Tag: mystery

#BlogTour #BookReview Little Drummer by Kjell Ola Dahl @RandomTTours

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Little Drummer Graphic 1Welcome to today’s stop on the blog tour for Little Drummer by Kjell Ola Dahl, translated by Don Bartlett. My thanks to Anne at Random Things Tours for inviting me to take part in the tour and to Orenda for my digital review copy.

Do check out the post by my tour buddy for today, Monika at Monika Reads.

About the Book

When a woman is found dead in her car in a Norwegian parking garage, everyone suspects an overdose… until a forensics report indicates that she was murdered. Oslo Detectives Frølich and Gunnarstranda discover that the victim’s Kenyan scientist boyfriend has disappeared, and their investigations soon lead them into the shady world of international pharmaceutical deals.

While Gunnarstranda closes in on the killers in Norway, Frølich and Lise, his new journalist ally, travel to Africa, where they make a series of shocking discoveries about exploitation and corruption in the distribution of foreign aid and essential HIV medications.

When tragedy unexpectedly strikes, all three investigators face incalculable danger, spanning two continents. And not everyone will make it out alive…

Format: Paperback (276 pages)    Publisher: Orenda
Publication date: 26th May 2022 Genre: Crime

Find Little Drummer on Goodreads

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My Review

My first introduction to Oslo detectives Gunnarstranda and Frølich was in Faithless which I read back in 2017. (I also read the author’s historical crime novel, The Assistant, last year.) Although Little Drummer is the fourth book of the author’s Gunnarstranda and Frølich series to be published in English, it was first published in 2003 – hence the reference to passengers on an airplane watching films on overhead screens! It therefore pre-dates events in Faithless and the other two books in the series published by Orenda – Sister and The Ice Swimmer. (Do try to keep up.)  Although you would miss out on learning more about the backstories of Gunnarstranda and Frølich by not having read previous books (personally I remain unsure about the nature of Gunnarstranda’s relationship with Tove), I certainly think Little Drummer can be enjoyed as a standalone crime novel.

Initially an investigation into an apparent suicide that turns out to be murder, and a separate missing persons enquiry, it’s not long before Little Drummer is transformed from police procedural to international thriller as the action moves from Oslo to Kenya. Whilst pursuing separate lines of inquiry Gunnarstranda and Frølich gradually unearth a web of financial corruption involving insider dealing, the use of shell companies and speculation on risky ventures. When individuals are playing for such high stakes, those who might threaten their enterprise are expendable.

Gunnarstranda and Frølich slowly gather together the pieces of what becomes a frustratingly complex jigsaw. As Gunnarstranda remarks, ‘Following clues after a murder is like gathering the fragments of a dream. It’s all about finding pieces of some surrealistic act and trying to make them fit into a comprehensible picture’. It’s a puzzle which sees them forced to co-operate with others whose motives are not always clear. Frølich in particular finds himself in unfamiliar territory – and unexpected company – when he flies to Kenya to follow leads about the missing scientist.

What I really enjoy about the books is the partnership between Gunnarstranda and Frølich, both on a personal and professional level. Frølich, whilst pondering on his history of failed relationships, always keeps an eye out for his boss, trying to persuade Gunnarstranda to modify his unhealthy habits (even hiding his tobacco at one point). Little Drummer finds Gunnarstranda in particularly melancholy mood, pondering on his own mortality as his lifestyle shows signs of taking its toll. As he admits, he’s ‘a neurotic, work-obsessed, socially dysfunctional man with poor self-knowledge’, not to mention a chain smoker and a whisky drinker.

Although Gunnarstranda and Frølich’s investigation goes to some dark places, exposing some of the inequalities that exist in the world, there are also moments of humour. For example, when Frølich observes a guest at his hotel who is so drunk he passes out with his face in a plate of spaghetti or, my absolute favourite, the incessant, inane chatter of Frølich’s mother and her friend Edna when he gives them a lift in his car.

With its combination of intricate plot and exciting moments of drama, Little Drummer is a skilfully-crafted crime thriller that will keep you turning the pages.

In three words: Tense, dark, compelling

Try something similar: The Dark Flood by Deon Meyer

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DahlKjellOlaAbout the Author

One of the fathers of the Nordic Noir genre, Kjell Ola Dahl was born in 1958 in Gjøvik. He made his debut in 1993, and has since published thirteen novels, the most prominent of which is a series of police procedurals cum psychological thrillers featuring investigators Gunnarstranda and Frølich. In 2000 he won the Riverton Prize for The Last Fix and he won both the prestigious Brage and Riverton Prizes for The Courier in 2015. His work has been published in 14 countries, and he lives in Oslo.

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#BookReview The Birdcage by Eve Chase

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The BirdcageAbout the Book

Kat, Flossie and Lauren are half-sisters who share a famous artist father – and a terrible secret.

Each has found their way of burying it. Over the years they’ve grown apart, and into wildly different lives. But an invitation to Rock Point, the Cornish cliff house where they once sat for their father’s most celebrated painting, Girls with Birdcage, reunites them.

Rock Point is a beautiful, windswept place, thick with secrets, electrically charged with the one subject the family daren’t discuss. And there is someone in the shadows watching the house, their every move. Someone who remembers the girls in the painting. What they did.

The sisters must unlock the truth to set themselves free – and find each other again.

Format: Hardback (400 pages)     Publisher: Michael Joseph
Publication date: 28th April 2022 Genre: Contemporary Fiction, Mystery

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My Review

I’ve been a fan of Eve Chase’s books since I read Black Rabbit Hall in 2016 and I very much enjoyed the books that followed it – The Wildling Sisters (originally published as The Vanishing of Audrey Wilde) and The Glass House.

Kat, Flora and Lauren have different mothers but share the same father: famous artist, Charles Finch. Summoned to Rock Point by their father, an unexpected announcement  – and the arrival of an individual from the past – threatens to widen the rift that already exists between the sisters as well as bring back  unwelcome memories of the dramatic event that occurred two decades earlier. It’s an event that hasn’t been spoken about since but which has lurked beneath the surface as unfinished business between the sisters. ‘It’s the secret they forged here twenty years ago that’s pushed them apart as it’s run through each day of their lives since. In each other they see too much of the worst of themselves.’

In Charles, the author gives us a portrait of a mercurial, rather self-obsessed artist who pours his energy into making art rather than sustaining relationships. ‘He has an ability to detach from his subjects; to see human beings as arrangement of form and flesh in space, volume and light; a technical challenge to be solved.’ His three marriages are not the only evidence of his inability to be faithful but his dedication to art has come at a cost.

In a striking metaphor, the sisters are ‘mismatching dolls, from different sets’. Kat is a high-flying successful entrepreneur (on the surface at least) and Flora is a wife and mother trying hard to live up to the expectations of her husband, Scott. Close to each other in age, Kat and Flora had a close bond when younger. Lauren, on the other hand, has always felt like the outsider right from the first moment she was introduced to her two half-sisters. ‘In the archipelago of the sisters, she’s still an island on her own.’ One other notable character is Bertha the parrot whose often ill-timed mimicry of snippets of overheard conversations proves key to what unfolds. ‘We all knew Bertha didn’t invent things, just repeated them.’

As with all Eve Chase’s books there’s a real sense of place – in this case the wild, expansive coastline of Cornwall. Rock Point’s remote location surrounded by moorland dotted with abandoned cottages and standing stones, contributes to the sense of unease.  As Lauren observes, ‘Everything was bigger. Skies. Rooms. Feelings. There was more to go wrong’.

The present day story (2019) alternates between the points of view of the three sisters. Interwoven with this is Lauren’s first person narrative of events in 1999. The author skilfully ramps up the tension through fleeting references and tantalising snippets of detail about events on an August day in 1999.  It soon becomes apparent that no-one has the full picture of what took place on the fateful day. It’s only when all the pieces are put together that the sisters – and the reader – find out what actually happened. Like me, you may have an inkling about the direction of some of the story but I’m pretty sure you’ll discover a few surprises.

The Birdcage’s combination of long-buried secrets and exploration of complex family relationships adds up to an intriguing, well-crafted and satisfying mystery.

In three words: Tense, atmospheric, suspenseful

Try something similar: The Beloved Girls by Harriet Evans

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EveChaseAbout the Author

Eve Chase writes rich, page-turning mysteries set in beautiful places, thick with secrets. The Glass House was a Sunday Times bestseller, Richard and Judy Book Club pick and word-of-mouth lockdown hit. Longlisted for the HWA Gold Crown award 2018, The Vanishing of Audrey Wilde went on to become an Amazon bestseller. In 2019, Black Rabbit Hall won the Saint-Maur en Poche prize in Paris for Best Foreign Fiction and also went on to be an Amazon bestseller. Before writing novels, Eve worked as a journalist in magazines and newspapers. Married with three children, she lives in Oxford, alongside a very hairy golden retriever called Harry. (Photo: Goodreads/Bio: Publisher author page)

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