Commentary/review

A nice example of a series that started original and well, and then, probably at the prompt from the editor, went Scandinavian (or even Nordic noir). The series is criminally erratic. It starts off with a nice love story between a fit man with a cat and an emotionally strong and intelligent woman with a dog. By the fifth part, the couple is on a crusade against cats, the dog is long-forgotten, while the woman has no career to speak of, cries all the time and eventually falls into the hands of a lunatic to cry even more. The first part was truly impressive – the story was rich in imaginative forensic detail. Yet I stopped reading the series after the fifth part (there are at least three books on top of that). I no longer care what happens in the series. The Scandinavian crime novel trick of turning the wrongdoers against the detectives is emotionally tiresome. It makes one wonder whether every single line in the book was written with one purpose in mind – to hook the reader in. Is the obnoxious, probably murderous, detective’s aunt just a device to make me read the next part? Perhaps the series is for beginner crime novel readers. By the fifth part, it becomes a gripping Saturday thriller.

The Scandinavian trick has another setback – it is difficult to maintain a light tone and provide an occasional joke when the atmosphere is grim on purpose. The beginning of the series was rather funny. The fifth part was a long and – for me – unpleasant ride.

I enjoyed the quality of the books’ narration. At times, however, I felt that the lector was not fully captivated by the story (especially when reading parts 4 and 5).

The covers are not very artistic but they do their job. True to the form of audiobook covers, they are not fully consistent.

Cover Photo by David Goldman on Unsplash