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, Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, 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

The Media and the Massacre by Sonya Voumard

April 6, 2017 by Christina

Nonfiction — Kindle edition. Transit Lounge, 2016. 140 pgs. Purchased. On April 28, 1996, a twenty-eight-year-old from a suburb outside of Hobart, Tasmania murdered two individuals at a guest accommodation site that his father had wanted to purchase. The man then drove to Port Arthur, a tourist site and former convict prison colony, and murdered 33 people and wounded 23 before being captured by police the following day. The Port Arthur massacre was the deadliest mass shooting in Australian history and among the […]

Categories: 2017 Reads, Crime, Nonfiction, Oceania, Stella Prize • Tags: Sonya Voumard

Murder in the Bayou by Ethan Brown

January 23, 2017 by Christina

Nonfiction — print. Scribner, 2016. 224 pgs. Library copy. Between 2005 and 2009, the bodies of eight women were discovered dumped in the bayous and canals of Jefferson Davis parish in Louisiana. The “Jeff Davis 8” victims cross the racial divide of the county; their commonality stems from the fact that all were engaged in prostitution, addicted to drugs, and were related in some way to each other. The most important commonality, however, is that each of the eight victims was connected […]

Categories: 2017 Reads, Crime, Nonfiction, North America, United States • Tags: Ethan Brown

The Cut by George Pelecanos

January 16, 2017 by Christina

Fiction — print. Reagan Arthur, 2011. 292 pgs. Purchased. After returning from serving overseas in Iraq, Spiro Lucas has built a business for himself as a “finder” in Washington D.C. Attorneys, criminals, and the occasional average citizen hire him to locate stolen possession in exchange for a substantial cut of the item’s value — forty percent. The large finder’s fee assures his clients of his Lucas’ discretion and allows the ex-Marine to avoid dealing with the difficulty of reintegrating into civilian society. […]

Categories: 2017 Reads, Crime, North America, United States • Tags: George Pelecanos

The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters

March 5, 2016 by Christina

Fiction — Kindle edition.  Riverhead, 2014. 568 pgs. Purchased. In the aftermath of World War I, twenty-six year old Frances Wray and her mother are obliged to take in paying guests — a more polite term for lodgers that allows Mrs. Wray and the neighbors to ignore the family’s rather spectacular tumble in social standing. Their room for rent notice is answered by a young, married couple from the “clerk class” named Lilian and Leonard Barber, and the Wrays and Barber have […]

Categories: 2016 Reads, Book Club, Chunkster, Crime, Europe, Fiction, LGBTQA+, United Kingdom, Walter Scott Prize, Women's Prize • Tags: Sarah Waters