is missing and Aaron Falk will start digging. Most of the book it’s not even clear he’s investigating. He doesn’t do much other than enjoy the hospitality of his friends, and whenever he notices something, the writer doesn’t tell us what. However, he’ll find clues and solve all of the cases. It’s all hidden in front of our eyes.

The big issue? This town is way too good. Can Aaron go back to the big city as a federal agent after seeing how all these people live?

I give it 4*/5 and despite the sub-optimal score, I enjoyed it and would read a continuation if one is ever written.

The shelf naturally formed with other low-stress books like Travis Baldree’s Legends and Lattes, two Brandon Sandersons and 3 gamebooks. I have some reading ahead of me.