Bad Luck and Trouble

From a helicopter high above the empty California desert, a man is sent free-falling into the night…. In Chicago, a woman learns that an elite team of ex–army investigators is being hunted down one by one.... And on the streets of Portland, Jack Reacher — soldier, cop, hero — is pulled out of his wandering life by a code that few other people could understand. From the first shocking scenes in Lee Child’s explosive new novel, Jack Reacher is plunged like a knife into the heart of a conspiracy ...

bookbrowse.com

And so are we. Plunged into the action from the spectacular first chapter of Bad Luck and Trouble. From then on, there's no looking back. The book boasts excellent action scenes and Child's detailed writing does not detract from the enjoyment.

This is my third Lee Childs. And the Reacher I'd read before this one had already won my approval. 

The Wikipedia entry, for Bad Luck and Trouble, has some engaging trivia on the book - a must for Reacher aficionados. Jack Reacher is Child's protagonist for a series featuring this singular man's various adventures. Jack's family, if any, is, effectively, the army. 

Recently, I read another Jack Reacher, The Enemy, which was not as enthralling as this one, where I learned about and met his mother and brother. However, in Bad Luck and Trouble, it's to the aid of his ex-comrades from the army that he rushes. All it took was a mere sequence of numbers.   

This Reacher is not one of his usual lone wolf stories. While it's true that a Reacher story usually has him teaming up with someone, often a lady, in this novel, it's almost like one of those J. T. Edsons where different members of the cowboy hero's extended family come together, from diverse parts of the country, to bring the villain/villains to justice.

Of course, there's the lady with whom Reacher will sleep in the course of the book - but that's part of the Reacher format, in any case. Here, however, we have two women in the team but no orgies! One of the reasons I do like my Lee Childs is that the author does the fairly decent thing in how he portrays the female actors in the dramas.

A part of the Reacher charm is the reflection of some of the author's life philosophies - some that he appears to try to live and others that he perhaps upholds. Thus, Reacher is not bound by the fetters with which most of us in today's world are chained: roots, credit cards and other such. It is said that Lee Child also follows some of that banking advice. However, while Child has used his earnings from the books to live well and has property, Reacher is like an Indian sadhu - free of all attachments.

"Lee Child, Bouchercon 2010" by Mark Coggins. Licensed under CC BY 2.0 via Commons - https://wiki2.org/en/File:Lee_Child,_Bouchercon_2010.jpg#/media/File:Lee_Child,_Bouchercon_2010.jpg

Apparently, the title is taken from a song:

Albert King, Stevie Ray Vaughan - Born Under a Bad Sign

The very title holds promise - what can be worse than bad luck? Bad luck and trouble!  

 A must-have Jack Reacher!

Lackberg's The Ice Child Lacks Lustre

The book opens very satisfyingly. The setting is very dramatic - snow, darkness, horses, a figure clad in red... In other words, the cover picture.

Camilla Lackberg's novel is the exact opposite of the Hakan Nesser recently reviewed on this blog. The Lackberg is of the genre that thrives on portraits of ultimate evil. The story opens with a girl erupting into view. A girl who has been thoroughly brutalised. And the ending is also so satisfactory to the purpose that it screams overkill.

Written, as it is, by a woman, one would expect the book to offer some female character that is memorable. However, the characters are very laboured with neither man, woman, husband, wife, mother, son, daughter nor anyone emerging engagingly. 

The relationship between the main characters, Detective Patrik Hedström and crime writer Erica, is annoyingly cloying, at best, and archaic, at worst. The novel sighs its way through traditional MIL behaviour, and other such antediluvian swamps. Incidental children are tossed hither and thither through the narrative. Caring for these joyless burdens traumatises our protagonists as much as does the physical torture inflicted on the victims of the crimes being investigated.  

Erica is writing a new book inspired by an old family tragedy that ended with the death of a man: a man who had arrived in Fjallbacka with the circus... Now an expert in research and interviews with the victims, Erica is seeking the common thread that can lead to the truth behind this story. Despite countless visits to the wife of the man who was convicted for the murder, her researches appear to have come to a dead end... 

When Patrik Hedström and his team received the alarm about the accident that occurred near the woods, the victim has already been identified... On her body, in addition to the injuries due to the crash, the girl bears wounds that witness unimaginable atrocities and slowly it happears clear that there is a possibility that she is not the last and only victim.

Libretto Reviews

The book is full of unnatural beings - psychopaths - on the one hand, and a plodding 'normalcy', on the other, as if the demented 'murderers' are the only plague besetting an otherwise wonderful world. A wonderful premise. If only that were the truth! 

The Ice Child by its nature challenges our complacency about evil, particularly in an age that rightly or wrongly is determined to find social and psychological explanations rather than to acknowledge that evil might exist as an entity of itself. “The girl looked so happy and innocent, so unaware of the evil that existed in the world. But Laila could have told her all about it. How evil could live right next to what was good, in a community where people wore blinkers and refused to see what was right in front of their noses. Once you saw evil up close, you could never close your eyes to it again. That was her curse and her responsibility”. As I was reading The Ice Child, the case of child murderers Rachel Trelfa and Nyomi Fee was going through British courts. It seems Laila’s point is well made.

Review

One can imagine that this sort of thing lends itself obediently to film versions given the universal craving to be convinced of Ultimate Evil.

Camilla Lackberg's The Fjällbacka Murders Box Set Trailer

Much is explained when you read about the author:

The first thing you notice about Swedish crime-writing sensation Camilla Läckberg is that she is really quite beautiful. The second thing is the 39-year-old’s disarming honesty about her approach to crime fiction.

My love affair with crime started aged seven

By Lesula, from Wikimedia Commons

She was picked by readers of a Swedish newspaper as “Woman of the Year” in March. She’s a celebrity contestant on the nation’s version of “Dancing With the Stars.” She is married to Martin Melin, a police sergeant in Stockholm, who became a national sex symbol after winning “Expedition Robinson,” the Swedish “Survivor,” in 1997.

They have five children from their blended families (two each from prior relationships, one child together). His blog, “Coola Pappor” (“Cool Dads”), is such a hit that it led to a book with the same title last fall...
Between crime novels, Lackberg paired with a childhood friend to write a cookbook, “The Taste of Fjallbacka,” which was so popular that it led to a second. She wrote a children’s book about her and Melin’s child, “Super Charlie,” which became a game on an iPhone app.
He tattooed her name on his rib cage and rides a Harley. She has been known to pose in a bikini.

Swedish crime sensation

All I can say is that Camilla lacks what it takes to do honour to the crime genre in novels. While a monster is certainly a crowd puller, it is equally monstrous to pull several psychopaths out of the bag in one story.  

However, Lackberg's appears to be a big pull for tourism!

Fjällbacka - by Bruno Cordioli. CC BY 2.0

CC BY 2.0

Camilla Lackberg - Murder Mystery Tour

New Camilla Läckberg-themed tours will be available from spring 2013, showing fans exactly where many of the fictional scenes took place. For example, Kungsklyftan Gorge – which means ‘The King’s Gorge’ and is named after King Oscar II – where three fictional murder victims were found in The Preacher. There’s also Berit in Järnboden, the local hardware store, which appears in The Stonecutter and The Gallows Bird. Participants can learn about Fjällbacka’s fascinating history, too – including the herring fishing period.

Walk in the footsteps of Camilla Läckberg’s crime fiction characters

Crème de la Crime? Murder on the Menu

Food in crime fiction seems as natural as cinnamon in apple pie. There's always poison which needs to be camouflaged in food or drink. And, though they are never silly geese, many a detective is a gastronome and even a gourmand. 

My personal favourite is Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe. The obese detective almost never budges from his residence. He has a cook but is no stranger to the kitchen. 

The layout of his flat is a key piece in the pleasure of the series. There is the kitchen and there is the orchid room, his second hobby being these flowers. Detection is tertiary but relatively swift, once his hired pair of legs, Archie Goodwin, fetches him the various clues of the case.   

Stout uses food as a character in the books. It is every bit as alive, as filled with personality and appeal–visual and olfactory, color and taste as any witness, victim or villain.

Food in Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe Books

Wolfe is but one example. Poirot is more popular. However, they are all a bit of old hat and, I will eat mine if one of the newer ones, showcased below, don't please the palate as well. Food in crime fiction never stales, somehow.   

Anne Zouroudi's Red Herrings: Food in Crime Fiction is a nourishing essay on the subject. She authors the Greek detective series.

Don't read this one on an empty stomach! The extensive descriptions of various food and drink items will leave you wanting some. 

goodreads.com

However, crime fiction can also make us queasy about what's being served:

In her 1930 classic Strong Poison, Dorothy L Sayers had her heroine Harriet Vane stand trial for poisoning her ex-lover with a sweet omelette.

 Dining with death: crime fiction’s long affair with food

Recipes for crime fiction, we note, sometimes blend in food. What happens when we also fold in some romance? 

Recipes for Love and Murder, opens with Tannie Maria transforming her recipe column in the local newspaper into an advice column to pacify the paper’s sponsors. Her common sense (coupled with mouthwatering recipes) is a hit, and she soon receives mail from readers across the country. Then Tannie Maria gets a letter from a woman who wants to escape her abusive husband—a situation that mirrors her own violent past. When the woman is murdered, Tannie Maria is determined to find the killer herself. After all, suspects are more willing to talk if you ply them with food.

Sally Andrew Debuts a South African Mystery Series with Recipes for Love and Murder

These days it's never as simple as all that! You've got to watch every mouthful lest it go to waist!

Writer and columnist, Paige Nick, penned ‘Death by Carbs’ after a pasta-loving friend said she could kill the scientist for his low carbohydrate high fat (LCHF) ‘banting’ diet.

Banter’s book sees the death of Tim Noakes

Fiction, stewed in a cauldron of history, sups well with a side order of crime. The novel below sounds like a fine example of French crime cuisine.

I could go on and on about how Nicholas sounds good enough to eat, but really, Parot is obsessed with food. Crimes may be committed and deaths avenged, but Parot goes into great detail every time a morsel is mentioned. Sure, there may be a corpse two pages over, but dang, food is like another character in this riveting start to a fantastic mystery series.

5 Mouthwatering books that mix food with fiction

The next post serves up an Indian 'thali'. Either Google is doing this to me as I'm based in the sub-continent or we're sizzling with samples of food in crime fiction!

Four Italian Crime Fiction Writers Profiled

Crime Fiction in Other Climes 

Part II

I had wanted to break the Italian story into three acts but find myself hard pressed by the scarcity of information in English on the subject, for one thing. And, for another, an unwieldy profusion of Italian names in the genre popping up that is hard to process, given the first constraint.  It is thus that Part III will offer Borscht rather than more pasta.

One notices that a recurrent theme in Italian crime fiction is the Mafia or gang violence and the ghost of the Mussolini era. 

Andrea Camilleri, cassatina sulla terrazza a Marinella - by SerStelitano (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0 ], via Wikimedia Commons

If Camilleri's fictional Montalbano delights in food, Sandrone Dazieri who surfaced for me, thanks to crimefictionlover, once worked as cook. So, food and crime fiction go hand in glove in the Italian crime book, it appears!

Sandrone's signature seems to be that of using himself in the work. There is talk of a 'doppelgänger' and a main character is also named Sandrone.

I imagine that the author's work as script and comics writer has delectable influence on his writing. However, it is hard to find much about the author or the books, in English, online. 

Video promo of Sandrone's Kill The Father

I'm also delighted to be able to offer you an excerpt.

And a preview of another of his novels that you can have by clicking on the link in the book cover below.

And the excerpt.
doppelgänger

Another Italian author in the genre is the multifaceted doppelgänger Giorgio Faletti who has turned his hand to many things, including car racing. His first book, though, was in the humour genre. Will that vein infect his thrillers, I wonder. In any case he has also acted in films and TV shows.

Here is a song of his: 

Preview one of his novels using the book cover below.

Alas, that is all I have for you but there exist more than a couple of his novels in English that sound promising. One thing is for sure - there are a lot of serial killers in the books!

Let's profile one more:

Detective turned crime author Michele Giuttari explains how his lead character is himself

 independent.co.uk

Himself an ex-cop , Michele Giuttari shares the above trait with Sandrone Dazieri, whom we have seen above.

His Death Under a Tuscan Sun has a nice review at the same journal.

a sultry and atmospheric antidote to the various Scandinavian crime scribes

independent.co.uk 

And, with Giancarlo de Cataldo, my search peters out. There is really very little to say or share about the many Italian writers in the crime genre, merely because the web is English-biased!  Besides the preview below, there is a meaty read on the web.

The good news is that Netflix has it - at least that should be true by now:

Arrivederci for the moment while I sniff out some Russian crime novel writers!

A Smidgen of Italian Crime Fiction

Crime Fiction in Other Climes 

Part II

The First in a Three Course Feast from Italy - Montalbano

An introduction to Noir Italiano does that, to some extent - it covers highlights in the genre there from the 1930s to the 1990s. However, let's put our own heads together to try to solve the Mystery of the Missing Mascarpone on our crime novel bookshelves. Why is it that few, in the English reading/speaking lot, can cough up an Italian name or two in the genre? 

There was once an Italy that romanced the world. And then there was the Great War. It is around that time, perhaps, that a sinister glint enters the frame when we speak of that land - the olive grooves are dappled with Mafia and the vineyards insidious with fascism.

In terms of the crime genre, we look back, as those who read in English, and find the Italian a slightly coloured piece of sleaze. He totes guns, belongs to the familia gangsteria mamamiansensis. 

So, you see, the discrimination was not all black and white. Red, for example, was also given the apartheid treatment and is not out of the woods yet, effectively speaking. The yellow still spells peril. And, it does no good to be too white, either, for the pale Pole gets the rough end of the stick as often as does the swarthy Spaniard or Roman.

And so there is a gaping hole in our collective consciousness, as speakers/readers of English, where a niche for Italian crime fiction ought to be.

I mention 'English'. This is because China, Japan and Korea, at least, to my knowledge, habitually offer their people translations of world literature of all sorts, past and present, in sufficient amounts. I suspect that this is also true of most of the ex-Soviet Union and of the other Europe - the one that got Brexited out.  

The lands where English dominates seem to have a characteristic desire to limit their experience to writers from their own lands. Thus, it is more acceptable to read of a country when Italy is but a setting in a novel by fellow countryfolk. 

The digestion is so weak - it cannot tolerate 'outside' food. In other vocabulary or words, that which is not from the US, the UK, Australia, or Canada is almost 'haram' where the home-grown writing is freely labelled 'halal' for the whole world - safe to consume.

   

I started out, feeling like an imposter for I felt I had little to say! However, research paid off and I have blabbed up space.

Thanks to studying the matter, however cursorily, I find I'm not nearly as much at sea as I assumed I would be, given I have not read a piece of Italian crime fiction. I can, now, at least confidently mention that Montalbano is a big name, for one thing.

Andrea Camilleri's creation appears to have captured both a readership as well as eyeballs outside Italy too. 

Not such an easy feat - not all languages translate equally and translation is a complex interaction which can mar the experience if not done thoughtfully. Apparently, Italian has not fared as well as French - at least in so far as crime fiction in translation goes.

Too many figures of speech? Too much local colour? Too many chips and other crumbs on the shoulders of the English speaking/reading public?

However, once the taste is created, perhaps the rest follows necessarily. Was this how it was for Nordic Noir?

Another thing I learned is that, if I search for Montalbano, for instance, I get a lot of Tripadvisor type sites. Literature tourism is a bane - one that is not least of the evils greed, in general, brings to the table. The tradesperson mentality of publishers, we have already seen, harms quality writing, submerging past works of worth to pander to the existing client who pays to be published. Now this thug is joined by the hotel industry and so on who love to co-opt the names of the great and not in vain. We are the saps who pay up to lose the outright benefit of great literature. Today, we would rather eat a sausage called Steinbeck than read anything of his. Stay in Stendhal Hall than scrutinise his stories.

The result is that not many reviews or other writings can surface. In the end, the pure and simple greed for money is evil in its effects, within the pages of our thrillers as in the less bloody arena of real life. 

All in all, I would begin with a Montalbano if I were to tackle this region in the genre systematically. The corpses sound good and 

Camilleri writes in a mixture of dialect and Italian (helpfully translated into English by Stephen Sartarelli over the last few years) drawing the reader into the lives of Salvo, his deputy, best pal and womaniser Mimì and his trusty sidekick Fazio. So whilst Mimì flirts his way through investigations into underworld deaths, Fazio compiles information on the suspects like a human encyclopaedia. Meanwhile Montalbano cogitates silently for hours over platefuls of fresh caught seafood at his favourite trattoria, meditates under an olive tree on the south coast shore or swims in the azure waters off his beachfront villa.

I’m Montalbano!

I caught one episode of the TV series last night and it was hilarious. There was hardly any detection. There was a great deal of breathy sultry seduction though. 

Crime with a French Accent

Crime Fiction in Other Climes - France, Italy, Russia

Part I

Crime Writing in the Other Europe 

In this series, we look at crime writing in a trio of countries/regions that is currently not so hot on the crime reader's radar. 

Although the UK consistently skirts belonging, it manages to eclipse the rest of Europe. This is, mostly, due to the hegemony of English. However, though translations tend to lag, there is, recently, an increasing trend towards bridging the gap.  Witness the phenomenal rise of Nordic Noir.

It is not that no one reads anything but British or American crime novels, though. In my own childhood, my father frequently traveled to Europe for conferences and such. It was in those years that he acquired some George Simenons. 

I never got around to reading them but what I retained was my father's view of the way the French tackle crime in cinema. He quivered with suppressed laughter as he described car chases, the volubility and the extravagant gesturing.

Find below trailers of some films based on Maigret novels.

The Blue Room

Simenon, however, was Belgian, it turns out. Surprising how a lot of the time when we say 'French' we mean Belgian! 

France has possibly produced crime literature before the famous Arsène Lupin - gentleman thief (Robin Hoodesque?) series.

And we have a French Connection, in any case. Not only the thriller but Poirot and his ilk. 

However, let's return to the present and see what it has to offer us in terms of translated crime writing in France today. 

Arsène Lupin,Arsène Lupin, Arsène Lupin,

Read a write-up about five names in the game.

Since I can't see anything surfacing for 'Best of Fred Vargas', I chose one that looked creepy.

There are just too many Vargas for me to even selectively offer something of a sampling. Indeed, there are television serials and films too. I can't seem to find any snippet of those for viewing here, alack and alas! 

Here are links to some books reviewed.

The Chalk Circle Man

A Climate of Fear

I can see Vargas books being remade as Hollywood or British films or TV dramas sometime soon. After all, there's always room for more variety in the genre on screen and as novels. 

Apparently, for Pierre Lemaitre, you have to start with the one below.

Hopefully, someday we'll be able to see a version with subtitles but in the meantime here's a French trailer of Lemaitre's Au revoir là-haut:

To know more about Lemaitre, try this comprehensive Note.

With Pascal Garnier, I selected the one below. Possibly, as I age, this one will read deliciously into age-appropriate fears. 

About another of his, The Guardian says

Pascal Garnier's posthumously published novel is often bleak, often funny and never predictable

The Panda Theory

For Bernard Minier, it looks like it has to be his first.

Enjoy the trailer of the French mystery thriller television series, with English subtitles:

Don’t Turn Out the Lights and The Circle are also available and promising.

Of the five here, Antonin Varenne seems the most neglected. So far, there appear to be three novels of his translated into English.

A review of the second of those has an interesting take on translated crime fiction:

it's a constant complaint of crime writers that their efforts are regarded (at best) as mere entertainment, or (at worst) as cynical exercises exploiting the darkest aspects of human nature. There is, however, one strand of the discipline that is granted a certain cachet: crime writing in a foreign language, translated by one of the new breed of A-list translators.

France's colonial past haunts this nihilistic Gallic noir

In the third, Varenne has

created a sprawling epic evoking great adventure novelists such as Joseph Conrad and John Buchan. 

Retribution Road

His The Wall, The Kabyle and The Sailor is loved by reviewers - a cop hired to beat up people realises he's being used to bully intellectuals. Looks like the novel packs a powerful punch.

With that we fold up this post. Hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I did composing it. 

Tomorrow it's Italian crime writing. Another mystery to me, so far!   

Recent Noises in Crime Fiction in Japan, China and Singapore

A Splatter of Diversity in Recent Crime Fiction 

Taking off from the featured article, Top Ten International Crime Fiction of 2017, on Writer Rites, my Facebook Page, this post intends to showcase some crime novel authors from Japan, China and Singapore. Subsequent pieces will deal with France, Italy and the Nordic countries.

As discussed yesterday, Internet searches are hostage to the selective name dropping, as it were, of algorithms. And so, when I sought articles about crime fiction from around the world, what was instantly burped up was mainly authors from certain regions - the global factor was merely the locale of the action. It was only further probing that produced at least one piece, the article referred to above, with a tiny sprinkle of regional names. Even there, geographical chunks were passed over.

There are several reasons for this and most are innocuous - translation, for example, cannot, as it exists, keep up with global output. 

Now, as for my self imposed duty, I take it upon myself to bring you the neglected voices. Not only those from the past who are being systematically stifled but also the younger ones from around the globe. So, we proceed by elimination - no novels from the UK, the US and such for these seem to get enough attention. 

However, how can one address international crime fiction without mentioning leading areas such as the Nordic regions or Japan? So, of course, we shall do just that and I will play the same role as before and tell you of an author in each of those regions that I would dearly like to read.  

Then we skirt Africa, as we dealt with it in the previous post, and, perhaps, a bit of China or, rather, the Dutch take on it. 

India requires a feature on all its own, one of these days - there's a whole lot of crime fiction by Indian authors writing in English, and in Indian languages. 

Singapore I chose as I've read a Shamini Flint or two and the books remain precious to me as they brought to life, for me, the Malaysia I had lived in for a few years. 

As for China! It was hard and I can't say I'm thrilled with what I have - neither author is from Mainland China and I will eat my hat if that China is not prolifically producing, much like India, in the genre as well as in other things. 

So, we embark on Japan. Ah so! Anyone who knows me knows I have a major yen for that nation!

Japan 

I personally enjoy Japanese crime fiction more than Nordic Noir. It's a cultural thing. Thus, I've already gobbled up more than a couple of Japanese crime novels. And am dying to read Hideo Yokoyama.

This novel figures first on this list as I lust for it ever since I saw it in an airport. The sample I read was satisfactorily bleak and cold. You can see what I mean by going in for the preview offered on the Amazon Book Cover featured below.

But, for today, I give you what I now want to read, given today's investigation on the genre in Japan. 

I've selected Tetsuya Honda as I liked the synopsis and because I've seen the film of the story and more of his works on dramas or films. Sadly, I can offer you no trailer. 

The cast of the film was  excellent and I now plan to see more of Honda's filmed stuff until I can get to read this one.

Japan produces many fantastic crime writers and I hope one gets to keep up with that output.

China

Chan Ho-Kei

Chosen on the basis of crimefictionlover.com's write-up, I am a bit dissatisfied. A writer from and based in Mainland China would have been more representative to me. However, it appears to be epic and to rejoice in a unique approach. 

It looks like we can't avoid Qiu Xiaolong.

Singapore

Having read two Flints I look forwards to laying hands on the one below.

Inspector Singh is, perhaps, more like something out of Titin but then so is Poirot, after all. The series give us a chance to see into the region with the insider's eyes and that glimpse is rather rare given the lack of much translated output from there.

There is nothing quite like reading a crime story from another land. Such novels are good travel companions too for they, perhaps, read best in unfamiliar settings where anything might happen.   

Mankell's The Shadow Girls - How To Repel Potential Refugees

I've no idea why I picked up another Mankell. And another non-Wallander at that! Says henningmankell.com: 

In 1989 Henning Mankell returned to Sweden after an extended period in Africa. Upon his return in Sweden, Henning Mankell was astounded by the xenophobia he seemed to have started to grow in Swedish society and decided to write about it. Since racism, according to Mankell, is a crime he needed a police officer. After a few searches through the local phone book Mankell had found his inspector. Kurt Wallander was born.

Mind you, I've yet to get my hands on a Wallander as the series has been worthy of TV and movie versions.

I can't say I didn't enjoy The Shadow Girls as there is a kind of humour in the writing. Scandinavian humour?

In any case the intentional humour is offered after about a chapter or so. Thus, what you first encounter can be a bit distasteful if you're a person of colour and one living in a land very far from the Nordic regions and one where your skin colour is quite the usual thing to have. So I'm a bit baffled about Mankell's desire to address racism. This is my second Mankell and, so far, though he does tend to be sympathetic towards his coloured characters, it's more to the tune of

"Bad things were done to you by peoples of my colour! But what a very peculiar person you are! What terrible evil lurks in you!"

Mankell's depiction of a young African girl, a refugee, makes for inadvertent humour to me. What trouble he must have taken to "research" for that!

It's as though he cannot find criminals or wretched characters who are not persons of colour! And his guilt so torments him that, even when he tries to portray a girl from Africa as a victim with whom we must sympathise, he fails. 

I confess that I skipped and skimmed merrily through the book for it had nothing to hold my attention apart from the refreshing humour of some conversations between Scandinavians.

Such books ought to be distributed for free to all potential refugees and, lest they can't read or can't read the language of publication, perhaps drones should drone out the novel to such peoples. I'm pretty sure it will cure all those Africans and others who seem to be so eager to rush to Europe, etc. for refuge of this misapprehension.

I, for one, will be most loathe to visit Mankell land, post reading his books.

Yet, I'm sure that The Shadow Girls will find appreciative readers there and in neighbouring countries and in my own land as well as in Africa and all those lands from whence pour those nameless beings "The Refugees". Because the news, too, is mostly written by the Mankell's of this world...