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3.32 AVERAGE
3.32 AVERAGE
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
I actually started this with no idea that I had read it before and remembered nothing about the plot, so evidently, it didn't make too much of an impression the first time around. I'm not sure if I was doing half-stars in 2011, so this time I'll give it 3.5 stars. I agree with other reviewers that it leans a little too heavily on Van Veeteren's intuition, so I didn't really feel like I had the fun of trying to solve the mystery along with the detective, though I did guess a couple of things maybe a little before I was supposed to. Enjoyable if a little slow paced for my taste.
slow-paced
Good idea for crime novel (no spoilers!) but execution could have been better. Instead, while reading some passages, it was quite a struggle to concentrate on book at first. But when author finally hit a stride in the second part of novel I couldn't stop reading till reaching the end.
Interesting writing style: the story is told primarily through dialogue.
Characters are not interesting or well-fleshed out. Some very heavy-handed foreshadowing.
Meh.
Characters are not interesting or well-fleshed out. Some very heavy-handed foreshadowing.
Meh.
Glum but brisk Nordic noir with roots in moral decay set in mish-mash of northern Europe.
Janek Mitter woke one morning with a brutal hangover and discovered his wife of three months lying facedown in the bathtub, dead. With only the flimsiest excuse as his defense, he is found guilty of a drunken crime of passion and imprisoned in a mental institution.
This book is the first instalment of the Inspector Van Veeteren’s serie and the storyline truly begins when Janek Mitter gets murdered as well, everybody realizing that he wasn’t the killer of his wife after all. Janek was a history teacher and his wife was a psychologist.
An interview is taking place, Janek is having a chat with his attorney, from this chat we find out the he and his wife knew each other for two years, been married for three months. They both drink, she was in rehab 6 years ago for drinking – but she just lost a child and her first marriage back then. Janek was divorced as well, had two kids – age 20 and 16.
Inspector Van Veeteren’s approach is on point, no literally, on point… He cuts through the bullshit and seems pretty good at what he’s doing. He doesn’t know for sure if Janek killed his wife, which says a lot because this inspector doesn’t have much doubts in his system.
The action is fast paced, probably because this book is short, but the trial starts right away. Even Janek’s collegues don’t believe he is innocent which tells a lot about him as a person, not necessarily that he is a killer but just a weird one in a not so fun sense. Eva is not much of a player either but she lost her kid at four.
It wasn’t a bad book but definitely a 3 out of 5, mainly because the actions wasn’t wow or never seen before but I’ve enjoyed the fact that this thriller delivered even if it was this short.
This book is the first instalment of the Inspector Van Veeteren’s serie and the storyline truly begins when Janek Mitter gets murdered as well, everybody realizing that he wasn’t the killer of his wife after all. Janek was a history teacher and his wife was a psychologist.
An interview is taking place, Janek is having a chat with his attorney, from this chat we find out the he and his wife knew each other for two years, been married for three months. They both drink, she was in rehab 6 years ago for drinking – but she just lost a child and her first marriage back then. Janek was divorced as well, had two kids – age 20 and 16.
Inspector Van Veeteren’s approach is on point, no literally, on point… He cuts through the bullshit and seems pretty good at what he’s doing. He doesn’t know for sure if Janek killed his wife, which says a lot because this inspector doesn’t have much doubts in his system.
The action is fast paced, probably because this book is short, but the trial starts right away. Even Janek’s collegues don’t believe he is innocent which tells a lot about him as a person, not necessarily that he is a killer but just a weird one in a not so fun sense. Eva is not much of a player either but she lost her kid at four.
It wasn’t a bad book but definitely a 3 out of 5, mainly because the actions wasn’t wow or never seen before but I’ve enjoyed the fact that this thriller delivered even if it was this short.
This was really between 3 and 4 stars, but in the second half it picked up and had a satisfactory ending.