The Body in the Casket Page, Katherine Hall (2024)

Können Krimis tröstlich sein? Der hier jedenfalls, der letzte, lang erwartete sechste Fall um die eigenwillige Staatsanwältin Rebecca Martinsson (dessen Vorgänger man zum Verständnis nicht kennen muss, nach der Lektüre aber ganz sicher kennen lernen will) ist es ganz unbedingt. Auch hier gibt es Gewalt, Prostitution, Drogen und Korruption in heftigstem Ausmaß, beginnt er doch mit einem gut geplanten Selbstmordversuch und einem Leichenfund in einer uralten Tiefkühltruhe. Aber dominiert wird dieser Roman, der aus verschiedenen Perspektiven erzählt wird und auf verschiedene Zeitebenen spielt, von unglaublich differenziert menschlichen Figuren und einer archaisch schönen Landschaft im schwedischen Norden.
Eine absolute Empfehlung.

If you've never read King before, this might be the worst place to start (or the very best, who knows?). I realize that sounds like an introduction to a disappointed 1-star-review, but it's actually quite the opposite. Because what's so great about "Billy Summers" is that it defies every single expectation that you might have of a stereotypical action plot, of a crime story, of a "Stephen King novel". The danger as well as the appeal of coincidence in the life of an assassin serves as a big theme throughout. There are multiple occasions in which King toys with the directions Billy's story might take if it were to follow typical fictional structures, but then, just like that, he drops them. And the best thing about all that is: it still works. You're on the edge of your seat the entire time, waiting for it to finally go downhill. And it all comes together in the end - even if the place you'll find yourself in won't be the one where you expected the path to take you.

Am Anfang geht es um ein verschwundenes Mädchen, welches im Haus des Lebensgefährten der Mutter, eine Party gefeiert hat.Sofort ist der Kommissarin Fariza Nasri klar, das der Mann lügt, als er angibt nichts über den Verbleib der Schülerin zu wissen.

Das Buch hat mich von der ersten bis zur letzten Seite gefesselt. So viel Spannung und Grausamkeiten, die einen nicht mehr loslassen. Ein Schreibstil der unvergleichlich ist und mich von dem Autor mehr als überzeugt hat. Garantiert nicht das letzte Buch das ich von ihm gelesen habe. Die Figuren waren alle so authentisch in ihrem Handeln, keineswegs überzogen oder aus der Luft gegriffen. Ich bin von der Kommissarin und ihrer Herangehensweise an den Fall, vorallem dem Einfühlungsvermögen Ines gegenüber, begeistert. Eine wahnsinnig starke Frau.
Das Cover passt mit seiner dunklen Farbe absolut zu dem eher düsteren Roman. Auch der Titel erklärt sich im Laufe des Lesens.

Mein Fazit :Eine absolute Leseempfehlung.

Ein entspannter Read für den Pool, die Strandbar oder den Zug. So ganz warm wird man mit keiner der Personen des Romans, aber das ist auch nicht die Absicht der Autorin, denn: Jede:r hat ihr schmutziges kleines Geheimnis und Geld regiert nun mal die Welt. Damit macht man sich keine Freunde, zumindest unter denen mit weniger Einkommen oder Vermögen.
Aber wer ist denn nun die Leiche neben dem Steg und wer hat alles Blut an den Fingern? Findet es selbst heraus und lasst euch gut unterhalten.

Ein entspannter Read für den Pool, die Strandbar oder den Zug. So ganz warm wird man mit keiner der Personen des Romans, aber das ist auch nicht die Absicht der Autorin, denn: Jede:r hat ihr schmutziges kleines Geheimnis und Geld regiert nun mal die Welt. Damit macht man sich keine Freunde, zumindest unter denen mit weniger Einkommen oder Vermögen.
Aber wer ist denn nun die Leiche neben dem Steg und wer hat alles Blut an den Fingern? Findet es selbst heraus und lasst euch gut unterhalten.

The Hunting Party is an old-fashioned crime novel with a modern twist: a group of university friends get together in an isolated Scottish cottage for their annual New Year?s Eve party. All seems to be going well, until they?re snowed in and one of the guest goes missing...
Foley switches between narrators, gradually peeling back the curtain on the supposedly tight group of friends and opening up dark secrets. The diverse cast and their individual demons make all for excellent suspects and turn this wintry crime novel into a chilling treat.

The phone keeps ringing, a strange voice coming from the speaker, and an author suspects he is being followed by fictional characters ...What sounds like a new book by Paul Auster is actually "Maxwell's Demon" by Steven Hall. Hall's second novel ticks all the postmodern boxes, but his take on it is unusually playful and plot-driven. While at first, I wondered if the slightly oversimplified setup bothered me enough to give up, the story quickly develops into something that managed to prove my first impression wrong by delivering one big, clever twist after another. The way the plot keeps turning everything on its head (sometimes quite literally) is very satisfying on an intellectual level but it's equally exciting entertainment-wise which is something you don't find too often in this genre. Hall knows all these "auster-like" tropes very well - and has decided to have a lot of fun with them. (And if you ever wanted to learn about entropy without being bored to death, here's your chance)

Der Spannungsbogen war dauerhaft gespannt und es gab unfassbar viele und schockierende Geheimnisse zu lüften. Ein wirklich mehr als aufregender Thriller.
Der Wechsel zwischen den Charakteren und auch zwischen dem Zeitpunkt der Ereignisse, sorgte für den "Ich muss unbedingt wissen wie es weitergeht" Effekt und ich wollte das Buch gar nicht aus der Hand legen.
Nur die Gänsehaut wollte sich nicht einstellen. Da fehlte ein kleiner gewisser Funke für.

If you've never read King before, this might be the worst place to start (or the very best, who knows?). I realize that sounds like an introduction to a disappointed 1-star-review, but it's actually quite the opposite. Because what's so great about "Billy Summers" is that it defies every single expectation that you might have of a stereotypical action plot, of a crime story, of a "Stephen King novel". The danger as well as the appeal of coincidence in the life of an assassin serves as a big theme throughout. There are multiple occasions in which King toys with the directions Billy's story might take if it were to follow typical fictional structures, but then, just like that, he drops them. And the best thing about all that is: it still works. You're on the edge of your seat the entire time, waiting for it to finally go downhill. And it all comes together in the end - even if the place you'll find yourself in won't be the one where you expected the path to take you.

A lot of people seem to think that Agatha Christie is still the undefeated queen of crime fiction and to those people I always want to say: but where is the humour?! If you write cosy crime, surely the point is to be able to include a couple of jokes?
Since that is my point of view, I can't help but think, that Osman has possibly beaten her at her own game. This unlikely crew of sleuthing octogenerians trying to solve a string of murders in their posh retirement home made me cackle repeatedly. Of course it would be easier to solve crimes when your that age, just think how impertinent you can be! I'm taking one star off, just because the solution to the murders involved one soppy love story too many. Apart from that though, this is as delightful as cosy crime gets.

One probably shouldn't 'just' review books because their authors have died but John Le Carre's death at the end of 2020 seemed somehow to be one of those literary events that it is hard not to pitch in on.

I am no Le Carre obsessive - I have probably read around 10 of his novels, not more - but I would still describe myself as a fan. Why? Well I don't necessarily belong to those who think him a great writer to be immediately incorporated into the canon (if we believe in the canon at all). But I do think he is a spy novelist of rare skill, who for half a century was able to handle geopolitical trends in his books without the feeling that they saturate the human experience. ARITF was his last novel (published in his lifetime - you can bet your house an unfinished one will be found) and it is perhaps his angriest. A vicious attack on Trump, Brexit and modern nationalism, done with humour, humanity and more than a pinch of great plotting. RIP John Le Carre!

A lot of people seem to think that Agatha Christie is still the undefeated queen of crime fiction and to those people I always want to say: but where is the humour?! If you write cosy crime, surely the point is to be able to include a couple of jokes?
Since that is my point of view, I can't help but think, that Osman has possibly beaten her at her own game. This unlikely crew of sleuthing octogenerians trying to solve a string of murders in their posh retirement home made me cackle repeatedly. Of course it would be easier to solve crimes when your that age, just think how impertinent you can be! I'm taking one star off, just because the solution to the murders involved one soppy love story too many. Apart from that though, this is as delightful as cosy crime gets.

The Hunting Party is an old-fashioned crime novel with a modern twist: a group of university friends get together in an isolated Scottish cottage for their annual New Year?s Eve party. All seems to be going well, until they?re snowed in and one of the guest goes missing...
Foley switches between narrators, gradually peeling back the curtain on the supposedly tight group of friends and opening up dark secrets. The diverse cast and their individual demons make all for excellent suspects and turn this wintry crime novel into a chilling treat.

One probably shouldn't 'just' review books because their authors have died but John Le Carre's death at the end of 2020 seemed somehow to be one of those literary events that it is hard not to pitch in on.

I am no Le Carre obsessive - I have probably read around 10 of his novels, not more - but I would still describe myself as a fan. Why? Well I don't necessarily belong to those who think him a great writer to be immediately incorporated into the canon (if we believe in the canon at all). But I do think he is a spy novelist of rare skill, who for half a century was able to handle geopolitical trends in his books without the feeling that they saturate the human experience. ARITF was his last novel (published in his lifetime - you can bet your house an unfinished one will be found) and it is perhaps his angriest. A vicious attack on Trump, Brexit and modern nationalism, done with humour, humanity and more than a pinch of great plotting. RIP John Le Carre!

This wonderful book was originally published in spring and should have arrived in our shop from America, but was unlucky enough to be blocked by closing borders due to Corona. It has already attracted some interest though, so I'm very happy to have the paperback on the shelf!
"These Women" tells the story of a run-down neighbourhood in Los Angeles, of people living on the margins, of women falling through the cracks - and of a serial killer who smashes up this precarious balance. But instead of trying to solve the mystery of the killer, Pochoda tells the story of the women affected by the killings. Their stories form the backbone of the novel, not the crimes and long after the reader suspects who it might be, the tension remains high because we follow the fallout for the women. This is how I prefer my crime novels: ambitious, gritty and truthful. A smartly delivered gut-punch of a novel.

The Hunting Party is an old-fashioned crime novel with a modern twist: a group of university friends get together in an isolated Scottish cottage for their annual New Year?s Eve party. All seems to be going well, until they?re snowed in and one of the guest goes missing...
Foley switches between narrators, gradually peeling back the curtain on the supposedly tight group of friends and opening up dark secrets. The diverse cast and their individual demons make all for excellent suspects and turn this wintry crime novel into a chilling treat.

If the first lockdown taught me two things, they were that Sami Tamimi's cauliflower fritters are my version of cocaine, and that Tana French novels (much like other drugs) can distract me from even the worst of crises. Small wonder then that when lockdown 2.0 started, I trawled our shelves to dig out one of the few that had remained unread.
The Trespasser opens with the discovery of a woman's body, apparently murdered in an act of domestic violence. The case seems very routine and as such is given to two young detectives to solve, one of whom, Antoinette Conway is, by virtue of her gender, a real outsider on the murder squad. Together, they realise this 'simple' murder has hidden and horrifying depth.
French, unlike so many of her colleagues, writes brilliantly, plausibly and largely cliché-free and this is a rare kind of thriller, where you worry you might, in a fit of addiction, read it too quickly to savour its depth. Crime-based catnip for our lockdown lives!

Witzige, gut geschriebene Romanreihe mit einer unternehmungslustigen und tatkräftigen Heldin, die sich von niemandem etwas sagen lässt.
Veronica Speedwell ist ihre eigene Meisterin und agiert im viktorianischen England unbeeindruckt von Moral und Tugendvorschriften nach ihren persönlichen Vorstellungen. Dass ihr zur Seite ein sehr attraktiver Naturwissenschaftler steht, erhöht das Lesevergnügen, doch gemach, es geht um Action, Abenteuer und Mord, weniger um Romance. Sehr unterhaltsam!

This is my favorite modern crime series. It combines complex characters who you want to be friends with and gripping plots in each and every volume - none have disappointed me in the slightest. Each time a new one comes out I'm glued to the couch and spend all my free time reading.
The Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling (Galbraith is a pseudonym) really knows her stuff!

This trilogy revolving around a highly infectious virus disease is the perfect genre-mix of fantasy, sci-fi, thriller, dystopia - and of course: lots and lots of horror!! Don't miss out on this extremely haunting and atmospheric series; it certainly got me hooked.
And that in a time before our current pandemic - I can only imagine how thrilling of a read it must be now!

As children, my sister and I were absolutely obsessed with Agatha Christie books. Between us I am sure that we read (or listened to - many of the BBC adaptations are so good it is worth pushing them) everything she ever wrote, and to this day I often revisit them for comfort reading.
I have quite a few favourites and as an adult have come to reappraise my list quite extensively. There is however one book which always remains front and centre for me as one of the best, '4.50 from Paddington'. It is absolutely peak Marple and all the better for it. A friend of the spinster sleuth sees a woman being strangled in a compartment as her train passes another. Marple first has to work out where this could have happened before infiltrating a posh family to crack the case.
Marple books tend to less well known than Poirot ones, which I find deeply unfair as they are often better observed and frankly more fun. This is one of the best and well worth picking up to fend off the January blues!