Quote:
Originally Posted by CRussel
Another fun read, I can only hope the new one is available soon. (Amazon.ca is saying January 16. Too far, too far!)
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We did get
The King of Shanghai about a month early, since Hamilton had finished it sooner than he expected and the publisher moved it up in their schedule, so maybe we'll get lucky again (and Kobo will have a good coupon promo when it's released).
And speaking of stuff I bought with Kobo coupons, finished
Michael Ridpath's
Where the Shadows Lie, 1st in his Fire & Ice series starring Magnus Jonson aka Ragnarsson, Intrepid Double Expat Icelandic-American Boston To Reyjavík Cop.
The premise of this is that over in Iceland, a murder has occurred which is sufficiently unusual (not being the usual obvious case of drunken stabbing or crime of passion or the like) that the Icelandic cops are asking for help. Meanwhile in Boston, Magnus has gotten involved in whistleblowing against a dirty cop and after experiencing at least one hit attempt, needs to be gotten out of the country to stay safe until he can testify. Being of first generation Icelandic immigrant descent, he still remembers enough about the language and culture to hopefully be the perfect fit over in Reykjavík and they can kill two birds with one stone by sending him there.
Anyway, this was a fairly enjoyable read which contrasted Icelandic and American culture, both crime-solving and otherwise. There was an interesting extrapolation of the possible influence of the Icelandic sagas and folklore on J. R. R. Tolkien's
The Lord of the Rings, and some entertaining tidbits about the books and the surrounding fandom (the author gets the typical pedantic nerdfight vibe down), with trying to figure out clues from a potential suspect by asking fans to help translate some scraps of the elvish languages, and a lot of other nifty tidbits.
The case itself was a little convoluted and meandering, but unfolded well enough and made sense, at least on the Icelandic side, even if there was a bit of a feel of aiming for double red herring contrivance in places in order to tie a whole bunch of murders together (but then, Iceland is a pretty small place where probably everyone really does know—and kill!—everyone else). There was also some stuff from the Boston side as a lingering effect of why Magnus found himself sent away, but that tended to feel like a distracting intrusion onto the more interesting bits. But I suppose it did serve to illustrate the differences in his life and surrounding supporting cast then and now, and a reminder of what he was technically giving up and how it was affecting the people he'd left behind.
Medium recommend (medium-high if you're a Tolkien fan and would enjoy seeing significant references to his work incorporated into a murder mystery). A promising outing for a 1st-in-series where the characters and setting are still being established; somewhat flawed in places, but still a solid story. The author also includes a note in the back about the historicity of some of the stuff he mentions about Iceland and Tolkien, and he has a webpage set up with
more info about the research that he did and a
photo gallery of the locations that he used, which is a very nice touch (I'm rather tickled that the Icelandic translations of these books get first place on the international editions page). Despite a kind of bumpy start and a few spots where it seemed to drag, I ended up rather liking this one and I'm glad I picked up further installments in the series when they were on deep-discount sale.
Incidentally, for UK MR members who happen to use iTunes, this was
a freebie last year and worth having a look at if you picked it up then and think you might enjoy a bi-cultural international police mystery with a detective plot which unfolds around some history/culture and fantasy literature references.