Three Detective Books
Each the first in a series
For Christmas, my wife gave me three books that were each the premier of a detective that gave birth to a series. After reading all three, I thought I’d switch from TV to books for this review.
Two of the books featured detectives investigating murders that appeared to implicate high status members of the elite. This is an interesting sub-genre that I first came across in the excellent series by James Church of the North Korean Inspector O. In these books, the detective finds himself in the position of looking to solve a murder that his superiors may really not want investigated. They risk their careers, and perhaps their lives. If well written, these can become journeys through the looking glass.
Death of a Red Heroine by Qiu Xiaolong and The Bridge of Sighs by Olen Steinhauer are well written. Both appeared early this century. Xiaolong’s Inspector Chen Cao series went on with another 13 novels including one released last year. Steinhauer set five books in the mythical eastern European county of Ruthenia before moving on in 2007.
Chief Inspector Chen Cao begins his new job as head of the special case squad in the Homicide Division of the Shanghai Police Bureau on a hot, sweltering day in summer. The special squad treats crimes that may have a political element. His first case starts with the body of a dead women found in a bag in the river. She turns out to be a celebrated Model Worker, an important member of the Communist Party. The son of a “high cadre” turns out to be a chief suspect. Political tensions during the early 1990s come through the novel’s principle characters. In the context of the new changes introduced in the early 1990 by Deng Xiaoping, Chen Cao follows the threads quoting both Chinese sayings and T.S. Eliot. I rate this book five.
Fresh out of the police academy, Comrade Inspector Emil Brod finds himself shunned and gut punched by his new colleagues. The time is 1946 in a mythical eastern European country “liberated” and occupied by Soviet troops. His chief eventually gives him a case that he expects Brod to fail at solving so he can be dismissed. Brod cannot understand why is the subject of the bad treatment but knows how to survive from his life before, during and after the war ravaged his country and family. His investigation of the murder of a popular songwriter leads him into the senior ranks of party apparatchiks and the complications from being occupied first by the Nazis and then Stalin. Brod plunges ahead, taking risks, and trying to save a woman. I almost abandoned the book in the first chapters as it is rather grim. But I’m glad I didn’t. I rate it a five.
The third book – Eva’s Eye – is a straight Nordic Noir by Karin Fossum. Translated from Norwegian, and the first of 13 novels in the Inspector Sejer series, it has a interesting twist. It begins with a body found floating in a river and leads Inspector Konrad Sejer to look again at an earlier murder yet unsolved. Meanwhile, the book gets into the head of Eva, the single mother who first discovered the body but fails to report it to the police. Sejer pursues the leads he turns up and we find out more about Eva. The threads come together. I found getting into Eva’s head a bit overly melodramatic but still rate this novel a four plus.
I will eventually read more of all three series. Thanks to my wife for finding them.