Block 46 - Johana Gustawsson

 Johana Gustawsson is the Queen of French noir.   She was born in Marseilles, lived in London and now lives in Sweden.   This, the first in her series featuring Canadian profiler Emily Roy and London-based true crime writer Alexis Castells, who is Spanish, takes place in Sweden, London, and Germany, specifically in Buchenwald concentration camp in the closing years of World War II; everything else takes place in 2014, which I assume is when the book was written.

Alexis is drawn in when her friend, the jewellry designer Linnea Blix, fails to turn up for her launch party in London.   Her mutilated body is found in Sweden, an out-of-the-way town called Falkenberg.   Emily Roy is the profiler sent to assist the Swedish police.

Then a boy turns up murdered in London, with the same signature wounds.   Is it a copycat, a serial killer with broad tastes, or (as Emily suggests) a pair of killers operating together, one of them dominating the other?

Interweaved with the investigation narrative is the story of young Erich Hebner, a German student sent to Buchenwald as a political prisoner.   He has a measure of medical training and is recruited by the camp doctor, Horst Fleisher, with the gruesome experiments he carries out in Block 46.   After the war, Hebner drifts around Europe, ending up living in the same cul de sac in Falkenberg where Linnea Blix had her hideaway.   That's got to be more than a coincidence right?   I confess I didn't see the final twist coming.

The action moves along at a punchy pace.   The writing is neat, controlled where it needs to be, more expansive where it doesn't.   There's a lot of dialogue which all rings true.   The characterisation is what it needs to be with a series - that is to say, a lot remains to be discovered about Roy and Castells.   On the other hand we get plenty of insight into Erich and other characters involved in the main plot.

I enjoyed Block 46.   I already have the other two Roy/Castells novels on my Kindle and will read them soon.   I was interested in Johana Gustawsson because Thomas Enger collaborates on a series with her as well as Jorn Lier Horst on the Blix/Ramm series.   Wait a minute ...  Linnea Blix and Alexander Blix?   That's got to be more than a coincidence.   Right?

In Matto's Realm - Friedrich Glauser

 

A real discovery!  Friedrich Glauser (1896-1938) is called the Swiss Simenon but is far more interesting.  Here, he sets his story in a Psychiatric Clinic - the director has gone missing as has one of his patients, a self-confessed child killer.  For most writers this would mean a great deal of painful research.  Not for Glauser, a schizophrenic who had spent long periods of time in such clinics.  On top of that he was addicted to morphine and opium, had done time for forging prescriptions, and had served in the Foreign Legion.  He wasn't even Swiss - he was born in Vienna.

So what does a madman make of the madhouse?  He of course has great sympathy for the patients, but also the staff.  The most compelling character in the novel is Dr Ernst Laduner, the deputy director, who has a smile that looks like it's been pasted on, eccentric verbal tics and a taste for sometimes brutal experimentation.  And then there's Glauser's series detective, Sergeant Jakob Studer, formerly an inspector but busted back to sergeant, aged fifty, by his bete noir Colonel Caplaun, whose alcoholic son just happens to be a patient of Dr Laduner.

The story grips like a vice.  We become fully conversant with this alien world and its inhabitants.  The year is 1936.  In Germany radical events are underway but all we hear of them is an unidentified voice ranting on the radio.  This is clearly Hitler, who would have no toleration whatsoever for someone like Glauser.  And this is Glauser's genius - we have to work these things out for ourselves, though we are left in no doubt about Studer's antipathetic views on fascism.  Indeed, Studer does many things we might not expect of a heavily-built German-speaking cop coming up to retirement.

It's a thrilling, fascinating and in many ways beautiful book.  At this halfway stage of the year, it's my favourite read of 2021.

Evil Things - Katja Ivar

Evil Things is Nordic Noir set in Finland in 1952. The date is important because Finland is still defining its identity after the war and borders are somewhat fluid. Hella Mauzer, Finland's first female homicide inspector, has been relegated to the rural north, for reasons not entirely apparent. A report comes in from Lapland, which even in the one-horse town where she is based is considered the boondocks. A child has been found alone in one of the houses there. His grandfather went out almost a week earlier and hasn't been heard from since.

Hella decides to investigate. There is no hotel so far out in the sticks, so she lodges with the local Orthodox priest and his pregnant wife. They have also taken in the child, Kalle.

Hella questions the locals, who say nothing. The old man was a loner, his late daughter a tart who lumbered him with her bastard son. Kalle complains about 'evil things' out in the woods. Hella searches and finds a body, not the missing grandfather but a middleaged woman, who turns out to have been a doctor in the Russian army.

The plot unravels brilliantly. The writing (and translation) is tight and characterful. The characters are three-dimensional and distinct. The historical setting is credible throughout. And the final twist, which I never saw coming, is a real jaw-dropper. The second Hella Mauzer story, Deep as Death, is out next month. I can't wait.