Tag: Orenda books

Blue Night by Simone Buchholz

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Blue Night by Simone Buchholz

German crime fiction

Original title – Blaue Nacht

Translator – Racvhel Ward

Source – Library books

I had planned be a little more active in German lit month but I’v had a few days of wanting to just sit and not do a lot. I had a stressful day last Thursday. Anyway, back to German lit month and Ton yna d Carolinbe this year. I hope Lizzie feels better soon and is back next year. Have been told to try Genre fiction this week. I usually just read anything german but I am trying to start with a Genre piece a Crime novel. I had read another Buchholz book last year and actually liked her character, Chastity Rileya, a cop based in Hamburg. I had thought this was the first book, but it isn’t. Anyway, this is set before the other book. But as with any crime book in a series, it should stand as a lone read; this does.

A kick in the right kidney brings you to your knees.

A kick in the belly, and you go down.

Kidneys again, left one this time, to really shut you up.

Then they whip the coshes out from under their jackets.

Three jackets, three coshes.

Left leg, right leg.

Left arm, right arm.

And six feet for twelve pairs of ribs.

Your very own many-headed demon.

Tailor-made to order.

Then out come the pliers.

Right index finger.

A clean crack.

But you’re left-handed; they don’t know everything.

One final kick to something broken.

Then they leave you lying there.

It took one minute, maybe two.

The opening lines the attack that lead to the unkown man

We find out at the start of the book that Riley has been transferred after maybe treading on someone’s toes —something she shouldn’t have done in the past —and that she is given a role in Witness protection. The book opens with a violent attack on a man who is left with many broken bones and a finger removed. This man is the one she is assigned to protect, but she is a restless soul and isn’t going to sit and babysit him. No, she decides to find out who this man is and basically what caused him to be beaten up so badly. This leads her into the drug world around the port of Hamburg and a kingpin that needs to be brought down. An Albanian who has control of the drugs moving in and out of the town. She, with the help of her colleagues and connections from her own murky past, makes their way to this man and brings him to Justice. Riley is a maverick who loves her colleagues like family, but is also a drinker and smoker who shows what toll this job has taken on her now and in the past.

I don’t know what to do with the telephone. It’s too loud.

It’s got to stop.

I thrash around with my hand, raising my arm as far as I can, and try to find the thing. There. Left of my bed. That takes so long, a thought filters through to me: throwing the phone at the wall would not be good.

Answering it would be good.

Cough, breathe, hack. I feel dizzy. Lying down.

‘Yes?” Oh God. My voice sounds like an old crow making a crash landing.

‘St Georg Hospital here, surgical ward. Good morning. Am I speaking to Ms Riley?

‘Yes, I think so?

‘He’s awake, says the hospital voice, sounding a bit offended. ‘You wanted us to call you immediately.?

‘I did, I say. ‘What time is it?

‘Half past five?

I see. No wonder I feel dizzy. I only went to bed three hours ago and not with particular aplomb. More of a stumble really. I think I can vaguely remember crashing into a door frame between the bathroom and bedroom. I feel my head. Right. There’s a bump. I open my eyes a crack; the full moon glitters right in my face. Not a cloud in the sky.

He awakes and RIley starts to uncover what has happen rahter than protection she is meant to do !

Of course, every detective needs a few things. A past, her past, is hinted at. Habit her the drinking and smoking sidekicks. But the main thing a significant detective needs is a place to be that detective. Here it is, Hamburg , but also modern Germany. This book, like the other, features criminals from further afield. A port town is always full of people who have come from other places. This isn’t the clean Oxford of Morse or the Historic Edinburgh of Rebus, although she is like him in the drinking stack, well, both of them. No, if there is a detective that springs to mind, it is a mix of Vera and Taggart. Hamburg and Glasgow are similar places: port cities, Hard cities, and with a long history. It is a short book, 280 odd pages, that can be read over two nights or, if you want a late-night, in a single sitting. It is nice to have a strong female as the lead character, and also one who isn’t as straightforward as they first seems. Have you read any of the books in this series? Which should I read next ?

 

Hotel Cartagena by Simone Buchholz

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Hotel Cartagena by Simone Buchholz

German crime fiction

Original title – Hotel Cartagena

Translator Rachel ward

Source – Personal copy

I had read this last year when it was shortlisted for the translated crime prizes, but. I never got around to reviewing it. So when the first week of this year, GHerman lit month is m, meant to be a crime, I rarely follow Lizzy and Caroline’s prompts, but I will join in for once. This is part of a series of novels about a Prosecutor in Hamburg. But the novels seem to all be able to be read as stand-alone other than maybe knowing some of the characters a little more than if this is the book you start with, it works as a stand-alone read. We find out when the Prosecutor, Chastity Riley, the star of the series of books, is caught up when twenty heavily armed men storm into the hotel bar where she is at a birthday party.

He looked at the water and watched the ships leaving, the warm wind tickled the back of his neck, he had his hands in his trouser pockets, he was hungry. He still had a little change on him, but it wasn’t even enough for a fish roll.

He had spent all his money on the girl.

Elisabeth or whatever her name was.

Hed met her in the Markthalle, at the Black Flag concert he’d been looking forward to for weeks. When she’d given him a kind of sideways smile, he’d had a few seconds when he didn’t know who he had a bigger crush on, Henry Rollins or her. Then they danced, she was wild and laughed, and that flooded his bloodstream with happiness; after the concert, with all the loud music in his bones, he invited her back to St Pauli; she was kind of scared to come at first, but he talked her three friends round and they all went off to the Kiez to-gether.

The book takes us back to 84 had pick this as i love Henry Rollins

The hotel is owned by Konrad Hoogsmart, and it is him the heavily armed men have come to deal with as they have been sent by people he has in the past destroyed their lives. This is a book that has a clever style as each chapter is a little story in itself as we move through time and place to piece together the slow picture of the event that led to the hostage-taking over the years and around the world from the eighties when a young man now one of the hostages take left Hamburg to head to Columbia and then is now back seeking Hoogsmart whose hotel is named the Cartagena where the events of years ago had these two men following different paths that lead to the evening and the party that Chastity and her friends find themselves in as views but also hostages what will happen to them all what brought this all about ?

They ate dinner together in one of the expensive restaurants in the old town. Henning, José and this man, whose name was Esteban. He was a good head and shoulders taller than all the other Colombians Henning knew, those little men with hearty laughter in their faces. Esteban didn’t actually look like a Colombian at all, more like someone from Madrid. He looked like a torero. Long and slim and knife-sharp. His hands were something like a fan of scissors.

But he was very polite.

He wanted to know how Henning liked it in Cartagena, why hed left his home, what he liked to do in his spare time. And he was very interested in Hamburg and in the people there.

Lots of artists?

Musicians?

Jet set?

People with money?

Years later in Colubia the seeds of the hostage taking are sown.

I loved her style of writing. It is great for a backstory, which, in a way, is the central part of the book. The events that lead to the present are often missed in Crime fiction. In a way, this could have been an even bigger book than it was. It has a clever mix of humour, darkness, and menace. It also captures how one man’s life led him to be the hostage taker and take a face to the faceless. I think this is something modern crime is doing well I know a couple of recent tv series have taken the thieves as the main characters, I think the Sopranos and The wire were forerunners of this as the made the criminals as well as the detectives both as characters and there lives are shared. This is what we have here in the book: the past of the Hostage taker’s life from Hamburg through Columbia, then hiding in Curacao to the return, and the present, about Chastity and the other hostages at the birthday party. I think Rachel has captured this book so well in its tone in English. It is an exciting book by a writer, along with many other books in the series.  Have you read any books from Simone Buchholz or Orenda ?

 

 

 

The Rabbit Factor by Antti Tuomainen

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The Rabbit factor by Antti Tuomainen

Finnish fiction

Original title – Jäniskerroin.

Translator – David Hackston

Source – Library book

I posted this on the international crime dagger shortlist and it was a book that caught my eye earlier in the year when Karen had posted the cover. I had also seen a few blog reviews of the book. Hence, it was on my radar when I had seen lt in the library I decided I get it when it was shortlisted I decide to try and read the five books well four as I had already read and reviewed Bullet train and had this at hand it seemed like a small project for the next few months and Karen who I had met and known since she was at Arcadia books and know has Brenda books has always been very kind in sending books. Antti Tuomainen has won the best Finnish crime novel in the past this is a funny crime novel this book has been brought to be made into a film by Amazon with Steve Carell who is actually someone I imagine would be good as the main character from this book

I’m looking the rabbit in the eye when the lights suddenly go out. With my left hand, I squeeze the tube of industrial-strength glue, with my right hand I hold the screwdriver and listen.

In the half-dark the rabbit seems to grow, its head swells, its eyes bulge, the tips of its ears stretch upwards and seem to disappear into the dimness, it’s from teeth curve like an elephant’s tusks. in an instant, the three-meter-tall figure looks twice as tall, twice as wide and considerably more threatening, as though it was guarding the darkness within it. Now it seems to be watching mess if I’m an enticing carrot

The opening lines just make you smile and have a dark tinge to it as well !!

The book has Henri as its main character he is an insurance actuary (he. calculates the risks ) he is a man whose life is powered by numbers and is very ordered so when he first finds out when his brother died that he has inhered the amusement park that his brother owned. when he looks at the accounts being the sort of man he is Henri is shocked by what he finds and who his brother had had dealings with as he owns money to some criminal gangs that have kept the park afloat. The park is well full of oddballs a clubber past his best caretaker with dreams of bigger things amongst the park. this is what made me enjoy the book it is a book about clashing personalities and personalities when Henri meets the other main character in the book Laura she is the total opposite of him this free spirit of an artist but the two are drawn to each other as Henri tries to sort out what happened to his brother and how to get off the mess therein and how the park has been run with the criminal money. he has to start to try and sort it all out.  This ipark with the giant rabbit. The rabbit is in the opening lines as he mends the rabbit as shown on the cover with a broken ear. This has a bit of everything for all types of readers, not just Crime fans !!

Laura Helanto had dark-rimmed glasses and brown hair that curled and spread out like a bush until It touched her shoulders. Her eyes were blue-green and had an inquisitive alertness about them. She was around forty, perhaps a year or two over, just like me, about average height for a Finnish woman. I was rather adept at estimating people’s height because I was a tall man myself, one hundred and ninety-two centimetres, so I was used to continuous meaningless questions on the subject.

His first look at Laura

I loved this I maybe had in my head Henri as Steve Carell but he is that sort of character he has played straight-laced at times this is a classic take on the fish out of water story. Add to that the fact he finds out the crime gang has funded the park. This is a dark comedy of errors clashing souls a set of park workers that could have come of a comedy from the likes of league gentleman it shares that sense of when Henri enters the world of the park it was like stepping into a Royston Vassy in Finland a sort of world that has its own rules and cast of odd characters. As I said this is a book that has a wider appeal than just to crime fans it has a little romance as we see Laura ad Henri grow closer over the book, and dark comedy adds to that just some observances on human life and all. So if you took a pinch of Wodehouse, add a couple of dashes of nordic crime add a bit of surrealism and a pinch of the league of gentlemen and shake it in a cocktail shaker you’d have this book a special blend that has one of my all-time favourite covers I just love that rabbit lol.

Winstons score – +A genre-bending crime fiction worth seeking out !!

The exiled by Kati Hiekkapelto

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The Exiled by Kati Hiekkapelto

Finnish fiction

Original title – Tumma

Translator – David Hackston

Source – review copy

When I went to the London book fair earlier this year one of the people I finally got to meet after many years of chat on twitter was Karen who runs Orenda books a publisher of mainly crime fiction and a number of them in translation.So this Finnish novel is also one for Woman in translation month. This is the second book by Kati Hiekkapelto the Finnish writer lives on an island and is also a singer in a Punk band and  I have reviewed the first was defenseless this book also features the same detective but this time we follow Anne Fekete back home to the Balkan village of her birth. S

Just then Anne felt a violent shove at her back. She was buffeted against the table – so hard that Tibor’s wine glass toppled over.Golden yellow Furmint trickled over the edge of the table on to the ground and splashed on Anna’s trousers. Tobor leapt to his feer and shouted something, and it was then that Anna noticed her handbag had disappeared from the chair next to her.

“My handbag” she shouted. “Someone’s taken my handbag”

Tibor and Erno dashed into the crowd of people

Drink with people that knew her dad, he bag is taken by a thief .

Anne is back with her family in the Balkans on holiday when her bag get stolen one day. But when the thief is found dead by the river. Her passport and credit card had gone so when the local police take the death of the man who is a Romany, Anne natural instincts take over when the robbery happened she happened to see a young girl with the now dead man. But as she starts to investigate the crime, she is drawn into a bigger picture of refugees and how the Romani community is treated with in Serbia. Also into past crimes that someone wants to keep from Anne and also maybe involves Anne’s own family her own father was a local policeman. This book shows the growing intolerance to refugees and other ethnic groups that do not just fit in with the locals as the past and present collide and Anne finds more out about herself and her family.

“Wouldn’t it make sense to be sure this is the same man who stole my handbag? I think I’m the only reliable witness. Admittedly, I only saw him from behind. But I noted his size and what clothes he was wearing.

“He was found lying next to your bag” said the chief of police

“And if h’d been found next to a boat, would that automatically make him a fisherman? Or if he was near a church would you assume he was a priest ? or behind a hospital…”

Anne gets the push off by the police that makes her want to dig deeper into the crime .

This works well as it can be read as a standalone read, the problem with crime series novels is sometimes you need to read them in the series but with these books, I find you don’t .But what we do learn her is more of the mysterious Anne Fekete past, how a girl from the Balkans ended up as a Finnish police detective. Can Nordic noir work with out the ice and snow and dark night yes? This book is a multi layered book of murder, family, refugees, and secrets.  But this is more than a crime novel it is a look at modern society in Europe from the Balkans to Finland we could easily say the rise of hate of other is growing and a death like this has probably been overlooked in every country by the local police

The defenceless by Kati Hiekkapelto

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Defenceless B- format front

The Defenceless by Kati Hiekkapelto

Finnish crime novel

original title – Suojattomat

Translator – David Hackson

Source – review copy

 

I come only with my punishment
There comes only my conviction
is my fate Running
In order to deceive the law
Lost in the heart
of the Great Babylon
They call me the Clandestine *
’cause I do not carry any identity papers

To a northern city
i went for work
I left my life behind
Between Ceuta and Gibraltar
I’m a just a rake on the sea
A ghost in the city
My life is prohibited

I choose the English translation of the Lyrics to Clandstine by Manu Chao a song about being an immigrant.

This is the first of three books from a new publisher Orenda books , which is run by Karen who used work for Arcadia books who published kati’s first book in English the Hummingbird .Kati Hiekkapelto is a prize winning finnish writer, she is also punk singer, performance artist and a special needs teacher (earns my respect as someone whoi supports people with learning disablities ,I know how hard it is to be a teacher ).She also lives on an isolated island in the very north of Finland .She also which is maybe the seed for this book taught Hungarians in the region of Serbia that has a large Hungarian population .This book won the 2014 best Finnish crime novel .

Sammy had arrived in Finland in the same manner and using the same route as the heroin that he knew so well, smuggled in to feed the hungry veins of Western Europeans: hidden in a truck belching thick exhaust fumes and driven across the endless steppes of Russia, illegally

The heroin continued on its way ; Sammy had stayed put

The opening lines and someone  is just  like drugs just a thing to be moved alive or dead they don’t mind these gangs.

Its been a while since I covered a number of  translated crime novel on this blog so to get sent three of what is the most popular genre for books in translation is a refresher for me of the genre so the first stop in the trio of Orenda books is Finland and the second book in the Anna Fekete series . The book starts when a body is found dead in the middle of the road .He may have been killed by a Hungarian Au-pair this is the case Anna Fekete is given  this case rings with her own past .Meanwhile her police partner Esko  is stuck in a case of trying to track a gang that are bring illegal immigrants to the Finland. As the two police officers follow each of the case like a candle burning a both ends a discovery brings the two case to an explosive end .Add to that a biker gangs one native Finns the other immigrants.

Anna sighed. She felt sorry for Gabriella: she would probably receive a minor punishment, but whatever it was the sentence would be a blow. It would be a nasty blot on her record. Would she ever get a job again ? At same time Anna felt a foul sense of satisfaction . Not exactly Shadenfreude, but something similar. What is about that girl that bothered me, she wondered. Why do I think this somehow serves her right?

The au pair gets off but is still involved as the case takes a twist .

I have read a number of Nordic crime novels during the time of this blog, For me The defenceless is up among the best. Anna Fekete leaps of the page, in this up to date novel .How often have we turn the TV on the last few years and seen stories about Immigrants and illegal gangs that bring them into countries what hiekapelto has done is taken that and used a crime novel to dissect the story from both ends the people who arrive in the country and the dreadful gangs that bring these people in dangerous circumstances. Kati has brought these threads together in what is a great Nordic crime novel with a slice of social conscience. I will be back with the other books from Orenda books .

Have you read any crime novel that tackle topical topics in their novels ?

Hello , hello from Soho to Finland dead bodies are dead bodies

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20150819_174653

I started this weeks as a change and I had two already and couldn’t justify get another from the British library crime classics and this book a wartime murder in soho fits perfectly an easy reading break from the recent books I have read which include two books by Nobel winner Patrick Modiano . The book is about missing plans and a dead well-known figure in Soho life .I was remind some what of the Rathbone Holmes films with this book .The sort of books and films that sold well in the war years .

IMG_20150818_164138

Then as a by chance this arrived yesterday from Finnish writer Kati Hiekkapelto the second book featuring her detective Anna Fekete the first from Orenda books thou . Anne and her husband both work for the police and one is investigating a murder with an au pair as the suspect the other illegal gang of immigrants .LIke a scream in soh a cast of suspects from outside the country .That is the only comparison I can make but I am neck high into crime this week .A welcome change of pace and two interesting books from different times and places .

Do you use crime sometimes as a break from Lit book ?