Back of Beyond by C.J. Box

January 8, 2019 by Christina

Fiction – Kindle edition. Corvus, 2011. 382 pgs. Library copy. Cody Hoyt returned to his hometown of Helena, Montana after washing out with the police force down in Colorado. His marriage to the woman he married while still in high school disintegrated years ago, and while he tries to be the exact opposite of his own father, his relationship with his son Justin is strained. Despite the infamy of his family’s criminal behavior in Helena, Cody still manages to get […]

Categories: 2019 Reads, Crime, Fiction, Mountain West, North America, United States • Tags: C.J. Box

The Shadow District by Arnaldur Indriðason

December 28, 2018 by Christina

Fiction — Kindle edition. Translated from the Icelandic by Victoria Cribb. Minotaur Books, 2017. Originally published 2013. 304 pgs. Library copy. During the 1940s, when Reykjavik served as a staging ground for the American military invasion of Europe, a young woman is founded murdered behind the National Theater. The area around the theater is known as the “Shadow District”, and the devious behavior conducted there often occurs without punishment. But this murder — and the American serviceman seen fleeing from the […]

Categories: 2018 Reads, Crime, Europe, Fiction, Iceland, Icelandic, Translated • Tags: Arnaldur Indriðason

In the Woods by Tana French

December 11, 2018 by Christina

Fiction – audiobook. Read by Steven Crossley. Penguin Audio, 2007. 20 hours, 24 minutes. Purchased. In 1984, twelve-year-old Adam Ryan is found clutching a tree in the woods of Knocknaree, a suburb of Dublin. This discovery would be unremarkable if Adam and his two friends hadn’t been missing for days and if one of Adam’s shoe wasn’t filled with blood. Adam is unable to remember how he ended up in the woods, and his two friends – a girl named […]

Categories: 2018 Reads, Audiobook, Crime, Europe, Fiction, Ireland • Tags: Steven Crossley, Tana French

Reykjavik Nights by Arnaldur Indriðason

September 27, 2018 by Christina

Fiction — Kindle edition. Translated from the Icelandic by Victoria Cribb. Minotaur Books, 2015. Originally published 2012. 336  pgs. Library copy. Erlendur Sveinsson is a new patrolman working in the Icelandic capital of Reykjavik. Primarily assigned to the night shift, Erlendur’s police duties are largely constrained to arresting drunk drivers, corralling the city’s homeless population, and ticketing traffic violations. During one night shift, Erlendur crossed paths with a homeless man named Hannibal. The interaction was brief; Hannibal had been discovered living […]

Categories: 2018 Reads, Crime, Europe, Fiction, Iceland, Icelandic, Translated • Tags: Arnaldur Indriðason

Into Oblivion by Arnaldur Indriðason

September 9, 2018 by Christina

Fiction — Kindle edition. Translated from the Icelandic by Victoria Cribb. Minotaur Books, 2016. Originally published 2014. 352 pgs. Library copy. In 1979, Erlendur is divorced, estranged from his young daughter, and working as a detective based out of Reykjavik. Like most of Iceland, he and his work partner, Marion Briem, are split on the presence of the American military at Keflavík. Icelanders have been told the Americans are needed; that the small, island nation would be at risk from the […]

Categories: 2018 Reads, Crime, Europe, Fiction, Iceland, Icelandic, Translated • Tags: Arnaldur Indriðason

The End of the Wasp Season by Denise Mina

August 9, 2018 by Christina

Fiction — print. Reagan Arthur, 2013. Originally published 2011. 432 pgs. Purchased.  Outside of Glasgow, a young woman is murdered in the home she inherited from her mother after a trip to New York. Inside the home, Detective Inspector Alex Morrow is shown thousands of Euro notes tapped to the underside of the dining room table. The murder doesn’t appear to be a batched burglary that the responding officers originally believed it to be. On the eastern coast of Scotland, a fifteen-year-old […]

Categories: 2018 Reads, Crime, Europe, Fiction, United Kingdom • Tags: Denise Mina

Hostage by Guy Delisle

August 2, 2018 by Christina

Nonfiction — print. Translated from the French. Drawn and Quarterly, 2017. 436 pgs. Library copy. In 1997, a French administrator for Médecins Sans Frontières (or, Doctors Without Borders) named Christophe Andre was kidnapped in the middle of the night from the organization’s base in Nazran and taken to Chechnya in Russia. Andre is held hostage for three months and tormented by the thoughts of escaping and fantasies of rescue. Delisle is best known for his graphic travelogues of places normally […]

Categories: 2018 Reads, Comics, Crime, Europe, French, Nonfiction, Russia, Translated • Tags: Guy Delisle

The Murder of Halland by Pia Juul

July 24, 2018 by Christina

Fiction — Kindle edition. Translated from the Danish by Martin Aitken. Peirene Press, 2012. Originally published 2009. 189 pgs. Library copy. Bess awakens one morning in her home office to find that her husband, Halland, has left. His disappearance isn’t suspect; her normally leaves for work without waking her. But just as Bess prepares to step into the shower, the doorbell rings and the neighbor standing at her doorstep announces that he’s making a citizens arrest of her for the […]

Categories: 2018 Reads, Awards and Prizes, Crime, Danish, Europe, Fiction, Peirene Press, Scandinavia, Translated • Tags: Pia Juul

The Girl in the Spider’s Web by David Lagercrantz

July 22, 2018 by Christina

Fiction — Kindle edition. Vintage Crime/Black Lizard, 2015. Translated from the Swedish by George Goulding. 416 pgs. Library copy. Out of the blue, a Swedish computer programmer named Frans Balder shows up at the home of his ex-wife and announces that he is taking custody of their autistic son, August. He has decided to leave his job in the United States, stopping his research into artificial intelligence after the program he wrote was stolen by hackers. “It’s always the wrong people […]

Categories: 2018 Reads, Crime, Europe, Fiction, Scandinavia, Swedish, Translated • Tags: David Lagercrantz

The Sleepwalker by Chris Bohjalian

July 12, 2018 by Christina

Fiction — audiobook. Read by Cady McClain and Grace Experience. Random House Audio, 2017. 9 hours, 38 minutes. Library copy.  When Lianna Ahlberg awakens one morning at her parents’ home in Vermont and realizes her mother, Annalee, is missing, she immediately feels the worst because Annalee is a sleepwalker whose affliction causes her to wander out of the house and into dangerous situations. Once, Annalee sleepwalked right on to the ledge of the bridge over Gale River, requiring Lianna to pull […]

Categories: 2018 Reads, Audiobook, Book Club, Crime, Fiction, New England, North America, United States • Tags: Cady McClain, Chris Bohjalian, Grace Experience

Force of Nature by Jane Harper

May 2, 2018 by Christina

Fiction — Kindle edition. Flatiron Books, 2018. 329 pgs. Purchased.  Harper’s debut novel, The Dry, was near the very top of my list of favorite reads from 2017, and I have a feeling this novel — her second starring Australian Federal Police Agent Aaron Falk — will snag a spot on my list for 2018. The drought that plagued the events of Harper’s first novel has lifted, and readers return to find that Falk is pursuing a money laundering case against two […]

Categories: 2018 Reads, Crime, Fiction, Oceania • Tags: Jane Harper

Behind Closed Doors by B.A. Paris

March 7, 2018 by Christina

Fiction — audiobook. Read by Georgia Maguire. Macmillian Audio, 2016. 8 hours, 23 minutes. Library copy. To outsiders, Grace Angel has the perfect marriage. Her husband, Jack, is a lawyer representing victims of domestic violence, and he absolutely dotes on his wife. He takes her on spur of the moment holidays to Thailand, provides a comfortable home so that Grace does not have to work, and is committed to Grace’s promise to bring her sister Millie, who has Downs Syndrome, […]

Categories: 2018 Reads, Asia, Audiobook, Book Club, Crime, Europe, Fiction, Thailand, United Kingdom • Tags: B.A. Paris, Georgia Maguire