Marke Krajewski, The Minotaur's Head

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Since 2008, Marek Krajewski's crime novels featuring detective Eberhard Mock in the (then) German city of Breslau have been appearing in English, courtesy first of McLehose Press and more recently Melville International Crime, in the order of their original publication in Polish. Now we have a fourth Eberhard Mock novel, but it looks like they've skipped four of the Polish originals to bring out the 8th novel in English, not the 4th through 7th. It's wonderful to have Mock back again, but I have to wonder about those missing books, especially since the first three were in a very unusual pattern, each novel set earlier than the previous one,not sustainable, of course, unless we eventually ended up with Eberhard Mock, toddler-detective; but I wonder when the pattern was actually broken--since the new book is set after the first three. Mock is now integrated into the German Army, but is sent back into police-work to assist in the pursuit of a serial killer who has struck Breslau after two earlier killings in Lwow.

At first unwillingly, and then fully engaged in the task, Mock is instructed to work with Polish detective named Popielski, a wonderful creation who seems at first totally opposite to Mock, but who actually has some common ground with him. The serial killer seems to be selecting only young virgins to mutilate and murder, and Popielski is in mortal fear that his own daughter will be the next victim.

The situation seems like a normal crime-novel plot, but as anyone who has read any of Marewski's books will know, these are not normal crime novels. Krajewski explores the lower depths of prewar Germany and Poland beetween the wars through not only the crimes but also the character of the thoroughly debased Mock himself. With the more-or-less straitlaced Popielski as a foil, The Minotaur's Head is at first somewhat less decadent than the first three books, but Popielski has some secrets that are gradually reveales, not to mention the gradual revelation of what is actually going on in the murders. By the time we reach the end, we have twisted downn into the murk along with the characters, who achieve a form of justice almost in spite of themselves.

And Popielski seems ripe for appearance, in a somewhat changed role, in future novels (I won't provide any spoilers). The Mock series is very dark and sometimes very funny (also in a dark way). Human appetites of all sorts are explored in the stories, in a style that is both jagged and literary, often with aspects of the author's classical scholarship in evidence (but in a playful way). The arrival of a new Krajewski novel in the landscape of English-language crime fiction is like a lurid spark that illuminates another way of doing and thinking about crime fiction, an illicit pleasure that the author graciously shares with the reader.

Lars Kepler's The Nightmare

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The Nightmare, the sequel to a prominent Swedish crime of recent years, The Hypnotist, by a husband and wife writing team known as Lars Kepler, has the bones of a good book, undermined, especially in the first half, by some obvious flaws. Joona Linna, a Finno-Swedish super-detective, is alternately held in awe by other cops and squeezed out of investigations by the police hierarchy and the security police (in typical crime-fiction fashion). The awe he inspires in other cops is naively presented, and the obstructions placed in his way are a bit cliched. But these problems fade away in the second half, particularly with the development of a new character, Saga Bauer (whose name unfortunately coincides with the wonderful female character in the Danish-Swedish TV series, The Bridge, as well as a recurring description of her as rather elfin--fortunately she's simply a bit under-confident rather than autistic-ish, like the TV Saga).
Joona Linna (who's almost always described by his full name) is not, in his own mind, quite the superman that other people think he is. He's even a bit insecure, at times, despite the intuition that is his strongest investigative tool. The authors give him a flaw (a recurring severe migraine that he under-treats because the medicine fogs his mind), and he has a murky and evidently tragic past that only slowly comes to light for the reader. Joona's amazing investigative abilities are something like those of Jo Nesbø's detective Harry Hole, but Joona is a bit less self-destructive; both characters can be a bit irritating in their super-abilities, but neither is ultimately totally unbelievable, and Joona is if anything a bit less superhuman than Harry. There is, however, one action by Joona in the climax that is hardly believable (but then some of Harry's exploits beggar belief, too).
A number of the other characters, on the other hand, are cliches; the security police and SWAT team are drawn as bloodthirsty cardboard cutouts of their roles, especially early in the book. Some of the victims and a number of characters who are mostly bystanders do have individual personalities, and the settings are vividly drawn.
The writing is direct and effective, though there are stylistic quirks that are a bit distracting, particularly in the time-framing of overlapping episodes, such as a chapter early on that repeats almost exactly the chapter that went before, with a slightly different focus and time. There is also a chase sequence that goes on for a very, very long time. And as the plot gets more and more complicated, there begin to be some rather gothic and graphically cruel elements to the story, not everyone's taste I expect.



The plotting is the real strength of the book, along with the scene-setting. There are, however, some flashbacks that are intended to illuminate some of the character's biography and motivation, but some of these simply impede the story and pad out the page-count and may induce a bit of skimming on the reader's part.

Irish noir: Declan Burke's Slaughter's Hound

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Lately I've been reading books by authors who write novels in pairs or trilogies rather than open-ended series, which seems a relatively recent phenomenon in the crime fiction world. In several cases, the switch from one series or trilogy to another is also a shift in style or genre. For just one example, Carlo Lucarelli's DeLuca series (historical police procedurals) is quite different from his Grazia Negro books (serial killer stories), and different still from his Coliandro stories (which are comic, parodies of the police procedural). All of these series seem to be closed, without further installments (though there is one Grazia Negro book that hasn't been translated, Lupo Mannaro or Werewolf).

Declan Burke has just published Slaughter's Hound, the sequel (and seemingly final installment) to his first book, Eightball Boogie. These two books, featuring not-exactly detective Harry Rigby, are hard-boiled noir, in the tradition of Chandler and Ross MacDonald, but with a contemporary relentlessness and literary references that might remind a reader of a more recent noir writer, Ken Bruen. Burke's other pair of novels, The Big O and Crime Always Pays, are lighter, more in a comic or farcical but still noir tone, closer to Elmore Leonard than Jim Thompson. Neither series resembles Burke's brilliant stand-alone metafiction, Absolute Zero Cool.

Burke's literary references are not intrusive or artificial, but integral to his first-person narrator's character and to the story, and range from Joyce, Beckett, and Yeats to Bukowsky and William Gaddis (who is particularly relevant to one aspect of the overall story, dealing with forgery). One reference is closely related to the dark violence of the story, an image and an act that suggest two grotesque passages in Bataille's Story of the Eye and Kosinski's Painted Bird, though neither writer is mentioned. Neither the literary asides nor the overarching paen to an obscure Irish rock band, Rollerskate Skinny (who I confess I thought Burke had made up until I did a web search) slow down the inexorable downward spiral of Harry's life.

Harry is recently released from incarceration in a mental facility, to which he was confined after killing his brother at the end of Eightball Boogie. A roommate there is the son of a wealthy family right out of Ross MacDonald or even Chinatown, and part of the pleasure of the novel is Rigby's narrative exploration of the intricacies of this spectacularly dysfunctional family. The current Irish financial collapse is also a factor, as it plays out on the bars, alleys, and docks of Sligo, on Ireland's northwest.

Rigby's is an entertaining voice to spend time with, which relieves some of the pain in his story, though in the final section, the pain takes precedence, though there is an almost joyful resignation that echoes the passages repeatedly drawn from Rollerskate Skinny's repertoire. It's a dark journey, but rewarding for an intrepid reader.

Arnaldur's new Iclandic noir

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I had some doubts about Arnaldur Indridason's Black Skies when I ordered it, because it is centered on Sigurdur Óli, the least likable or interesting of the cops in the circle around Erlendur, his usual central character. Erlendur has left on a mysterious trip to the area in which he grew up (and where he lost his brother as a child), and the previous book in the series, Outrage (which focuses on Elinborg, the other running character) and Black Skies occur at the same time, with occasional overlaps as the two detectives consult with one another (and worry about Erlendur's extended absence.

I had (as it turned out, well placed) confidence in Arnaldur as a writer, though, and indeed Black Skies is very interesting. As the book explores Sigurdur Óli's life and character he first grows even less likable (without making the story less interesting). He can be a bit impulsive, and in his private life, self-destructive, traits that are given some context. He's also an unrepentant political conservative, going back to his school years (when he edited a conservative literary journal). He's also a bit of a fop, and his taste in clothes in addition to his character overlap just a bit with one of the great characters if Scandinavian crime fiction, Gunvald Larsson (of the Sjöwall/Wahlöö books). Sigurdur Óli is, though, less vocal and violent.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of Black Skies is the use of overlapping plots. It's a common strategy to start off with a crime, then shift to another crime that eventually gives way to or becomes connected to that initial scene. Arnaldur plays with that theme here, setting up a gruesome scene that only very gradually comes into focus, while Sigurdur Óli concentrates on other things: primarily a mess he gets into when doing a favor for a friend. When he goes to a couple's apartment (after the friend begs him to scare them into giving up a blackmail attempt) he finds the woman in the couple almost dead, and runs into the assailant. To say more would be spoiling things. The blackmail plot, though, leads in very interesting directions before coming to a surprising conclusion.

One of the interesting directions is an investigation of the Icelandic banking practices that will (not long after the timeframe of the novel) lead to the crash of the country's economy (the book is set just before, but was written just after, the crisis). The ominous shadows of the crash loom over the book.

But the story is not an economic tract: it's aim is both broader, in terms of the society, and narrower, in terms of its vivid portrait of the detective and the numerous characters involved in the story's various threads. Though I'm particularly attracted to Erlendur throughout the series, and though the book focusing on Elinborg was very good, I think perhaps Black Skies is one of Arnaldur's best books (high praise indeed).

Polish noir: Zygmunt Miloszewski's second

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A Grain of Truth, Zygmunt Miloszewski's second crime novel featuring Polish prosecutor Teodore Szacki (published by Bitter Lemon and translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones), is, like the first book in the series (Entanglement) a satisfying combination of police procedural and mystery novel, with considerable humor and social commentary added in. Szacki has left Warsaw for the small city of Sandomierz, seduced by its beauty but now regretting his separation from Warsaw's urbane pleasures as well as his ex-wife and estranged daughter.

But he finally gets a good murder to sink his teeth into: a well-known woman, wife of a town councillor and herself a promoter of educational theater, is found with her throat slashed just outside a former synagogue (now a state archive). Near the body is found a kind of knife used by kosher butchers, raising the long and continuing history of Polish anti-semitism as well as the country's new liberalism (what if the murderer is in fact Jewish?).

The development of the story and the investigation of the crime develop slowly at first, ultimately shifting into underground tunnels, attack dogs, and multiple murders that veer toward the Gothic and the conspiratorial excesses of Dan Brown (who is mentioned) but ultimately Miloszewski succeeds in accessing the energies of those genres within a contemporary realism that is convincing and satisfying. Plus there's ultimately a twist that will satisfy the fans of the puzzle mystery.

There are profuse references to popular culture, mostly from outside Poland, though there are many references to a Polish TV mystery series filmed in Sandomierz, Father Mateusz, which seems to be a remake of the long-running Italian series, Don Matteo (complete with bicycle and gentle non-threatening plotting. Mateusz provides a contrast for the grittier reality of Szacki's life.

While Miloszewski explores anti-semitism and its history in depth, he leaves unexamined a flaw in his own character that keeps him human but also may irritate some readers. His language, especially in his interior monologues, can be unpleasantly sexist. But he genuinely regrets the actions on his part that destroyed his marriage, and his almost painfully comic blunders with his current love life provide evidence that the author is an intentional character flaw rather than unconscious prejudice (though the flaw may temper a reader's sympathy for Szacki's difficulties with the women in his life).

Both of Miloszewski's novels are complex, involving, and interesting, but A Grain of Truth is more satisfying as a crime story than Entanglement, and the use of history, conspiracy, and the extended range of crime fiction are livelier. Entanglement relies more on the locked-room mystery and the gathering of suspects together in a room, both being longstanding elements of the genre, but tending toward static rather than dynamic plotting. A Grain of Truth shifts toward the dynamic side of crime writing, though still with considerable care in development and careful attention to the voices of all the characters, including the difficult but engaging prosecutor himself.

Marke Krajewski, The Minotaur's Head

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Since 2008, Marek Krajewski's crime novels featuring detective Eberhard Mock in the (then) German city of Breslau have been appearing in English, courtesy first of McLehose Press and more recently Melville International Crime, in the order of their original publication in Polish. Now we have a fourth Eberhard Mock novel, but it looks like they've skipped four of the Polish originals to bring out the 8th novel in English, not the 4th through 7th. It's wonderful to have Mock back again, but I have to wonder about those missing books, especially since the first three were in a very unusual pattern, each novel set earlier than the previous one,not sustainable, of course, unless we eventually ended up with Eberhard Mock, toddler-detective; but I wonder when the pattern was actually broken--since the new book is set after the first three. Mock is now integrated into the German Army, but is sent back into police-work to assist in the pursuit of a serial killer who has struck Breslau after two earlier killings in Lwow.

At first unwillingly, and then fully engaged in the task, Mock is instructed to work with Polish detective named Popielski, a wonderful creation who seems at first totally opposite to Mock, but who actually has some common ground with him. The serial killer seems to be selecting only young virgins to mutilate and murder, and Popielski is in mortal fear that his own daughter will be the next victim.

The situation seems like a normal crime-novel plot, but as anyone who has read any of Marewski's books will know, these are not normal crime novels. Krajewski explores the lower depths of prewar Germany and Poland beetween the wars through not only the crimes but also the character of the thoroughly debased Mock himself. With the more-or-less straitlaced Popielski as a foil, The Minotaur's Head is at first somewhat less decadent than the first three books, but Popielski has some secrets that are gradually reveales, not to mention the gradual revelation of what is actually going on in the murders. By the time we reach the end, we have twisted downn into the murk along with the characters, who achieve a form of justice almost in spite of themselves.

And Popielski seems ripe for appearance, in a somewhat changed role, in future novels (I won't provide any spoilers). The Mock series is very dark and sometimes very funny (also in a dark way). Human appetites of all sorts are explored in the stories, in a style that is both jagged and literary, often with aspects of the author's classical scholarship in evidence (but in a playful way). The arrival of a new Krajewski novel in the landscape of English-language crime fiction is like a lurid spark that illuminates another way of doing and thinking about crime fiction, an illicit pleasure that the author graciously shares with the reader.

Lars Kepler's The Nightmare

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The Nightmare, the sequel to a prominent Swedish crime of recent years, The Hypnotist, by a husband and wife writing team known as Lars Kepler, has the bones of a good book, undermined, especially in the first half, by some obvious flaws. Joona Linna, a Finno-Swedish super-detective, is alternately held in awe by other cops and squeezed out of investigations by the police hierarchy and the security police (in typical crime-fiction fashion). The awe he inspires in other cops is naively presented, and the obstructions placed in his way are a bit cliched. But these problems fade away in the second half, particularly with the development of a new character, Saga Bauer (whose name unfortunately coincides with the wonderful female character in the Danish-Swedish TV series, The Bridge, as well as a recurring description of her as rather elfin--fortunately she's simply a bit under-confident rather than autistic-ish, like the TV Saga).
Joona Linna (who's almost always described by his full name) is not, in his own mind, quite the superman that other people think he is. He's even a bit insecure, at times, despite the intuition that is his strongest investigative tool. The authors give him a flaw (a recurring severe migraine that he under-treats because the medicine fogs his mind), and he has a murky and evidently tragic past that only slowly comes to light for the reader. Joona's amazing investigative abilities are something like those of Jo Nesbø's detective Harry Hole, but Joona is a bit less self-destructive; both characters can be a bit irritating in their super-abilities, but neither is ultimately totally unbelievable, and Joona is if anything a bit less superhuman than Harry. There is, however, one action by Joona in the climax that is hardly believable (but then some of Harry's exploits beggar belief, too).
A number of the other characters, on the other hand, are cliches; the security police and SWAT team are drawn as bloodthirsty cardboard cutouts of their roles, especially early in the book. Some of the victims and a number of characters who are mostly bystanders do have individual personalities, and the settings are vividly drawn.
The writing is direct and effective, though there are stylistic quirks that are a bit distracting, particularly in the time-framing of overlapping episodes, such as a chapter early on that repeats almost exactly the chapter that went before, with a slightly different focus and time. There is also a chase sequence that goes on for a very, very long time. And as the plot gets more and more complicated, there begin to be some rather gothic and graphically cruel elements to the story, not everyone's taste I expect.



The plotting is the real strength of the book, along with the scene-setting. There are, however, some flashbacks that are intended to illuminate some of the character's biography and motivation, but some of these simply impede the story and pad out the page-count and may induce a bit of skimming on the reader's part.