Time Flies: The Doll Catches Up

What a difference a month makes. And where have I been? Not on a luxury cruise. Not in a remote corner of the Far East. I have been at home. Not sleeping, staring at the rain and feeling anxious.
But now (ta-da fanfare) the sun is shining. And here I am.

Why am I anxious? You ask. I grow old, I reply. And I don't like the way the world is going. Enough!

I am still reviewing crime fiction. Yes, me: The Doll, Mrs D (aka Lynn Harvey) -- ils sont tout moi. And you will find my review of Antti Tuomainen's "The Mine" over at the Euro crime blog. 
I am a fan of Finnish writer Tuomainen's crime books. Each different (so far) and each written from a fresh point of view. I am trying to catch up on the ones I have missed. So the next on my list is "The Man Who Died".

I am also still exploring dramatised fiction podcasts and hope to recommend some more series to you. Although I remain addicted to "Tanis" and find it difficult, frankly, to find something else that matches up ... but I have a few in mind to try.

As for Mrs D? It is hard to pry her/me away from her animation efforts. I/she ... am/is really excited about the possibilities of GIFs or animation loops. She says "At last something where I don't get bogged down in the narrative but can stay with the image... more like a poem or a painting than a film". (And no ... I am not including the chopped up videos of celebrity bloopers or gestures here). So the Mrs D part of me is embarking on a GIF series over at Syb & Me. It's based on imagery that started out as lino cuts that I made years ago. A childhood theme featuring a character I like to call Queenie. Please take a look.

And at the same time? The swallows are back and the sun is shining. My potatoes and broad beans are up in the garden... and I'm trying not to be anxious.
No. Don't mention Trump ...Brexit ... Climate Change ... the UK Government. Don't mention the Health Service... Social Care....
Don't mention any of it do you understand?

The Doll's Criminal Reading: Serbia via Finland - Kati Hiekkapelto's "The Exiled"

Finnish writer Kati Hiekkapelto has had all three of her crime novels featuring Serbian-born Finnish Police detective Anna Fekete translated into English and published in the UK. "The Exiled" is her third ... so rather typically of me it's the first that I have laid my hands on and read. So I apologise for any inadvertent series' spoilers I may include in this review.


The Exiled by Kati Hiekkapelto

Finnish police detective Anna has returned to her home village in Serbia for a summer holiday. It's a community she left as a child when her mother emigrated to Finland after the death of Anna's policeman father during the Yugoslav wars.
Basking in the summer heat and waiting for the village celebrations that accompany the annual bloom of mayflies over the river, Anna is caught up in a crime on the first night of her stay when her bag is snatched in the park. The thief's body is found on the river bank the following day. His death is pronounced an accidental drowning but Anna's detective instincts kick in. She becomes obsessed with the scratchiness of the local police investigation and pathologist's findings. And no one seems to know or care what happened to the young Roma girl who was with the thief that night in the park.
Anna's daily life grows increasingly uncomfortable; unable to feel at home, paraded around her father's contemporaries and pressured by her mother to conform to local manners and etiquette. Whilst the village waits for the ephemeral mayflies, Anna is drawn deeper into investigating the thief's death. It is an obsession which also draws her into the past and just as deeply into the mystery of her own father's death.

During my crime-reading travel I have never visited this part of Europe - a Hungarian region of Northern Serbia close to the border of Hungary itself. Its flat plains of wheat and sunflowers, dotted with ancient, neglected farmhouses, parches in the summer heat. In the book it is a region whose borders and way of life has been disrupted by the Balkan wars and now modern conflicts are made evident in the makeshift camps of homeless refugees in the town parks and the growth of nationalism marked by young skinheads prowling the edges of these temporary communities. This is an enthralling thriller which reads well in David Hackston's translation and keeps its realised characters and pace going until the end. I shall be looking forward to reading more of prickly Anna Fekete.

Grey Doll Boosts Her Criminal Reading via Bitter Lemon Press

Well, I don't usually win competitions but last week I do. Hurray.
I like to read crime fiction from foreign lands (as you may know) and in order to keep an eye on new releases I subscribe to a newsletter from Bitter Lemon Press... an independent publisher which specialises in translated crime fiction and "roman noir" titles.
I entered a quick competition in the last newsletter .... and did win three books of my choice! Thank you, Bitter Lemon Press.

I've picked Entanglement by Polish crime writer Zygmunt Miloszewski (translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones)... his first book (I think) in his crime series featuring State Prosecutor Teodor Szacki.

Hotel Bosphorus, (translated by Ruth Whitehouse) and first in Turkish writer Esmahan Aykol's "Kati Hirschel" mystery novels.

And... Nights of Awe by Finnish writer Harri Nykanen .... the first of his Inspector Ariel Kafka books. (Translated by Kristian London.)

Did you see what I just did there? I take my crime fiction addiction very seriously. If it is a series, I like to start at the beginning. Then I know there's plenty more to come, if it's for me. I'll let you know how I get on with them. But for sure, if you like crime in translation... take a dip in Bitter Lemon Press's catalogue.... it's a tempting box of chocolates for crime fans like I.

Grey Doll And Criminal Reading: Jan Costin Wagner

If, like me, you are cheered by discovering a new "crime series" to read... you'll understand my "hurrahs" when I recently read "Light in a Dark House" by German writer Jan Costin Wagner.
And if, like me, you enjoy a Nordic setting, then you get two treats in one because Wagner lives part of the time in Finland and it is in Finland that he sets his crime series featuring detective Kimmo Joentaa.

"Light in a Dark House" is his latest in this series to be translated into English (by respected translator Anthea Bell). The story centres on the murder of a coma patient in the local hospital, a mystery patient about whom nothing is known since she was found unconscious by the roadside. What follows is a multi-stranded investigation that brings Joentaa back into contact with Helsinki detective Westerberg and embraces several apparently unconnected murders. The narrative also uses passages from diaries, some from the present day and some from the 1980s.

I enjoyed this book and hope to backtrack to Wagner's earlier stories in the series. Be warned. If you don't appreciate a large slice of introspection or emotional content in your crime detection and detectives.... this may not be your style of reading. But it is mine!
You can read a full Euro crime review here.

The Doll Listens To Antti Tuomainen's "The Healer"

 ......vis-à-vis the Arctic and climate change (previous post about Greenpeace oil-drilling protest).....

"The Healer" by Antti Tuomainen: narrated by Simon Shepherd: English translation Lola Rogers ; Random House Audiobooks 2013...available as a download from Audible.....

Soon it will be Christmas in Helsinki. Every day brings rain  and it is cold. This is a world where the climate is changing, the Arctic melting, the waters rising. Those who can afford to are moving further north as the streets of the coastal towns flood. In turn, the homes that they leave are taken over by immigrants from even further south, those lands and cities already under water. Finnish social structure is crumbling. The police are underfunded and understaffed. Private security firms rule the streets....

Poet Tapani Lehtinen is worried about his journalist wife, Johanna. The last call he had from her was about her search for a serial killer who dubs himself "The Healer". She was setting out, with her paper's photographer, to some kind of meeting but Tapani has heard nothing since. Her phone is unanswered and this isn't like Johanna; Tapani and Johanna keep in touch all the time. But Tapani knows that the police will or can do very little. If anyone finds Johanna - it has to be him....

For lovers of Nordic Noir with roots in societal change this book takes that change into Tuomainen's brilliantly imagined flooded future. Not a story of the cataclysmic event but a crime story set in the steady decline and disintegration brought about by climate change. But this also a love story. A tale of the lengths that a man whose faith in his love for his wife - and in his wife's love for him - will go in order to find her again. And as Tapani uncovers more about the killer, and more about Johanna, the story becomes gripping, violent, suspenseful and ultimately moving.

This unabridged reading of "The Healer" - well read by Simon Shepherd - is a great atmospheric listen. I certainly want to read/listen-to more from Antti Tuomainen

You can read another review of the book over on the Euro Crime blog.

Travels With My Film-Life: Le Havre

The Old Man and I do sit down and watch "Le Havre" by Finnish director Aki Kaurismaki. (You can read a Guardian interview with the gloomy Finn here).

I haven't seen any Kaurismaki films before and so this one may be jollier than others but I do like it very much. Anyway, "Le Havre" is set in place of the same name and is a story about a shoe-shine man, his wife, a policeman, and a young African boy... an illegal immigrant.... And some of the people in the neighbourhood... and the dog Laika. When The Old Man do see the characters in the local cafe he says with relief:
 "Oh Good. What a bunch of wierdos. I can tell them apart!"
The film has a stripped down style, to the point, and lovely to look at. It's humane, almost a fairy tale in modern translation... The Old Man do say.... a "morality tale". We do agree that the stripped down almost unemotional style is maybe what's necessary. Cos if the same plot had been lushed-up by Hollywood ....we would be throwing up in a bucket.

As it is. "Le Havre" is a lovely film and you get a Little Bob concert thrown in! ...Yes, I know that I do like things of the weirder sort. But really... see it if you can.