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3.27 AVERAGE
3.27 AVERAGE
I really wanted to love this book, especially since I enjoyed her other novel “Forgotten Girls”. Unfortunately about midway I found myself skimming through the pages to see if anything interesting had happened and alas it did not.
It probably would’ve been better as material for an episode on Criminal Minds instead.
Sorry Sara
It probably would’ve been better as material for an episode on Criminal Minds instead.
Sorry Sara
This book was well written and suspenseful. My only complaint was the abrupt ending - I literally had no idea the book was over.
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Content Warnings
Graphic: Rape, Sexual assault, Violence
Much as I liked the character Harry Hole, I finally had to give up on Jo Nesbo's series. The sadism of the later books just got to be too much for me. I enjoy crime thrillers, but I don't enjoy reading about the crimes themselves, told in intricate and loving detail. I want to read about the solving of the crime and the personalities and interrelationships of the solvers of the mysteries.
So, I had been looking around for a replacement among Scandinavian mystery writers and recently there was a long article in The New York Times Sunday Book Review which discussed some of the most popular authors currently on the Scandinavian scene. After reading the article, I noted several of their names and decided to start my search for a Nesbo replacement among them.
After some consideration, I decided to give Sara Blaedel a try. She's a Danish author who writes about a woman detective (a plus for me) in the Copenhagen police department. From what I read of her in the article, she sounded promising.
One of the drawbacks of reading a Danish author, of course, is that I have to find translations of her work. Whenever one reads a translation, the reader should be a bit reticent about making judgments about the quality of the writing. If there are problems with the story, is it the author's fault or is it an infelicitous translation? And the truth is that I really don't know. I have no way of judging.
What I can say is that the language of this novel, as read in this translation, seemed really stilted, pedantic, and amateurish. It did not flow as one would expect from a best-selling author.
A case in point was the inappropriate overuse of the good old-fashioned Anglo-Saxonisms "fuck" and "fucking." Mostly used as adjectives, those words were just tossed into the dialog, often for no apparent reason, seemingly just to make the characters appear more like hip, street-wise cops. But having just spent my summer watching HBO's "The Wire" in which those words are organic elements of the speech patterns of the characters, the characters in Call Me Princess just seemed like children trying to sound like grownups.
And if I had hoped to escape descriptions of sadistic crimes, my hopes were immediately dashed.
The book begins with several pages of description of a brutal rape. A young woman is bound and gagged, then raped repeatedly and left in her apartment where she remains for hours before her mother finds her the next day. Detective Inspector Louise Rick is assigned to the case and learns that the victim met the rapist on a popular online dating site. It seems likely that the rapist is using this site to target specific women and that there may have been other such attacks.
Before the perpetrator can be tracked and stopped, he strikes again, but this time the victim dies and the police search becomes even more urgent.
Mixed in with this tale of heinous crimes, we get side stories of Louise's rather boring personal life and her problems with boyfriends - none of which are really very engaging.
My first experience with Sara Blaedel, then, was disappointing. I may eventually give her another chance and read some of the later books - after all, writers do tend to improve with experience - but the search for a Nesbo replacement goes on. I'll give some of the other guys a shot at the position.
So, I had been looking around for a replacement among Scandinavian mystery writers and recently there was a long article in The New York Times Sunday Book Review which discussed some of the most popular authors currently on the Scandinavian scene. After reading the article, I noted several of their names and decided to start my search for a Nesbo replacement among them.
After some consideration, I decided to give Sara Blaedel a try. She's a Danish author who writes about a woman detective (a plus for me) in the Copenhagen police department. From what I read of her in the article, she sounded promising.
One of the drawbacks of reading a Danish author, of course, is that I have to find translations of her work. Whenever one reads a translation, the reader should be a bit reticent about making judgments about the quality of the writing. If there are problems with the story, is it the author's fault or is it an infelicitous translation? And the truth is that I really don't know. I have no way of judging.
What I can say is that the language of this novel, as read in this translation, seemed really stilted, pedantic, and amateurish. It did not flow as one would expect from a best-selling author.
A case in point was the inappropriate overuse of the good old-fashioned Anglo-Saxonisms "fuck" and "fucking." Mostly used as adjectives, those words were just tossed into the dialog, often for no apparent reason, seemingly just to make the characters appear more like hip, street-wise cops. But having just spent my summer watching HBO's "The Wire" in which those words are organic elements of the speech patterns of the characters, the characters in Call Me Princess just seemed like children trying to sound like grownups.
And if I had hoped to escape descriptions of sadistic crimes, my hopes were immediately dashed.
The book begins with several pages of description of a brutal rape. A young woman is bound and gagged, then raped repeatedly and left in her apartment where she remains for hours before her mother finds her the next day. Detective Inspector Louise Rick is assigned to the case and learns that the victim met the rapist on a popular online dating site. It seems likely that the rapist is using this site to target specific women and that there may have been other such attacks.
Before the perpetrator can be tracked and stopped, he strikes again, but this time the victim dies and the police search becomes even more urgent.
Mixed in with this tale of heinous crimes, we get side stories of Louise's rather boring personal life and her problems with boyfriends - none of which are really very engaging.
My first experience with Sara Blaedel, then, was disappointing. I may eventually give her another chance and read some of the later books - after all, writers do tend to improve with experience - but the search for a Nesbo replacement goes on. I'll give some of the other guys a shot at the position.
2.5 stars. I don't really like crime novels I guess. I keep reading them because I keep thinking that eventually I am going to find something I like, but I never do. The Millennium trilogy was the first crime I ever read, and nothing so far has caught my interest like Stig Larson did back then. Those were brilliant. I have been thinking a lot about what it is that I don't care for and it is rather hard to pinpoint. I don't think it is the violence itself that I don't care for, but more the pointlessness of it. Often violence in stories creates huge character development and adds to the plot. I don't think any of the recent crime novels I have read embraces that idea - especially not Call me Princess by Sara Blaedel. I didn't like a single character in this novel and I don't think there are any sense of character development in Louise Rick. I like to feel enriched or educated or emotional when I turn the last page of a book... but with this one I didn't feel anything - hence the low rating. But don't take my word for it, because I am biased by not liking the entire genre I guess (:
A woman has been brutally raped on a date with a man she met online and Louise Rick knows that the police are running out of time. Sure enough, the perp attacks a second woman, this time murdering her in the process.
An interesting mystery, but not for the faint hearted. A bit dry in the translation, though.
An interesting mystery, but not for the faint hearted. A bit dry in the translation, though.
This is Blædel's American (or English-language) debut, which is unfortunate, because this novel is the second in Blædel's series featuring Danish detective Louise Rick. By page 44, I noted on GoodReads that I was feeling a disconnect with the characters and I wondered if it was because I was coming in midseries -- so I feel slightly vindicated that is, indeed, the case.
The novel opens with a graphic, detailed rape so I knew immediately that this wasn't going to be my kind of book. I was expecting a little more nuanced plot, but instead, the crime is straight-forward: a man is raping women he meets online. I wasn't wild about the writing style (or translation, I'm not sure which): despite the detailed scenes of violence, the rest of the book detailing the investigation felt very vague and aloof. I didn't connect with the lead character, Detective Louise Rick, her bestie Camille, or anyone else in the story. Louise had interesting potential: she displayed a mixture of empathy and impatience with the victims, which felt real to me, and I would have liked to learn more about her. Sadly, despite the foreign locale, so much of the story felt familiar, from our heroine's failing romantic life to her tension with her supervisor. I didn't get a sense of Copenhagen or Denmark, either: the story really could have been set anywhere in the US.
In the end, not a favorite for me, but something must have grabbed because now, about a week or so later, I'm still wondering about some parts of Louise's life and I've been searching for info about the possible next English-language translation in the series.
The novel opens with a graphic, detailed rape so I knew immediately that this wasn't going to be my kind of book. I was expecting a little more nuanced plot, but instead, the crime is straight-forward: a man is raping women he meets online. I wasn't wild about the writing style (or translation, I'm not sure which): despite the detailed scenes of violence, the rest of the book detailing the investigation felt very vague and aloof. I didn't connect with the lead character, Detective Louise Rick, her bestie Camille, or anyone else in the story. Louise had interesting potential: she displayed a mixture of empathy and impatience with the victims, which felt real to me, and I would have liked to learn more about her. Sadly, despite the foreign locale, so much of the story felt familiar, from our heroine's failing romantic life to her tension with her supervisor. I didn't get a sense of Copenhagen or Denmark, either: the story really could have been set anywhere in the US.
In the end, not a favorite for me, but something must have grabbed because now, about a week or so later, I'm still wondering about some parts of Louise's life and I've been searching for info about the possible next English-language translation in the series.
I think I expected a more involved plot and a more wrapped up conclusion. It was ok...I'll give the next book in the series a shot before I make a final decision on the author and series.
Call Me Princess, Sara Blaedel
A detective mystery from Denmark's "Queen of Crime." I found the language a little simple but that may be due to the translation. Not the best of this genre and I really wanted it to be great. It gets very tense towards the end but was slow to start and not that exciting. I might be getting tired of these crime mysteries where there is brutal criminal behavior - it upsets me more than it used to.
A detective mystery from Denmark's "Queen of Crime." I found the language a little simple but that may be due to the translation. Not the best of this genre and I really wanted it to be great. It gets very tense towards the end but was slow to start and not that exciting. I might be getting tired of these crime mysteries where there is brutal criminal behavior - it upsets me more than it used to.
This is the first book I've finished without a weekend since I started my new job. And I think this book is at least suffering a little from being the book I read after cara black's book. nothing seems quite so bright after something that good.
What this book does well:
-incorporates s&m in a manner that makes sense in the real world
-presents a police officer that seems like a normal person and is not an idiot about understanding what is happening in the real world, and has an average level of personal insight.
what this book does moderately well:
-twisting plots in a way that play to the emotional catharsis necessary for well written mystery.
what is not done well:
-either the translating or the writing is done poorly, it reads such that I am pretty sure the problem is in translation but without speaking danish I can't know.
I would definitely consider reading another book by her.
What this book does well:
-incorporates s&m in a manner that makes sense in the real world
-presents a police officer that seems like a normal person and is not an idiot about understanding what is happening in the real world, and has an average level of personal insight.
what this book does moderately well:
-twisting plots in a way that play to the emotional catharsis necessary for well written mystery.
what is not done well:
-either the translating or the writing is done poorly, it reads such that I am pretty sure the problem is in translation but without speaking danish I can't know.
I would definitely consider reading another book by her.