We are off to the Schützenfest today. Lovely weather- mid 20s - and my family plays in the Klemzig Oompah band. See more at Schützenfest website.
It occurred to me though how little German crime fiction I have read - almost none really - so perhaps people can suggest some I can look out for.
I know there are writers of German crime and mystery fiction because when I was last in Germany I visited a number of bookshops looking for books in English, of which there were very few. But the crime sections were always very large, some translated from English, but obviously lots of German writers too. Perhaps they just don't get translated into English.
So what have I read?
Last year oz_mystery_readers discussed THE SPY WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD by John Le Carre. Not German I know, but about the cold war days, before the wall came down. I have been to Germany both before and after the Berlin Wall came down. Two years ago prosperity and commercialism were beginning to seep into the east.
Regarded as a classic in spy thrillers. Alec Leamas, for 4 years head of British espionage in Berlin, loses yet another double agent, when a spy crossing from East Berlin is shot by the border guards. He returns to London a broken man and Control offers him a final chance, one last task, to get back at Mundt, the head of East German espionage whom he holds responsible for the lost agents. Leamus has to appear to be discarded in order to become attractive to East German intelligence and open to defection. The story in this relatively short novel has so many twists and turns that you don’t really see what will happen at the end until it actually happens, and then you understand that this is where everything was leading all the time.
A couple of years ago we discussed STRAIGHT INTO DARKNESS by Faye Kellerman. Again not a German writer I know.
Axel Berg is an Inspektor in Munich's newly formed Mordkommission. The year is 1929 and the Austrian Adolf Hitler is on the rise. He leads those who want to rid Germany of degenerates, Jews, Communists. The police force that Berg belongs to is underpaid and corrupt and ill equipped to deal with the growing Brown Shirt menace, young drunken hooligans who are manipulated by Hitler and muder and attack 'degenerates'. Lustmord — the joy of murder. The terrifying concept seems apt for the brutal slaying of a beautiful young society wife dumped in the vast English Garden. Homicide inspector Axel Berg is horrified by the crime...and disturbed by the artful arrangement of the victim's clothes and hair — a madman's portrait of death. Berg's superiors demand quick answers and a quick arrest: a vagrant, the woman's husband, anyone who can be demonized will do. When a second body is discovered, the city erupts into panic, the unrest fomented by the wild-eyed, hate-mongering Austrian Adolf Hitler and his Brownshirt party of young thugs. Berg can trust no one as he relentlessly hunts a ruthless killer, dodging faceless enemies and back-alley intrigue, struggling to bring a fiend to justice before the country — and his life — veer straight into darkness.
A couple of years ago I reviewed BROTHER GRIMM by Craig Russell, interesting because it was published simultaneously in English and German, as, I think, at least one later book was.
A girl's body has turned up on a Hamburg beach with a note concealed in her hand. The note gives her name, that of a 13 year old who went missing on her way home from school 3 years earlier. But it is not the same girl. Fabel has worked this out even before her parents come to identify the body and confirm his suspicions. Then two more bodies turn up, posed at a picnic table in the woods, also with notes concealed in their hands. The notes say Hansel and Gretel, in the same tiny, obsessively neat writing.
For English-language readers BROTHER GRIMM is basically a police procedural in a different setting. There are a few differences in the police hierarchy and methods but basically I think this is a book that could be set anywhere. Having said that, great pains have been taken to relate to the German audience. The book was released simultaneously in English and as a German translation. The setting of BROTHER GRIMM is very Germanic. I don't think I will ever look at Grimm's fairy tales in quite the same way again. It helps if the reader has a passing knowledge of the best-known of them.
And I have to mention.. one of the first books I ever wrote a 'proper' review for
THE MASK OF ATREUS by A.J. Hartley
There are really two beginning points for this thriller/mystery. In the dying days of World War Two, a German tank convoy escorting a truck is intercepted by an American platoon. In the skirmish that follows most of the Germans are killed and the rest flee leaving the truck behind. Inside the truck is a single crate stencilled with the German eagle and swastika. The contents of this crate are pivotal to the rest of the story. The story then leaps to the present day. At 3 am Deborah Miller, curator of a small private museum in Atlanta, Georgia, is awoken by her third strange phone call for the night. This one sends her hurrying back to the museum which she had left only just after midnight after a successful promotional evening. At the museum, in a room she did not even know existed, she finds the body of Richard Dixon, her mentor and the museum's founder and director. On the shelves around the room is a treasure trove of what seem to be genuine Mycenaean antiquities. The reader unravels the mystery, essentially the story of why Richard was killed, in THE MASK OF ATREUS through Deborah's eyes, travelling to Greece and Russia, patching together an incredible story.
So what can you add to my TBF (to be found) list? Not that I need more to read, you understand.
Showing posts with label detection. Show all posts
Showing posts with label detection. Show all posts
12 January 2008
11 January 2008
Missing Children
I am currently reading THE PURE IN HEART by Susan Hill. #2 in the Simon Serrailler series. The first real case in the book is the apparent kidnapping of a 9 year old boy as he stands on the footpath outside his home waiting for his ride to school.
And as Serrailler's assistant Detective Sergeant Nathan Coates thinks..
What can it be like to go out one morning and everything's hunky-dory, and at the end of the day, wham, your kid's gone, just... gone? Jesus.
Lying in bed last night, I started thinking about books that I've read that tackled this theme. A mental trawl of my database brought up these..
INVOLUNTARY WITNESS by Gianrico Carofiglio
Not an optimistic one because the boy is found dead and so the book is about the attempt to lay the blame.
A Senegalese peddlar working on the beaches of Bari in southern Italy has been accused of the murder of a young boy, whose body was found down a well 12 kilometers away. Guido Guerrieri, Counsel for the Defence, originally advises the accused to opt for a "short trial", a method in which the accused basically pleads guilty and gets a reduced sentence because of that. But the accused says he is not guilty and although he thinks the case is hopeless Guido also believes him. This novel is an Italian prize winner, translated into English. It is Carofiglio's debut novel, won a number of literary awards, and also already become the basis for an Italian TV series. Very different view of Italian justice system to Donna Leon. But then Bari is not Venice.
Then of course IN THE WOODS by Tana French
Three 12 years olds are playing in the woods at Knocknaree and then there is one. The other two vanish and the remaining child Adam Ryan is in a catatonic state and remembers nothing. Life goes on but the two children are never found and Adam Ryan becomes detective Rob Ryan. Twenty years on the woods are to be demolished to make way for a motorway. When protesters assert that the woods are of archaelogical significance they are given time to excavate and to retrieve anything of value. Then the body of a young girl is found near the excavation site, and Rob Ryan is part of the team assigned the case. He knows he should declare his conflict of interest but he doesn't. Gradually as the investigation develops the layers of his memory onion peel back and he gets closer to the truth. A strong debut novel that tackles an idea others have tackled before
BLACK SECONDS by Karin Fossum
Helga Joner has often thought that her nine year old daughter Ida is too good to be true, too good to last. The disappearance of a child is every parent’s worst nightmare. When Ida fails to arrive home from the shop, Helga feels she had been rehearsing the moment for years. First Helga and her sister Ruth scour the streets where they might find Ida, without success, and then they ring the police. Helga feels that somehow she has tempted fate, setting off an inevitable chain of events.
When Inspector Konrad Sejer arrives at her house, Helga feels instinctively that he will find Ida. As time passes Sejer becomes concerned that no trace has been found of Ida or the bright yellow bicycle she rode to the shop. One hundred and fifty volunteers search for Ida without success. Eight days later there are still no clues, the search is to be scaled down, and a chance comment by Helga to Sejer gives them something new to work on.
from a couple of years back in my reading
NO TRACE by Barry Maitland
In this work Maitland turns his focus on an artistic community where one of the leading artists, Gabriel Rudd, has won England’s most controversial art awards, the Turner Prize, with a painting he completed after the death of his wife. Now his daughter has disappeared, and two other young girls have also gone missing at the same time. Rudd begins to work on an art installation based on the grief he is experiencing for his lost daughter Tracey.
and ON BEULAH HEIGHT by Reginald Hill
Andy Dalziel's worst case was when 3 little girls went missing at Dendale, a small community where a dam was being built. They were never found and Benny Lightfoot, the man suspected of their disappearance, disappeared without trace too. The valley was flooded and the crime was never solved. Most of the families moved into a neighbouring valley, and now, 15 years on, another little girl has gone missing. But little Betsy Lightfoot had survived 15 years ago, and now she has come back to the area. She was 7 years old when Dendale was drowned. And it seems too that Benny is back.
And as Serrailler's assistant Detective Sergeant Nathan Coates thinks..
What can it be like to go out one morning and everything's hunky-dory, and at the end of the day, wham, your kid's gone, just... gone? Jesus.
Lying in bed last night, I started thinking about books that I've read that tackled this theme. A mental trawl of my database brought up these..
INVOLUNTARY WITNESS by Gianrico Carofiglio
Not an optimistic one because the boy is found dead and so the book is about the attempt to lay the blame.
A Senegalese peddlar working on the beaches of Bari in southern Italy has been accused of the murder of a young boy, whose body was found down a well 12 kilometers away. Guido Guerrieri, Counsel for the Defence, originally advises the accused to opt for a "short trial", a method in which the accused basically pleads guilty and gets a reduced sentence because of that. But the accused says he is not guilty and although he thinks the case is hopeless Guido also believes him. This novel is an Italian prize winner, translated into English. It is Carofiglio's debut novel, won a number of literary awards, and also already become the basis for an Italian TV series. Very different view of Italian justice system to Donna Leon. But then Bari is not Venice.
Then of course IN THE WOODS by Tana French
Three 12 years olds are playing in the woods at Knocknaree and then there is one. The other two vanish and the remaining child Adam Ryan is in a catatonic state and remembers nothing. Life goes on but the two children are never found and Adam Ryan becomes detective Rob Ryan. Twenty years on the woods are to be demolished to make way for a motorway. When protesters assert that the woods are of archaelogical significance they are given time to excavate and to retrieve anything of value. Then the body of a young girl is found near the excavation site, and Rob Ryan is part of the team assigned the case. He knows he should declare his conflict of interest but he doesn't. Gradually as the investigation develops the layers of his memory onion peel back and he gets closer to the truth. A strong debut novel that tackles an idea others have tackled before
BLACK SECONDS by Karin Fossum
Helga Joner has often thought that her nine year old daughter Ida is too good to be true, too good to last. The disappearance of a child is every parent’s worst nightmare. When Ida fails to arrive home from the shop, Helga feels she had been rehearsing the moment for years. First Helga and her sister Ruth scour the streets where they might find Ida, without success, and then they ring the police. Helga feels that somehow she has tempted fate, setting off an inevitable chain of events.
When Inspector Konrad Sejer arrives at her house, Helga feels instinctively that he will find Ida. As time passes Sejer becomes concerned that no trace has been found of Ida or the bright yellow bicycle she rode to the shop. One hundred and fifty volunteers search for Ida without success. Eight days later there are still no clues, the search is to be scaled down, and a chance comment by Helga to Sejer gives them something new to work on.
from a couple of years back in my reading
NO TRACE by Barry Maitland
In this work Maitland turns his focus on an artistic community where one of the leading artists, Gabriel Rudd, has won England’s most controversial art awards, the Turner Prize, with a painting he completed after the death of his wife. Now his daughter has disappeared, and two other young girls have also gone missing at the same time. Rudd begins to work on an art installation based on the grief he is experiencing for his lost daughter Tracey.
and ON BEULAH HEIGHT by Reginald Hill
Andy Dalziel's worst case was when 3 little girls went missing at Dendale, a small community where a dam was being built. They were never found and Benny Lightfoot, the man suspected of their disappearance, disappeared without trace too. The valley was flooded and the crime was never solved. Most of the families moved into a neighbouring valley, and now, 15 years on, another little girl has gone missing. But little Betsy Lightfoot had survived 15 years ago, and now she has come back to the area. She was 7 years old when Dendale was drowned. And it seems too that Benny is back.
9 January 2008
Peter Temple comes out tops
If you add the oz_mystery readers best reads for 2006 and 2007 together an interesting picture emerges
The top 5 are
BROKEN SHORE (THE), Peter Temple, 4+6
DIAMOND DOVE, Adrian Hyland, 5
DEVIL'S STAR (THE), Jo Nesbo, 3+2
RAVEN BLACK, Ann Cleeves, 1+3
ABOVE SUSPICION, Lynda La Plante, 4
Top by a long way is THE BROKEN SHORE with which Peter Temple has won the Ned Kelly award for Best Novel in 2006, and then the 2007 CWA Duncan Lawrie Award
The top 5 are
BROKEN SHORE (THE), Peter Temple, 4+6
DIAMOND DOVE, Adrian Hyland, 5
DEVIL'S STAR (THE), Jo Nesbo, 3+2
RAVEN BLACK, Ann Cleeves, 1+3
ABOVE SUSPICION, Lynda La Plante, 4
Top by a long way is THE BROKEN SHORE with which Peter Temple has won the Ned Kelly award for Best Novel in 2006, and then the 2007 CWA Duncan Lawrie Award
oz_mystery_readers best for 2007
oz_mystery_readers follow the same practice as many online groups of asking members to submit their 10 or so best reads for the year. The results are than collated to give members books to look out for.
Here is the short list for 2007 of those that were mentioned more than once.
In all 112 titles were submitted by a dozen or so list members
The numbers after the authors names indicate the number of times the title occurred
*** indicate Australian authors
Here is the short list for 2007 of those that were mentioned more than once.
In all 112 titles were submitted by a dozen or so list members
The numbers after the authors names indicate the number of times the title occurred
*** indicate Australian authors
*** DIAMOND DOVE, Adrian Hyland, 5
ABOVE SUSPICION, Lynda La Plante, 4
*** BROKEN SHORE (THE), Peter Temple, 4
*** CROOK AS ROOKWOOD, Chris Nyst, 3
DEATH OF DALZIEL (THE), Reginald Hill, 3
DEVIL'S STAR (THE), Jo Nesbo, 3
*** BODY COUNT, P. D. Martin, 2
EXIT MUSIC, Ian Rankin, 2
HOUSE SITTER (THE), Peter Lovesey, 2
*** NIGHT FERRY (THE), Michael Robotham, 2
PRIEST, Ken Bruen, 2
REDBREAST (THE), Jo Nesbo, 2
SILENCE OF THE GRAVE, Arnaldur Indridason, 2
TIN ROOF BLOW DOWN (THE), James Lee Burke, 2
VOICES, Arnaldur Indridason, 2
WOODS (THE), Harlan Coben, 2
Some authors were mentioned more than once too
- more than one title that is
- more than one title that is
==============================
Alexander McCall Smith
Arnaldur Indridason
*** Brian Kavanagh
Colin Watson
Giles Blunt
Hakan Nesser
Harlan Coben
Karin Fossum
Ken Bruen
Louise Penny
Lynda La Plante
Peter Lovesey
*** Shane Maloney
Tess Gerritsen
Thomas H. Cook
8 January 2008
John Connor
My second book for 2008. This time I listened rather than read.
I enjoy well read unabridged mysteries and thrillers on CDs. They usually take me some time to get through because I only listen as I am driving to and from work, about 20 minutes each way. But I decided this 10 CD set, 12 hours of it, was taking too long. I began it before Christmas. So tonight I listened to the final 2 hours through my computer's CD player.
This one was PHOENIX by John Connor, the first in Karen Sharpe series.
When her boss and a female informant are found murdered on the moors in the Pennines, Detective Constable Karen Sharpe realises she should be dead too. But for an anniversary she was observing at home alone, she would have been with them. The deaths have all the hallmarks of a drugs killing but Karen is pretty sure that there is more to it than that. What were they doing out on the moors? Last time she had seen them they were drinking in a hotel.
Detective Chief Superintendent Munro realises he needs Karen on his investigation team despite her close connections to the case. But he doesn't know what to make of her and she is difficult to control, not a team member at all.
And in her past Karen has a dark secret, something that surfaces annually, for Karen Sharpe is not who she seems. Half way through this story, just when you think all the riddles have been solved, you realise that you are only half way there. Murder investigation becomes strong, rapidly moving thriller. What Karen Sharpe did eight years before comes as a series of staggering surprises. Strongly read by Maggie Mash.
I was surprised to find out that this is the beginning of a series. I didn't expect to meet Karen Sharpe again. So I'll read another and Maggie Mash's voice will stay with me for a while yet.
1. PHOENIX (2003)
2. PLAYROOM (2004)
3. A CHILD'S GAME (2006)
4. FALLING (2007)
Once again, this won't survive to be on my best reads for 2008 but it will stay in my top 10 for a couple of months. The rate I am going, I'll be lucky to read 10 books in 2 months. :-)
I enjoy well read unabridged mysteries and thrillers on CDs. They usually take me some time to get through because I only listen as I am driving to and from work, about 20 minutes each way. But I decided this 10 CD set, 12 hours of it, was taking too long. I began it before Christmas. So tonight I listened to the final 2 hours through my computer's CD player.
This one was PHOENIX by John Connor, the first in Karen Sharpe series.
When her boss and a female informant are found murdered on the moors in the Pennines, Detective Constable Karen Sharpe realises she should be dead too. But for an anniversary she was observing at home alone, she would have been with them. The deaths have all the hallmarks of a drugs killing but Karen is pretty sure that there is more to it than that. What were they doing out on the moors? Last time she had seen them they were drinking in a hotel.
Detective Chief Superintendent Munro realises he needs Karen on his investigation team despite her close connections to the case. But he doesn't know what to make of her and she is difficult to control, not a team member at all.
And in her past Karen has a dark secret, something that surfaces annually, for Karen Sharpe is not who she seems. Half way through this story, just when you think all the riddles have been solved, you realise that you are only half way there. Murder investigation becomes strong, rapidly moving thriller. What Karen Sharpe did eight years before comes as a series of staggering surprises. Strongly read by Maggie Mash.
I was surprised to find out that this is the beginning of a series. I didn't expect to meet Karen Sharpe again. So I'll read another and Maggie Mash's voice will stay with me for a while yet.
1. PHOENIX (2003)
2. PLAYROOM (2004)
3. A CHILD'S GAME (2006)
4. FALLING (2007)
Once again, this won't survive to be on my best reads for 2008 but it will stay in my top 10 for a couple of months. The rate I am going, I'll be lucky to read 10 books in 2 months. :-)
Susan Hill
Finally I've managed to get around to finishing reading the first book for 2008. I'd heard a lot of good things about this book, and while it won't be my best read for 2008, it will be in my top 10 for a while.
THE VARIOUS HAUNTS OF MEN by Susan Hill
Detective Sergeant Freya Graffham has arrived in the small cathedral town of Lafferton to join DCI Simon Serrailler's team. She makes new friends in the town rather more easily than she expected, especially through Serrailler's mother who is a local social identity, and his sister, one of the town's doctors.
Angela Randall, a woman in her fifties has disappeared without trace while out walking on the Hill in the fog. Halfway up the Hill loom the Wern Stones, ancient standing stones, that loom "like three witches squatting around a cauldron". There is nothing to link this disappearance with any other case it seems, but there is also a young man who disappeared on the Hill while out jogging, and then there is Jim William's vanished dog Skippy. Simon Serailler's sister, Dr. Cat Deerborn has concerns of her own: a friend who has what seems to be terminal cancer, and then some alternative medicine practitioners whose practices can be downright dangerous.
I loved the way this book is structured: several voices clamouring for the reader's attention; new characters to be explored; and strands that don't quite come together until towards the end. #1 in the Simon Serrailler series.
I do like to start a series at the beginning and read them in order.
I feel excited at prospect of reading the next two:
THE PURE IN HEART (2005)
THE RISK OF DARKNESS (2006)
I have both lurking among the 20+ library books waiting on my shelves.
And then apparently there are two more to be published this year
http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/h/susan-hill/
THE VARIOUS HAUNTS OF MEN by Susan Hill
Detective Sergeant Freya Graffham has arrived in the small cathedral town of Lafferton to join DCI Simon Serrailler's team. She makes new friends in the town rather more easily than she expected, especially through Serrailler's mother who is a local social identity, and his sister, one of the town's doctors.
Angela Randall, a woman in her fifties has disappeared without trace while out walking on the Hill in the fog. Halfway up the Hill loom the Wern Stones, ancient standing stones, that loom "like three witches squatting around a cauldron". There is nothing to link this disappearance with any other case it seems, but there is also a young man who disappeared on the Hill while out jogging, and then there is Jim William's vanished dog Skippy. Simon Serailler's sister, Dr. Cat Deerborn has concerns of her own: a friend who has what seems to be terminal cancer, and then some alternative medicine practitioners whose practices can be downright dangerous.
I loved the way this book is structured: several voices clamouring for the reader's attention; new characters to be explored; and strands that don't quite come together until towards the end. #1 in the Simon Serrailler series.
I do like to start a series at the beginning and read them in order.
I feel excited at prospect of reading the next two:
THE PURE IN HEART (2005)
THE RISK OF DARKNESS (2006)
I have both lurking among the 20+ library books waiting on my shelves.
And then apparently there are two more to be published this year
http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/h/susan-hill/
7 January 2008
The world grows smaller
Yesterday I was struck by how much smaller the world has become. My daughter and son-in-law have recently moved to Abu Dhabi, yet there she was to chat with through Live Messenger. In the morning I had already had a chat session with members of another online reading group and there were people from US, Canada, Germany and Australia. Over 30 years has passed since I trekked from Kathmandhu to London on an overland bus, making many good friends. Recently one of them and I have re-discovered each other through FaceBook.
But nowhere is the shrinking of the world so clearly illustrated as in the choice of international authors, particularly in the crime and mystery fiction genre, now available to us in translated paperbacks.
Apart from a constant diet of Australian, British, Canadian and American authors, last year I read books by
Guillermo Martinez
Henning Mankell
Natsuo Kirino
Arnaldur Indridason
Helene Tursten
Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo
Karin Fossum
Gianrico Carofiglio
and the list of new books by non-English authors grows annually as publishers discover best-sellers and prize winners in other languages.
But nowhere is the shrinking of the world so clearly illustrated as in the choice of international authors, particularly in the crime and mystery fiction genre, now available to us in translated paperbacks.
Apart from a constant diet of Australian, British, Canadian and American authors, last year I read books by
Guillermo Martinez
Henning Mankell
Natsuo Kirino
Arnaldur Indridason
Helene Tursten
Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo
Karin Fossum
Gianrico Carofiglio
and the list of new books by non-English authors grows annually as publishers discover best-sellers and prize winners in other languages.
6 January 2008
Detective teams and Romantic involvement
This post is inspired by my current read, THE VARIOUS HAUNTS OF MEN by Susan Hill.
It is labelled as a Simon Serrailler crime novel - in fact it is the first in the series.
Detective Sergeant Freya Graffham has recently joined D. I. Simon Serrailler's team in the cathedral town of Lafferton and has realised that she has (almost at first sight) fallen in love with him. She has found out through a mutual friend that he has this effect on all women, and despite apparently extending friendship, never commits himself to romantic involvement. I still have about 200 pages to go, so am now wondering how Freya is going to resolve this. It is the last thing she needs at the start of her career.
The second novel that springs to mind is PHOENIX by John Connor. I am actually listening to it on CD and am about half way through. D.C. Karen Sharpe has newly come to the Pennines from London and joined a team being headed by D.C.S John Munro. Munro has taken up waiting outside Karen's house for her to come home late at night. He is obviously very attracted to her and she to him. They are sharing confidences but any relationship is in early days. Romantic involvement with him seems to be about the last thing she needs. She seems to have some deep dark secret in her past which is likely to affect any relationship she has.
Now the other example I have in my recent reading is CLEAN CUT by Lynda la Plante. This is the third in the Anna Travis series. Anna's romantic involvement with D.C.I James Langton began early on in ABOVE SUSPICION, the first in the series, continued in the second THE RED DAHLIA, and by CLEAN CUT they are living together, although they have not been working on the same cases for about 12 months.
When Langton is horrifically injured in a murder arrest that goes wrong, Anna becomes vital to his recovery. While Langton is still in hospital, Anna is assigned to a new case where a librarian is found dead by her twelve year old daughter returning from school. The suspect in this case is yet another violent rapist released from prison far too early. And then, perhaps a little predictably, the case Anna is working on and the one Langton was working on when he was attacked become linked. This a long and complex novel, with an ending that ensures there will be yet another sequel.
What other examples can you think of?
What is leading modern writers to include this sort of element in their plots?
Is it to make the point that romantic/sexual involvement between members of a team can impair sound decision-making? Surely we already knew that.
Or, and this may just be the cynic in me speaking, is it to make the crime fiction genre more palatable/attractive to those who like some romance/spice in their reading?
My other question relates to whether the author is assuming that readers will consume these books in order. Perhaps they are aiming at capturing an audience and then working within the framework that that audience enjoys.
It is labelled as a Simon Serrailler crime novel - in fact it is the first in the series.
Detective Sergeant Freya Graffham has recently joined D. I. Simon Serrailler's team in the cathedral town of Lafferton and has realised that she has (almost at first sight) fallen in love with him. She has found out through a mutual friend that he has this effect on all women, and despite apparently extending friendship, never commits himself to romantic involvement. I still have about 200 pages to go, so am now wondering how Freya is going to resolve this. It is the last thing she needs at the start of her career.
The second novel that springs to mind is PHOENIX by John Connor. I am actually listening to it on CD and am about half way through. D.C. Karen Sharpe has newly come to the Pennines from London and joined a team being headed by D.C.S John Munro. Munro has taken up waiting outside Karen's house for her to come home late at night. He is obviously very attracted to her and she to him. They are sharing confidences but any relationship is in early days. Romantic involvement with him seems to be about the last thing she needs. She seems to have some deep dark secret in her past which is likely to affect any relationship she has.
Now the other example I have in my recent reading is CLEAN CUT by Lynda la Plante. This is the third in the Anna Travis series. Anna's romantic involvement with D.C.I James Langton began early on in ABOVE SUSPICION, the first in the series, continued in the second THE RED DAHLIA, and by CLEAN CUT they are living together, although they have not been working on the same cases for about 12 months.
When Langton is horrifically injured in a murder arrest that goes wrong, Anna becomes vital to his recovery. While Langton is still in hospital, Anna is assigned to a new case where a librarian is found dead by her twelve year old daughter returning from school. The suspect in this case is yet another violent rapist released from prison far too early. And then, perhaps a little predictably, the case Anna is working on and the one Langton was working on when he was attacked become linked. This a long and complex novel, with an ending that ensures there will be yet another sequel.
What other examples can you think of?
What is leading modern writers to include this sort of element in their plots?
Is it to make the point that romantic/sexual involvement between members of a team can impair sound decision-making? Surely we already knew that.
Or, and this may just be the cynic in me speaking, is it to make the crime fiction genre more palatable/attractive to those who like some romance/spice in their reading?
My other question relates to whether the author is assuming that readers will consume these books in order. Perhaps they are aiming at capturing an audience and then working within the framework that that audience enjoys.
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