Library Limelights 3

I can scarcely keep up with myself.

Pamela Callow. Indefensible. Toronto: Mira Books, 2011.

A Canadian author new to me, and the Halifax locale looked pleasing; a token of my half-assed support for Canadian authors. She’s no Miriam Toews but then she wasn’t trying to be. Good enough mystery story but about fifty pages of repetitive ruminations by the lead characters could have been chopped. The two-dimensional characters inspire no sympathy or empathy. I almost bailed out a few times, can’t put my finger on the clumsy feel of it.

Michael Connolly. The Drop. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2011.

Bosch is back, slightly the worse for wear. The Job and cynicism are wearing him down. He treats his cop partner like crap, causing this faithful fan some disapproving tremors. Nevertheless he's more comfortable now with his father-role. The detection is as good as usual; stayed up way too late as the climax approached. No sign of his half-brother, the Lincoln Lawyer, in this one.

Jussi Adler-Olsen. The Keeper of Lost Causes. New York: Dutton, 2011.

Since every recent Scandinavian detective novelist is touted as the new Steig Larssen, one tries to keep up despite a big helping of cynicism over the publisher's hyperbole. Adler-Olsen takes us to Denmark and the world's laziest homicide deputy detective superintendent. Comical doings in Detective Mørck's office offset the grim situation we hope he will resolve. The American publication date followed several years waiting for the English translation—at least two more to come in this series. Thumbs up for Mørck and his mysterious assistant, Assad. Someone please translate the next two books?

On a mild Occupy sit-in (Copenhagen):

“Back when Carl and his friends were young, they had sat here in T-shirts, looking like daddy longlegs. Today the collective corpulence was twenty times greater. Now it was an excessively self-satisfied populace that came out to protest. The government had given them their opium: cheap cigarettes, cheap booze, and all kinds of other shit. If these people sitting on the grass disagreed with the government, the problem was only temporary. Their average lifespan was decreasing fast, and soon there wouldn't be anybody left to get upset over having to watch healthier people's sporting feats on Danish TV.

Oh yes, the situation was well under control.”