Corylus Books

Murder Tide – Stella Blómkvist (transl. Quentin Bates) Blog Tour

/ madamebibilophile / 14 Comments

Today I’m taking part in a blog tour for Corylus Books, a lovely indie publisher with a focus on translated crime fiction.

Murder Tide (2017, transl. Quentin Bates 2024) is the third Stella Blómkvist mystery I’ve read as part of Corylus’ blog tours and I enjoyed reacquainting myself with her world: her daughter Sóley Árdís; the deepening relationship with Rannveig; her cousin Sissi; newshound Máki; and of course her antagonistic relationship with the local police.

Here is the blurb from Corylus Books:

“Left to drown by the rising tide at the dock by Reykjavík’s Grótta lighthouse, the ruthless businessman with a murky history of his own had always had a talent for making enemies.

The police have their suspect – who calls in Stella Blómkvist to fight his corner as he furiously protests his innocence. Yet this angry fisherman had every reason to bear the dead man a grudge.

It’s a busy summer for razor-tongued, no-nonsense lawyer Stella. A young woman looking for a long-lost parent finds more than she bargained for. An old adversary calls from prison, looking for Stella to   broker a dangerous deal with the police to put one of the city’s untouchable crime lords behind bars at long last.

Is the mysterious medium right, warning that deep waters are waiting to drag Stella into the depths?”

Murder Tide is grounded in the realities of Iceland in 2011. Grímúlfur, the murdered man, was nicknamed the ‘Quota King’ and made a lot of money out of Iceland’s financial crash in 2008. People who took out enormous foreign currency loans had to hand over their businesses to the banks, who then sold on the loans to their cronies who had the loans written off. Grímúlfur was one of the cronies and he bought fishing quota rights too.

“‘The quota system has split the country for the last two decades, as it has provided a chosen few with great wealth just as it has wrecked many rural communities and added to the inequality and injustice in Icelandic society,’ Máki writes.”

Stella’s client is a fisherman who suffered under this system, and she soon finds out that as well as the many who Grímúlfur ripped off, his family bear him some pretty significant grudges too.

At the same time she is helping a young woman called Úlfhildur find her birth father, who unfortunately for Úlfhildur seems to be a truly sinister man married to a threatening woman, who together run a cult.

Her third client is the decidedly dodgy Sævar whose case highlights police corruption and reinforces Stella’s cynical world view:

“Bitter experience has taught me that there’s nobody in this world who can be trusted. It’s all about uncertainty and coincidence.”

The three strands in Murder Tide are woven together well and even my poor brain managed to keep track of what was happening. The societal commentary felt intrinsic to the plot rather than slowing it down, and I whizzed through this pacy story.

Stella felt more likable in this book and the habit she has of referring to brand names and labouring over material possessions has eased off a bit. She’s leading a slightly more settled life as she and Rannveig continue the relationship which began in Murder Under the Midnight Sun. But Stella’s domestic life is generally in the background, as she tears around working just as hard as ever.

She really does need to stop sexually assaulting people though. This time it was for a different reason than her own gratification, but for a character who is supposed to follow her own moral compass in opposition to self-serving businessmen and corrupt police officers, I would really welcome her incorporating informed consent into her world view.

However, this isn’t a significant part of Murder Tide so please don’t be put off! What worked especially well was the menace of characters and genuine sense of danger, alongside humour. Chapters frequently end with a quote from Stella’s mother, a woman who seems to have had an aphorism for every occasion, ranging from the insightful to the clichéd, the incomprehensible to the remarkably plain-speaking. These really made me smile and kept the character of Stella grounded in a more recognisable reality, while she rode motorbikes at speed, visited career criminals in prisons and exposed corruption with the help of Sissi’s technical expertise.

The tone is also carefully balanced. There were some very dark aspects to Murder Tide, and Blómkvist is expert at conveying these clearly, without ever being gratuitous or voyeuristically gruesome.

As always with Stella’s stories, the pace and plotting worked seamlessly. But what I especially enjoyed in Murder Tide was the deepening characterisation of Stella, and I’m looking forward to seeing where she goes next.

Here are the stops from the rest of the tour, so do check out how other bloggers got on with Murder Tide:

Blog Tour: Nightingale & Co by Charlotte Printz (2023, transl. Marina Sofia 2024)

/ madamebibilophile / 12 Comments

I do enjoy a cosy crime novel, and one with a 1960s Berlin setting ticked so many boxes I jumped at the chance to take part in this blog tour from the ever-wonderful Corylus Books.  I hope they carry on asking me to take part in these tours even though I feel like my posts for their books are getting very formulaic: “I loved it! I want more translations!” Take a guess as to whether this one will be any different… 😉

Nightingale & Co. is the first in a series written by Charlotte Printz and translated by a blogger many of you know, Marina Sofia. Here is the blurb from Corylus Books:

“Berlin, August 1961.

Since the death of her beloved father, Carla has been running the Nightingale & Co detective agency by herself. It’s a far from easy job for a female investigator.

When the chaotic, fun-loving Wallie shows up at the door, claiming to be her half-sister, Carla’s world is turned upside down. Wallie needs Carla – the Berlin Wall has been built overnight, leaving her unable to return to her flat in East Berlin.

Carla certainly doesn’t need Wallie, with her secret double life and unorthodox methods for getting results. Yet the mismatched pair must find a way to work together when one of their clients is accused of murdering her husband.

Nightingale & Co is the first in a cosy historical crime series featuring the sisters of the Nightingale & Co detective agency in 1960s Berlin.”

The story gets off to a fun, engaging start. Carla receives a call from her aunt Lulu telling her she’s waving an airgun on the set of the Billy Wilder film One, Two, Three, seemingly in a deeply flawed attempt to secure a role. As Carla sets off across Berlin at pace, the 1960s city is evoked organically, without seeming like an info-dump.

This trailer for the film includes some external shots:

Yet despite the joy of these opening scenes, we are quickly shown the psychological impact of living in Berlin as the Wall goes up:

“‘They’re building a wall,’ said Lulu. The words were like a punch to her stomach. Carla felt faint. Ulbricht had lied to them. That was why there were so many guards at the Brandenburg Gate yesterday. How naïve of them to believe it was merely for the film set.”

Carla lives with her mother in the same building that houses the agency her father built. The domestic scenes with her bitter, passive-aggressive, baiting parent were so well-realised. Printz really captured the psychological warfare that people can tie themselves into, unable to see an escape route however desperately they want one. Carla is also grieving her father, who died in the crash which left her with enduring head injury symptoms.

When her half-sister Wallie arrives having been cut off from her home in the East by the rapid installation of the Wall, she couldn’t be more different. Physically Carla is compared to Audrey Hepburn, Wallie to Marilyn Monroe. Wallie gives free rein to all her appetites and doesn’t mind dubious means to achieve her ends, while Carla is controlled and keen to remain above reproach. Carla’s mother is entirely charmed by Wallie, although she believes her to be a cousin of her dead husband.

In less skilled hands the contrasting sisters could seem cliched and merely vehicles for dramatic tension. But both Carla and Wallie were entirely believable and well-rounded. The tensions between them arising from Carla not knowing about Wallie’s existence until she turns up on the doorstep, and what this means for her memories of her father, was lightened by their very different attitudes. Their growing but begrudging respect for one another as they find themselves an effective team made them an endearing pair.

The central strand of the story concerns Alma, a beautiful rich woman who asks the agency for help due to her husband’s domestic violence. Carla is sympathetic but realistic about Alma’s options:

“I’m afraid that’s no motive for divorce. A man who beats his wife is regarded by the courts as quick tempered and they usually advise the wife not to annoy him.”

The 1960s are a time of change but some changes aren’t occurring quickly enough. (I was reminded this week that it wasn’t until 1975 that women in Britain were allowed their own mortgage!)

When Alma’s husband is killed and her subsequent behaviour leads to her arrest, the sisters investigate. The plot is satisfyingly complex without being overly convoluted and frustrating.

The shadows of the war, less than twenty years previous, still loom large and Printz manages to capture how the fallout is interwoven with the modernising present.

 “Hadn’t they learnt anything from the past? It wasn’t enough to just stand there and repeat slogans. Everyone had to contribute.”

It’s hard to judge a translation when you don’t speak both languages, but I was struck by how Marina Sofia managed a sensitive balance in providing an English translation that flowed so well, yet also kept sense of place and contributed to Berlin being evoked so clearly in my mind. The significances of formal/informal address were conveyed without any clunkiness.

What I really enjoyed in Nightingale & Co was the mix of compassion and cynicism displayed by both the sisters in their different ways. It made them, and the story, humane without being sentimental, hopeful in the face of horrors.

“In the end, that was all that anyone wanted: forgiveness. And to be loved. Which made everyone predictable.”

So in summary: I loved it! I want more translations!

Here are the rest of the stops on the tour, do check out how other bloggers found Nightingale & Co:

Blog Tour: Black Storms – Teresa Solana (2010, transl. Peter Bush 2024)

/ madamebibilophile / 12 Comments

Today I’m taking part in a blog tour for Corylus Books, a lovely indie publisher with a focus on translated crime fiction. For those of us in the northern hemisphere the nights are drawing in, and settling down with a crime novel that opens on All Saints Eve (Hallowe’en) felt like a perfect read for this time of year.

Here is the blurb from Corylus Books:

“Who murders an elderly professor in his university office – and why? Norma Forester of the Barcelona police force is handed the case and word from the top is to resolve it as quickly and as quietly as she can. Set against the backdrop of one of the most vibrant and exciting cities in Europe, Black Storms also highlights the darker side of Barcelona and its past, overshadowed by the bitter Civil War of the 1930s.

The past also touches Norma Forester, the granddaughter of an English International Brigades volunteer who didn’t survive to see his Spanish daughter.

This first novel in Teresa Solana’s is a fast-paced crime story that balances the hunt for a killer with Norma Forester’s colourful and complex personal life. She’s surrounded by her forensic pathologist husband, her hippy mother, and her anarchist squatter daughter whose father is Norma’s husband’s gay brother. Then there are Norma’s police colleagues and superiors – plus an occasional lover she can’t resist meeting.”

Black Storms begins with the murder from the point of view of the murderer. This wasn’t gory or gratuitous. There had also been a brief but effective portrayal of the victim, Professor Francesc Paradella who was an expert on the Spanish Civil War, which definitely evoked my sympathy without being sentimental.

We’re then taken to a birthday dinner at Deputy Inspector Norma Forester’s family home. I really enjoyed the portrait of Norma’s family, full of somewhat eccentric characters without seeming unrealistically colourful.

Her mother Mimí looks like “an old Hollywood actress who’d gone to seed or an eccentric fortune teller.”, in contrast to Isabel, her conservative mother-in-law. Her daughter Violeta briefly returns from living in a squat and also visiting is Aunt Margarida, Mimí’s step-cousin and a nun aka my favourite character:

“she’d been living comfortably isolated from the world and its problems for eight years, reciting ancient prayers behind those impenetrable stone walls. However, occasionally, she did miss the freedom of her secular life and, now and then, invented an excuse to go out and took advantage of her escape to go to bingo sessions, drink cocktails in Boades and hit the town with Mimí.”

I also liked Norma’s husband, principled forensic examiner Octavi, angry that because the Professor was from a powerful family, his death is treated more seriously than others.

“There were class differences even among the dead: upper-class corpses that led to frantic investigations and second-class corpses that were processed routinely.”

The legacy of the Civil War is part of Norma and Octavi’s home, not only through the family history but in their present. Senta, Norma’s grandmother mistakes outside noises for those of conflict and becomes highly distressed. It’s a brief scene but so moving in how it demonstrates the enduring trauma of war.

The reader soon knows who the murder is, someone pathetic and seedy, and very believable. The mystery of Black Storms is not therefore whodunit, but why. The why enables Solana to look at the long shadows cast by the Spanish Civil War and the enduring corruption in society.

My knowledge of the Spanish Civil War is shockingly rudimentary and Solana did a great job of weaving the history throughout the story without ever info-dumping. Past events are evoked through characters; there is an excellent scene between Norma, whose grandfather was killed by state execution, and Gabriel, her second-in-command, whose grandfather was killed by FAI anarchists.

The most severe condemnation is saved for how the legacy has been mishandled: “the circus orchestrated in the corridors of power had succeeded in drowning the transition in a mist of amnesia”.

But the novel is also resolutely contemporary and Barcelona is wonderfully evoked, even the less salubrious sides: “A city for tourists with cirrhotic livers looking for cheap alcohol.” Ouch!

From the start Black Storms had an assured style and Solana is so accomplished in how she weaves together a crime plot, the legacy of the Spanish Civil War, and contemporary social commentary. It never felt remotely laboured and the story pace was never weighed down by the importance of the issues highlighted. I thought Black Storms was a hugely impressive novel. And now I want another in the series to be translated, because I am already missing Aunt Margarida!

Here are the stops from the rest of the tour, so do check out how other bloggers got on with Black Storms:

Shrouded – Sólveig Pálsdóttir (transl. Quentin Bates) blog tour

/ madamebibilophile / 6 Comments

I’m always a bit trepidatious about agreeing to blog tours, which is why I don’t do many. What if I don’t enjoy the book? I only blog about books I like so what if I have to drop out? Thankfully Corylus Books have never done me wrong, consistently offering excellent crime novels in translation.

When they suggested Shrouded by Sólveig Pálsdóttir (2023, transl. Quentin Bates 2023), I had two questions: did it matter that I hadn’t read the others in the series? Was it gory (I can’t do gore)? Reassured on both counts, I’m so glad I took the opportunity to join in because I found much to enjoy in this novel.

My allotted date for the tour was 1 August so this is also my first post for Women in Translation Month (#WITMonth), a wonderful and well-established event running for the whole of August.

Here is the blurb from Corylus Books:

“A retired, reclusive woman is found on a bitter winter morning, clubbed to death in Reykjavik’s old graveyard. Detectives Guðgeir and Elsa Guðrún face one of their toughest cases yet, as they try to piece together the details of Arnhildur’s austere life in her Red House in the oldest part of the city.

Why was this solitary, private woman attending séances, and why was she determined to keep her severe financial difficulties so secret? Could the truth be buried deep in her past and a long history of family enmity, or could there be something more? Now a stranger keeps a watchful eye on the graveyard and Arnhildur’s house.

With the detectives running out of leads, could the Medium, blessed and cursed with uncanny abilities, shed any light on Arnhildur’s lonely death?”

The story opens with Arnhildur preparing to go to a séance. We are privy to her thoughts, her frustrations and her little vanities. In a very short space, Pálsdóttir creates a sense of Arnhildur so that when she is murdered, the injustice is fully realised. Although the reader is witness to the murder, it isn’t remotely gory or gratuitous. It’s a responsible and carefully balanced portrait which insists that the murder of an older woman, someone seemingly entirely ordinary, is taken seriously.

Having not read the rest of the series, when police detectives Guðgeir and Elsa Guðrún arrive to investigate I was expecting some clunky exposition to bring readers up to speed. This never happened, and instead we are presented with an established working relationship, respectful and gently teasing, in which we are expected to draw our own conclusions regarding the personalities of the individuals and the dynamic between them.

“‘It’s never this dark in Akureyri,’ Elsa Guðrún assured him, a tie between her teeth as she pulled her brown hair back into a ponytail.

‘Really?’ Guðgeir grinned. This north country pride that some would describe as conceit had always amused him. ‘All the same, it’s a good way further north than Reykjavík.’

Elsa Guðrún wasn’t going to accept Guðgeir’s straightforward geographical point.”

The relationships with the wider team are well drawn, with a sense of professionals rubbing along together as best they can with some tensions and frustrations – in other words, most people’s working lives. There is humour too, and I particularly enjoyed tightly-wound senior officer Særós’ penchant for Insta-type inspiration:

“As always, the week’s aphorism hung on the wall behind her, a print out with black letters on white in a simple IKEA frame. This week it said, Always be the best possible version of yourself.”

Arnhildur was resistant to change and technology, which means no mobiles with sophisticated GPS, laptops or tablets of hers are available to aid the investigation. This made for a police procedural that felt pleasingly traditional while still rooted in the modern world.

One shortcut that might have been available was the presence of Valthór, a medium. I know some readers whose hearts sink at the presence of a psychic in detective stories, but Pálsdóttir never uses the character as an easy way to resolve any plot, despite one of her detectives being open to the possibility of Valthór’s skills:

“Growing up in the west of Iceland, he had been aware that most older people had some belief in an afterlife, and that there were a few people with the ability to converse with the dead. Many of them also believed in premonitions, dreams and prophecies. The people with whom Guðgeir had grown up had fought for their existence, in close touch with the brutal forces of nature that regularly demanded people’s lives. These people had been more down-to-earth than any Guðgeir knew today, and he was still convinced that there was much about the world that could be neither felt nor seen.”

Valthór is a really affecting character, truly suffering in the aftermath of Arnhildur’s death and he enables a continued emotional resonance within the story as Guðgeir and Elsa Guðrún pragmatically and doggedly work to solve the crime.

They discover aspects of Arnhildur’s past that led to her estrangement from her family, and truly disturbing events touching her life before she died. There are a couple of very sinister characters that are deeply unnerving in their believability.

Shrouded is a quick pacy read that I whizzed through on a train journey to Liverpool. Initially I was smugly congratulating myself that I’d guessed certain elements and I was somewhat surprised that a novel which seemed so accomplished had resolved things rather straightforwardly. However, I was far too quick to pat myself on the back 😀 I’d made all the assumptions and deductions Pálsdóttir had guided the reader towards, and I’d missed others entirely, which meant the very end made for a surprising and really satisfying conclusion.

Shrouded is responsible in its treatment of the victim, it’s never sensationalist. It has plenty to say about how people who don’t easily fit in are treated. It demonstrates the complexities of relationships between flawed people (ie all of us) without having characters behave in ridiculous ways.

I realise I’m making it sound dull when it really isn’t! It makes important points without losing sight of the story. I really enjoyed Shrouded and now I need to read the preceding novels in the series; my TBR is never going down, is it…?

Here are the rest of the stops on the blog tour so do check out how other readers found Shrouded:

Murder Under the Midnight Sun – Stella Blómkvist (transl. Quentin Bates) Blog Tour

/ madamebibilophile / 21 Comments

Today I’m taking part in a blog tour for Corylus Books, a lovely indie publisher with a focus on translated crime fiction. Back in September last year I took part in a blog tour for Murder at the Residence by Stella Blómkvist so I was looking forward to reacquainting myself with the tenacious lawyer in Murder Under the Midnight Sun. This novel was published in Iceland in 2015 and translated by Quentin Bates in 2023. The identity of the author remains a mystery…

Here is the blurb from Corylus Books:

“What does a woman do when her husband’s charged with the frenzied killing of her father and her best friend? She calls in Stella Blómkvist to investigate – however unwelcome the truth could turn out to be.

Smart, ruthless and with a flexible moral code all of her own, Stella Blómkvist is also dealing with a desperate deathbed request to track down a young woman who vanished a decade ago.

It looks like a dead end, but she agrees to pick up the stone-cold trail – and she never gives up, even if the police did a long time ago.

Then there’s the mystery behind the arm that emerges from an ice cap, with a mysterious ruby ring on one frozen finger? How does this connect to another unexplained disappearance, and why were the police at the time so keen to write it off as a tragic accident?”

As the blurb demonstrates, and as with Murder at the Residence, Stella finds herself with several plates to spin. Murder Under the Midnight Sun packs a lot into just 214 pages without ever seeming relentless or overwhelming. It’s expertly paced.

The Icelandic setting plays a part in the police’s indifference to the historic disappearance of a young British holidaymaker.

“People have vanished in Iceland before and never been found, without any indication of foul play.”

[…]

She’s far from the only missing person that Iceland’s natural world hasn’t given back.”

If anything, this serves to heighten Stella’s determination as she’s more than happy to butt up against the police, often with the help of her friend, the news blogger Máki. It’s through Máki that Stella finds herself increasingly caught up in Cold War intrigues that want to stay buried, and early on there’s a stunning set piece whereby Stella nearly ends up buried herself, down an icy crevasse.

The past and present are woven together seamlessly and the smaller population of Iceland make the connections between characters seem less contrived than they could in a more populous setting. The modern day murder of Stella’s friend Rannveig’s father and best friend was just convoluted enough to keep me guessing while being resolved satisfactorily in a short novel.

My one reservation – which I didn’t have with the previous novel – was Stella’s conduct in her private life. I’ve absolutely no issue with her being a woman who goes after what she wants. But when what she wants is a woman in a highly vulnerable state, and when her method of getting that woman is to ply her with strong alcohol, I’m not alongside. I don’t have to like everything about a protagonist to enjoy a novel and I did really enjoy Murder Under the Midnight Sun. If Stella can just be more respectful of informed sexual consent in future, that would make my enjoyment unreserved.

That aside, I did like Stella’s relentless pursuit of answers and her humorous self-belief:

“My cousin Sissi gazes at me with frank admiration in his eyes.

‘You’re one of a kind,’ he says.

I smile demurely. I agree entirely with his sentiment.”

Fingers crossed for more Stella translations!

Here are the stops from the rest of the tour, so do check out how other bloggers got on with Murder Under the Midnight Sun:

Murder at the Residence – Stella Blómkvist (transl. Quentin Bates) Blog Tour

/ madamebibilophile / 13 Comments

Today I’m taking part in a blog tour for Corylus Books, a lovely indie publisher with a focus on translated crime fiction. The novel Murder at the Residence offers an enduring mystery aside from the story: Stella Blómkvist is the name of the protagonist, not the author. Apparently there’s lots of speculation but it’s never been confirmed who writes this popular series. Murder at the Residence was published in 2012, the first of a second wave of Stella books, after a break since 2006.

Here is the blurb from Corylus Books:

“It’s New Year and Iceland is still reeling from the effects of the financial crash when a notorious financier is found beaten to death after a high-profile reception at the President’s residence. The police are certain they have the killer – or do they? Determined to get to the truth, maverick lawyer Stella Blómkvist isn’t so sure.

A stripper disappears from one of the city’s seediest nightspots, and nobody but Stella seems interested in finding her. A drug mule cooling his heels in a prison cell refuses to speak to anyone but Stella – although she has never heard of him. An old man makes a deathbed confession and request for Stella to find the family he lost long ago.

With a sharp tongue and a moral compass all of her own, Stella Blómkvist has a talent for attracting trouble and she’s as at home in the corridors of power as in the dark corners of Reykjavík’s underworld.

Stella Blómkvist delivers an explosive mix of murder, intrigue and surprise, and is one of Iceland’s best-loved crime series.”

The start of the novel sees Stella cruising for a New Year hook up. Her voice throughout is direct and no nonsense, and this includes articulating her sexual needs clearly. Sadly for Stella she doesn’t find a hottie to see the year in with, but she does meet Dagnija and Ilona, two Latvian women brought to Iceland on empty promises and finding themselves dragged into sex work. When Ilona disappears, Dagnija asks for Stella’s help.

Stella’s pretty busy, what with a dying man asking her to find his adopted daughter, a drug courier to defend, a young injured activist to support, and a family christening ending with the discovery of a dead body:

“The murder in the church at Bessastaðir was naturally the lead news item on both TV channels. Understandable, as it’s been a few centuries since there was last a murder at Bessastaðir. That’s as far as we know. And the President was in residence that weekend.

The body is that of a well-known financier.”

The financier Benedikt Björgúlfsson seems no great loss, but the story is bound up in the political situation in Iceland at the time:

“There were anonymous claims online that Benedikt must have been murdered by someone who had been with him at the President’s reception on Friday. The conclusion is that the guilty party has to be among society’s most powerful individuals. Others argue that this murder is the man on the street fighting back, that this is a foretaste of what other wealthy banksters can expect if the courts don’t get round to locking them up.”

As the various strands of Stella’s work start to come together, Murder at the Residence brilliantly portrays how political machinations and police corruption should concern everybody, because they affect everything. And while the story evokes its Iceland setting beautifully, it is sadly universal.

“Presumably you know the Icelandic politicians never, ever, resign due to poor judgement in their work. Taking responsibility for their own mistakes is something that simply missing from their genetic makeup.”

“Are wealthy playboys with reputations in ruins still Iceland’s heroes?”

Living in the UK means I’m not sure there was really a need to specify Iceland(ic) in those sentences….

Anyway, while Stella is (rightly) cynical regarding those in power, she’s not embittered like me 😀 So her voice remains clear-sighted and resolute but never alienating.

“It’s the familiar old song about bad foreigners making every effort to destroy Iceland’s innocence. But it’s on the overblown side this time. Our own homegrown criminals have long been perfectly capable of shovelling illegal drugs into the country. Not that they haven’t formed a few alliances along the way with European mafiosi.”

She has a softer side too – there is a budding romance, and also her young daughter Sóley Árdís to provide some work/life balance.

Murder at the Residence is expertly plotted and I just about kept up! If you’re the sort of reader who keeps notes and makes character lists when they read, those habits would serve you very well here.

The personal and political, plot and characterisation were all finely balanced. The story was also clear about the violence and corruption in the world Stella was investigating, but never gratuitous. I really enjoyed Stella’s distinctive voice and I’d love to spend more time with her. Fingers crossed more translations will follow.

Here are the stops from the rest of the tour, so do check out how other bloggers got on with Murder at the Residence:

Deadly Autumn Harvest – Tony Mott (transl. Marina Sofia) Blog Tour

/ madamebibilophile / 17 Comments

When I took part in a blog tour for Corylus Books earlier in the year, it was for a novella, which helpfully chimed with my Novella a Day in May reading. The bookish stars have aligned again for my taking part in a Corylus Books blog tour, as Deadly Autumn Harvest (2020) by Romanian author Tony Mott fits perfectly with my plans for #WITMonth reading, translated as it is by lovely blogger Marina Sofia (2023).

Here is the blurb from Corylus Books:

“A series of bizarre murders rocks the beautiful Carpathian town of Braşov. At first there’s nothing obvious that links what look like random killings. With the police still smarting from the scandal of having failed to act in a previous case of a serial kidnapper and killer, they bring in forensic pathologist Gigi Alexa to figure out if several murderers are at work – or if they have another serial killer on their hands. Ambitious, tough, and not one to suffer fools gladly, Gigi fights to be taken seriously in a society that maintains old-fashioned attitudes to the roles of women. She and the police team struggle to establish a pattern, especially when resources are diverted to investigating a possible terrorist plot. With the clock ticking, Gigi stumbles across what looks to be a far-fetched theory – just as she realises that she could be on the murderer’s to-kill list.”

I don’t read much contemporary crime because I don’t want to read about women being killed in various gruesome ways. I’m relieved to say I thought Deadly Autumn Harvest got the balance right between giving enough detail so that the horrors were realised, but with nothing being gratuitous. There was a responsibility in how the victims were portrayed, so you got a sense of them as people and the injustice in how their lives ended.

Forensic pathologist Gigi Alexa is an intriguing figure too. Cascading curly blonde hair and resolutely dressed in bright colours, I thought she was an idiosyncratic and believable investigator, good at her job and super-committed, yet not entirely detached:

“Usually, by the time she got to see the bodies, they had been drained of any semblance of life or a back story, they were mere puzzles to be solved. But today it had all been a little too close for comfort.”

She’s also a scientist who is not above a bit of superstition:

“Three bad omens. She counted them. First, she stumbled over her slippers as she got out of bed, so she went to the bathroom in her bare feet. Then she stepped into the sand that Morty had scattered from his litter tray. Thirdly, once she got into the kitchen, her coffee machine refused to get going so she would have to boil up Greek coffee instead. Three signs of bad luck on a Tuesday – no doubt more would follow.”

As Gigi and her team investigate the murders, she has to contend with various frustrations in the male-dominated environment. She’s not surrounded by idiots though. I liked her relationship with her boss CI Matei, and Emil, her colleague in pathology. There was also some humour (alongside remembrance of previous toxicity) in the reappearance of her impeccably turned-out ex, Superintendent Vlad Tomescu. (Slight spoiler, skip the next sentence and quote if you don’t want to know!) Gigi becomes single during the novel and her sardonic reflections on this state also lightened the tone:

“She didn’t miss him at all. It would be a while yet before she started missing the warmth of someone to curl up with in bed. Maybe during the winter. Except maybe by then she would have invested in an electric blanket.”

The mystery is very well-paced and the novel isn’t overlong at just 225 pages. We are there at the moment of the killings at various points, before we are returned Gigi and her team’s investigation. Although I’d be amazed if anyone guesses the connection before Gigi, we’re given a fair chance to guess the perpetrator. I’d like to proclaim I worked out who did it, but I suspected absolutely everyone at some point 😀

Deadly Autumn Harvest is a quick, compelling read with a truly chilling murderer pursued by a team of believable, well-rounded investigators.  

Finally I should just say that Deadly Autumn Harvest definitely made me want to visit Braşov! I’ve never been, it sounds absolutely beautiful and with Gigi and her team on the case there won’t be any serial killers left to spoil my holiday – perfect.

Here are the stops from the rest of the tour, so do check out how other bloggers got on with Deadly Autumn Harvest:

Skin Deep – Antonia Lassa (transl. Jacky Collins) Blog Tour

/ madamebibilophile / 14 Comments

After eleven years of blogging, it’s finally happening: I’m taking part in a blog tour 😀

And most delightfully, it coincides perfectly with my month of daily novellas. Skin Deep by Antonia Lassa (2023 transl. Jacky Collins 2023) comes in at 114 pages, making this Novella a Day in May 2023 – No.24.

One reason I don’t do blog tours usually is because I only blog about books I enjoy, so I can’t guarantee to take part. However, I trusted wonderful indie Corylus Books to see me right, and they did 😊 I thought Skin Deep was a great read.

It’s a challenge to have a detective story in so few words but the story didn’t feel diminished in any way by this. Yes, the solution is straightforward but I would much rather that than an overly convoluted, protracted story where I lose all sight of what’s happening and why on earth the person was killed in the first place.

Here is the blurb from Corylus Books:

“When police arrest eccentric loner Émile Gassiat for the murder of a wealthy woman in a shabby seaside apartment in Biarritz, Inspector Canonne is certain he has put the killer behind bars. Now he just needs to prove it. But he has not reckoned with the young man’s friends, who bring in lawyer-turned-investigator Larten to head for the desolate out-of-season south-west of France to dig deep into what really happened.

Larten’s hunt for the truth takes him back to the bustle of Paris as he seeks to demonstrate that the man in prison is innocent, despite all the evidence – and to uncover the true killer behind a series of bizarre murders.

Skin Deep is Antonia Lassa’s first novel to appear in English.”

All three protagonists are very believable and well-drawn. Although Canonne leaps to a lazy conclusion regarding the killer, he doesn’t doggedly stick to it. There is a lightness of touch in his portrait, including his contemplations of life and relationships, triggered by his missing tooth.

“The moment they went into the apartment, Canonne said to himself that they had got their man. The reason being that the place was impeccably tidy, more like the methodically kept home of a cold blooded serial-killer rather than a young man of twenty-six.”

This othering of Émile Gassiat because his lifestyle and sexual preferences don’t fit the stereotype of those of a good-looking young man is part of the wider themes in the book around difference and acceptance.

Larten is the perfect detective for the job in this regard, as he is comfortable with being viewed as Other and uses it to his advantage:

“Just as a small question-mark can alter the course and meaning of an entire sentence, no matter how complex and articulate it might be, Larten wanted those feminine touches that he included in his appearance or in his clothing, to act as a question mark at the end of each of the ‘sentences’ that constituted his identity. Something that would trouble others, getting them to question their own identity or fall for his charms. An invitation to dive into the unknown.”

He’s also a competent and driven detective who balances detailed investigation with an acute understanding of people.

“Larten could only add his own intuition, an argument that was not worth much in court but to which he clung. His intuition had failed him on very few occasions in his life, perhaps because he was a good wine taster.”

Skin Deep is such an accomplished crime novella. It balances poetic passages and societal commentary alongside characterization and plot with ease. Both the seedy seaside and cosmopolitan city were clearly evoked. I’m not a huge reader of contemporary crime and when I do read it, it is usually in translation – I would love to read a series of Larten novels as this camper-van dwelling wine enthusiast completely won me over.

Here are the stops from the rest of the tour, do check out the reviews for this great read: