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3.42 AVERAGE
3.42 AVERAGE
Rating 3.4* out of 5. This was a perfectly readable thriller. It was a nice read, but I will have forgotten I ever read it within two weeks. Considering I only started keeping track of what I read at the end of 2007, I wonder how many books are in this particular category. Neither spectacular nor aggravating, utterly immemorable.
Inspector Odd Singsaker has had a brain tumour removed and struggles a bit with his memory. He is after a short courtship married to Felicia, from the United States, who helped out on his last case. However, the fly in the ointment is the pregnancy of Felicia's best friend Siri, whom Odd slept with shortly before he met Felicia. The personal developments are the highlights of this book.
There is a murder, of course. A woman is found dead in the snow with her vocal cords removed and a music box playing softly next to her cooling body. The music box is playing an unknown lullaby. Shortly after Julie, a teenager with an affinity for music, disappears while walking her dog. The quest becomes to find her before it is too late.
Intertwined with the current events is that of the life and death of "Jon Blund" (aka the Sandman), a troubadour from Sweden in the late 16th century. His fate is tied to the current events by the thinnest gossamer.
I don't regret reading this, it was a perfect weekend read. It didn't do anything to me though, either positive or negative. There was no reaction, although I did feel my eyes go moist at the very end. Helped by a glass of wine, no doubt.
Inspector Odd Singsaker has had a brain tumour removed and struggles a bit with his memory. He is after a short courtship married to Felicia, from the United States, who helped out on his last case. However, the fly in the ointment is the pregnancy of Felicia's best friend Siri, whom Odd slept with shortly before he met Felicia. The personal developments are the highlights of this book.
There is a murder, of course. A woman is found dead in the snow with her vocal cords removed and a music box playing softly next to her cooling body. The music box is playing an unknown lullaby. Shortly after Julie, a teenager with an affinity for music, disappears while walking her dog. The quest becomes to find her before it is too late.
Intertwined with the current events is that of the life and death of "Jon Blund" (aka the Sandman), a troubadour from Sweden in the late 16th century. His fate is tied to the current events by the thinnest gossamer.
I don't regret reading this, it was a perfect weekend read. It didn't do anything to me though, either positive or negative. There was no reaction, although I did feel my eyes go moist at the very end. Helped by a glass of wine, no doubt.
I have no idea why it took me so long to pick this book up, I've had it sitting on my shelf for ages. I won it in a goodreads giveaway a couple of years ago (thanks to Minotaur Books) with the intention of reading it right away. Obviously, that did not happen.
This is the second book in a series of books that follow Odd Singsaker, a detective in Norway. I have not read the first novel in the series and found this one to stand well on its own, so I don't think it is entirely necessary to read them in order. I imagine some of the happenings with Odd's personal life continue through the course of the series, but the main mystery and crime are probably self contained, which makes them all readable in any order.
I really enjoyed this story overall. I always forget how much I like detective stories and mysteries until I'm reading one. This story jumps between two different times, weaving together two investigations from the same area from different time periods. This was an interesting touch and worked well, I thought. It was interesting to piece together how all of the things happening in 1767 were helping to shape what was happening in modern times.
This story was translated to English from Norwegian (I believe). Having not read it in its other language I cannot say that the translation was flawless, but it was very smooth and the story very readable. Some translated works that I have tried have been very choppy and difficult to understand; that was not the case here.
While I enjoyed the mystery in the story and trying to figure out what was happening, I did find some of the character shifts and scene breaks a bit oddly placed. It's not really that they didn't work for the story, just more that I found some of them awkward. I also was not as invested in the personal lives of the characters as I was in the mystery, so that side of the story was not as interesting to me. Perhaps reading the previous novel would have given me more of an appreciation for that aspect of the novel, I'm not sure.
Overall this was an enjoyable read with likable characters. If you enjoy mystery novels then this might be a good book to try.
This is the second book in a series of books that follow Odd Singsaker, a detective in Norway. I have not read the first novel in the series and found this one to stand well on its own, so I don't think it is entirely necessary to read them in order. I imagine some of the happenings with Odd's personal life continue through the course of the series, but the main mystery and crime are probably self contained, which makes them all readable in any order.
I really enjoyed this story overall. I always forget how much I like detective stories and mysteries until I'm reading one. This story jumps between two different times, weaving together two investigations from the same area from different time periods. This was an interesting touch and worked well, I thought. It was interesting to piece together how all of the things happening in 1767 were helping to shape what was happening in modern times.
This story was translated to English from Norwegian (I believe). Having not read it in its other language I cannot say that the translation was flawless, but it was very smooth and the story very readable. Some translated works that I have tried have been very choppy and difficult to understand; that was not the case here.
While I enjoyed the mystery in the story and trying to figure out what was happening, I did find some of the character shifts and scene breaks a bit oddly placed. It's not really that they didn't work for the story, just more that I found some of them awkward. I also was not as invested in the personal lives of the characters as I was in the mystery, so that side of the story was not as interesting to me. Perhaps reading the previous novel would have given me more of an appreciation for that aspect of the novel, I'm not sure.
Overall this was an enjoyable read with likable characters. If you enjoy mystery novels then this might be a good book to try.
A good one, but at the same time kinda creepy. Found a new author to read
Set in Norway in two times, now and the late 18th century. There's a murderer and a composer and music. Weird. The two stories didn't really mesh for me at all, though they were each interesting on their own merits. But, while this wasn't Brekke's best work, I'll probably read more.