Phantom by Jo Nesbø

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I really shouldn’t read Nesbø.

Too dark. Too much gore.

I should quit as I quit Karen Slaughter. And for the same reasons.

Phantom is the ninth novel featuring crime detective Inspector Harry Hole. …

Inspector Harry Hole is returned from his self-imposed exile in Hong Kong when he is told that Oleg, the son of his on-off girlfriend Rakel Fauke, has been arrested for murder …

Since Hole has become a father figure to Oleg, he comes to Norway to determine the truth …

Hole discovers that the drug scene in Oslo no longer revolves around heroin, but around a highly-addictive morphine-based drug called violin. …

Hole becomes convinced that the police have the wrong suspect and that Oleg has been arrested to take the heat off the real violin dealers. …

 

Book trailer videos are typically the very worst on YouTube. This one is far better than usual.

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London Grammar, CamelPhat – Higher

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One of the most interesting videos I’ve seen of late.

HOW MANY cuts are in this edit?

Editors are Waxxwork: Timothy Casten and Vikesh Govind.

I would think AI software will be used soon to make this kind of complicated edit.

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The Mist by Ragnar Jonasson

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Definitely a slow start.

But there’s something weirdly compelling to the suspense.

In THE MIST, readers follow series protagonist Hulda Hermansdottir as she returns to work following a personal leave necessitated by an undefined tragedy.

Hulda will soon face a disturbing – and puzzling – case: a mysterious death at a remote farmhouse in the Icelandic countryside, where two bodies have been found.

Weaving together Hulda’s personal life with an extended flashback at the farm in the lead-up to our victims’ deaths, THE MIST is a complex and heartbreaking mystery, a feather in the cap of an already-exceptional crime fiction series.

If you’re in the market for elegant suspense that relies more on atmosphere and character development than blood and gore, Ragnar Jonasson’s superb Hidden Iceland trilogy might just be your perfect match. …

Crime by the Book

The Hidden Iceland series is told backwards chronologically. In Book One, THE DARKNESS, readers meet police officer Hulda Hermansdottir at the end of her career with the Icelandic police. In Book Two, THE ISLAND, readers rewind in time, and meet Hulda in the middle of her career. Finally, in Book Three, THE MIST, readers meet Hulda early on in her career, when she is just finding her footing and establishing herself in the police force. …

The Island by Ragnar Jonasson

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BOOK #2 IN THE HIDDEN ICELAND trilogy.

Slow burn. But it’s well worth reading all 3 books.

Elliðaey is an isolated island off the Icelandic coast. It has a beautiful, unforgiving terrain – and an easy place to vanish.

At the peak of her career Hulda Hermannsdóttir is sent to discover what happened when a group of friends visited Elliðaey – but one failed to return.

Could this have links to the disappearance of a couple ten years previously out on the Westfjords? Is there a killer stalking these barren outposts? …

ragnar-jonasson

You’ve seen photos of Elliðaey island.

In 1953, the white structure seen in the images was built by the Elliðaey Hunting Association. Anyone who wants to visit is allowed to do so.

Several tour companies operating in the Vestmannaejar peninsula offer day trips to Elliðaey, as well. See the puffins.

THE DARKNESS by Ragnar Jonasson

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I’ve read a few books from Icelandic author Ragnar Jónasson.

Mixed feelings.

The Darkness, I think, is one of his best. An Icelandic TV adaptation is planned.

The lead character is a 64-year-old detective being forced unwillingly into retirement.

Original.

The body of a young Russian woman washes up on an Icelandic shore. After a cursory investigation, the death is declared a suicide and the case is quietly closed.

Over a year later Detective Inspector Hulda Hermannsdóttir of the Reykjavík police is forced into early retirement at 64.

She dreads the loneliness, and the memories of her dark past that threaten to come back to haunt her. But before she leaves she is given two weeks to solve a single cold case of her choice. She knows which one: the Russian woman whose hope for asylum ended on the dark, cold shore of an unfamiliar country.

Soon Hulda discovers that another young woman vanished at the same time, and that no one is telling her the whole story. Even her colleagues in the police seem determined to put the brakes on her investigation. Meanwhile the clock is ticking. …

Crime by the Book review

U2 w. Mick Jagger, Fergie and Will.i.am – Gimme Shelter

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Excellent.

Merry Clayton was the female singer on the Stones original 1969. Fergie is a great stand-in.

I like the Edge updating the guitar, as well.

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The Nine Lives of Pakistan by Declan Walsh

On By Rick McIn books, government, human rights, IslamLeave a comment

I’ve never been to Pakistan. But am keen to go as there is terrific hiking in the Himalaya.

I read this excellent book as research.

Sadly, in terms of progress, India has done far better since Partition .

The invasion in 1979 by the Soviet Union was a huge setback, of course.

Declan Walsh is an Irish author and journalist who is the Chief Africa Correspondent for The New York Times. 

Walsh was expelled from Pakistan in May 2013—an experience he wrote about in his 2020 book The Nine Lives of Pakistan: Dispatches from a Precarious State—but continued covering the country from London.

In fact, Walsh was ejected just prior to the 2013 Pakistani general election when Nawaz Sharif was just barely elected.

The subtitle of the book is Dispatches from a Divided Nation and the author criss-crosses those political, religious, ethnic and generational fault lines, assembling a portrait of the vast country of 220 million people through his travels and the lives of the nine compelling protagonists.

Walsh is a wonderful writer, with a gift for sketching an impression of a place, time and ambience with a few brief lines. …

What also shines through is the relish with which Walsh throws himself into the far corners of Pakistan, into crowds, celebrations and rites, with a drive born of fascination with the land and its people. …

Guardian Review

“Above all, Pakistanis are survivors. Yet a country, like a person, may only have nine lives. Rather than fate to overtake them, some of the people I met in the Insha’Allah nation took matters into their own hands…”

Book Review: The Nine Lives of Pakistan by Declan Walsh

Death in a Strange Country by Donna Leon

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Very good.

Death in a Strange Country (1993) is the second novel in Donna Leon‘s Commissario Brunetti mysteries set in Venice and the sequel to Death at La Fenice (1992).

In fact, a good series to dig into.

Hijack miniseries

On By Rick McIn TV1 Comment

One of the best TV shows of 2023.

If you came to me with a proposed plot about a hijacking, I’d explain that storyline died with 9/11.

Surprisingly, this show is excellent.

Apple TV+’s latest offering is Idris Elba on a Plane.

He plays ordinary guy Sam Nelson – known for his business negotiating skills back on Earth – who finds himself trapped on a hijacked flight and forced into the role of reluctant hero. …

Only Elba could carry this perfect piece of summer insanity off. Even then, it requires every ounce of his physically and metaphorically massive presence to do so. …

Hijack unfolds perfectly. Suspense builds, is released, builds again, a little more tension, a little longer wait until the elastic snaps back each time.  …

Guardian review

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