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?

Smoke Screen - Jorn Lier Horst & Thomas Enger

Another Horst/Enger collaboration in the Blix/Ramm series.   I can't decide if it comes before or after Unhinged (see below) and that's a good sign, showing you can start anywhere in the run.   It's another cracking idea: a bomb goes off in the centre of Oslo on New Year's Eve; Blix is on duty, Emma Ramm is there because she has a funny feeling.   Blix rescues one victim from the river.   She's carrying ID belonging to Ruth-Kristine Smeplass, whose daughter Patricia was snatched ten years ago and never found.   Patricia's father Christer Storm Isaksen killed a man who said he was involved; Blix was there when he did it.   Now Christer, in gaol but coming to the end of his sentence, has received a photograph which he believes shows Patricia now aged eleven.

Things get even more complicated.   Emma has suffered a personal loss in the bombing.  Only work can keep her occupied.   Blix believes Ruth-Kristine was the target of the bomber.   He digs deeper into the kidnapping.   It's a great yarn, effectively told.   The collaboration works really well.   It all builds nicely towards---

And then, I'm afraid to say, the climax is something of a disappointment.   Plot-wise, it is the only possible ending, but it is poorly done and a pointless epilogue doesn't help.   Even so, Smoke Screen was an enthralling read and not only will I read the next Horst/Enger when I come across it, I saw on social media yesterday that Enger has collaborated with someone else, a lead I shall definitely be pursuing.

Unhinged - Jorn Lier Horst and Thomas Enger

 What is it with senior Norwegian police officers and their pesky daughters who keep getting kidnapped by the deranged?   I can explain that.   It's not Norwegians per se; it's Jorn Lier Horst's personal hang-up which he has brought over to this collaboration with Thomas Enger, one of whose books I read so long ago that I can't remember if he has any similar baggage.

That said, the device is taken considerably further in Unhinged.   Iselin Blix is a trainee detective, so her involvement is less awkward.   She lodges with her father's protegee Sofia Kovic.   Kovic is looking into a few cold cases.   Someone breaks into the flat and executes her.   He also attacks Iselin but she manages to fight him off.   Alexander Blix is giving a speech to a class of students, which means he misses a number of telephone calls about the attack.   He is late to the scene.   He takes charge of the investigation.

Emma Ramm is a news blogger who has obviously worked with Blix in previous novels.   She is friends with both Kovic and Iselin.   There is no suggestion of a romantic interest with Blix.   She is much younger than him.   Indeed he rescued her from something horrible when she was five.   In so doing, he killed one of her abusers. 

So Blix asks Emma to accompany Iselin to the regular police trauma counsellor.   The session finishes early and Emma is not in the waiting room when Iselin leaves.   Iselin wanders out onto the street and is snatched in broad daylight, bundled into a stolen car and driven away.   Emma and Blix both miss the speeding vehicle by seconds.

The outcome of all this is only one half of the book.  The first half is framed by Blix's interrogation by Bjarne Brogeland of Kripos, the National Criminal Investigation Service.   This is a proper grilling - Bliz is the one under investigation, having apparently shot and killed someone else.  The device is really well used and adds another level of intrigue and darkness to events.

The second half is the hunt for those behind the murders and abduction.   it is well enough handled and Emma plays a more significant role, but I have to say it is not as thrilling as the first half.   Overall, though, I really enjoyed Unhinged.   A proper police thriller that is properly thrilling.    I shall certainly look out for more.   Apparently Death Deserved was the first Blix/Ramm novel, Smoke Screen second.

PS: Scarred was the Thomas Enger novel I reviewed on this blog back in February 2015.   I didn't much like it but I did admire Enger's writing style.

Scarred - Thomas Enger

Scarred is the third Henning Juul story and Enger has unfortunately slipped into the trap facing all series writers.  It's not a Henning Juul mystery at all: Henning does virtually none of the crime solving and can't get directly involved in the scandal element because the subject of the scandal is his own sister.  More daring writers would have their hero break the rules, but Enger doesn't.  When it comes to the culmination of the main crime story Juul is ordered from the scene by his friend Inspector Bjarne Brogeland and meekly goes.  Worse, even we are denied the moment when the door is broken down and the armed response unit flood in.

Theoretically, I suppose we are supposed to be kept interested in Juul by his spasmodic quest to find out who torched his flat back in the first novel.  Perhaps readers who have followed the series from the beginning are interested.  Personally, there isn't enough here to get me interested.  Juul isn't developed enough to evoke empathy.

Check out the red 'sticker' on the cover.  It's a telling and fatal admission.  Not for fans of The Killing  or aficionados of Jo Nesbo, but for followers of Borgen, a series about a female politician who keeps risking her career over her frailties as a woman.  It's a fair enough parallel.  The murders start well but get dull very quickly, and it's actually a novel about Trine Juul-Osmundsen, not her brother.

On a positive note, I really enjoyed the use of the present tense and short chapters.  If you are determined to divide your narrative between three protagonists, short, punchy chapters is the way to go.