Crime Spree

posted by Jennie

I just finished three crime novels in a row. The first was Siren of the Waters by Michael Genelin.

Jana Matinova entered the Czechoslovak police force as a young woman, married an actor, and became a mother. The regime destroyed her husband, their love for one another, and her daughter's respect for her. But she has never stopped being a seeker of justice. Now, as a commander in the Slovak police force, she liaises with colleagues across Europe as they track the mastermind of an international criminal operation involved in, among other crimes, human trafficking. Her investigation takes her from Ukraine to Strasbourg, from Vienna to Nice, in a hunt for a ruthless killer and the beautiful young Russian woman he is determined either to capture or destroy.

International criminal operations and human trafficking, these are important issues in International Crime Fiction.

The next was Arctic Chill by Arnaldur Indridason which takes place in Reykjavik, Iceland. This was the best story, most chilling in its representation of the difficult social issues created around immigration. This subject also comes up in almost all of the European Crime Fiction and usually makes a profound impression. The point of these stories is not really the crime, rather it is the author's effort to realistically describe our changing world. Crime is the stage and we are the people.

The last book was The Demon from Dakar by Kjell Eriksson, taking place in Mexico and Sweden. It is the third of Eriksson's mysteries featuring Inspector Ann Lindell of Sweden's Uppsala police force. And this one was the slowest and so the hardest to read. Not a thriller. Not until the very, very end. It wouldn't make any sense unless you have read all the rest, but it's the best ending I have seen in a long time.

I recommend all three of these stories and I'll let you know as soon as I finished the next three...