Library Limelights 148

Jussi Adler-Olsen. The Scarred Woman. USA: Random House Large Print, 2017.

Inspector Carl Morck of Department Q in Copenhagen doesn't make his appearance for many pages; instead we are introduced to the defeating life of a social worker who handles one idle, vain, devious welfare recipient after another. Anneli deplores these young women to the extent that she plans to kill them. Yup — secretly rid the world of ungrateful parasites. Morck is debating the similarities of a recent murder with one of his cold cases while his entire team worries about their deteriorating colleague Rose. Ultimately Morck faces five cases with complicated but tenuous connections. Then there are the internal police politics, how a steel mill operates, and a mashup of wartime atrocities.

The serious underlying social issues lie heavily on the tangled plot lines. Scars as per the title are psychological and they are deep. The chemistry between Morck and assistant Assad is not as engaging as usual. Rose's breakdown is horrifying in its intensity; rescuing her induces frantic page-turning. Apart from that, the story is not as magnetic, not as light-humoured, as expected from past books in this series — so many threads; some characters not satisfactorily defined. Not up to Adler-Olsen's normally sharp snuff.

One-liners:

It almost felt as if a liquid had spread in her brain, killing her cells, and that there were membranes growing on her senses. (160)

Why the hell hadn't they been more involved in Rose's life? (176)

The choking feeling was so strong that her heart was beating like a pneumatic drill to oxygenate her body. (340)

Job regrets:

Why hadn't she just studied economics like her father had recommended? She could have been sitting with all the crooks in the parliament, enjoying the perks of the job instead of being burdened with this mismatch of dysfunctional girls and women. They were like dirty water in a bath, and Anneli wanted to pull the plug! 

She had called four very well-dressed girls into a meeting today, all of whom had been unemployed for a long time. But instead of humility and basic ideas about how they might improve their situation, she was met with shameless demands for handouts from the public purse. (58)

Avoiding the pestering press:

"Have you taken a wrong turn?" asked Carl. "The toilets are down the corridor." 

"Ha-ha. No, Lars Bjorn has spoken so highly of you that we decided together that Station 3 would shadow Department Q and watch you at work for a few days. Just a small film crew of three men. Me, a cameraman, and a sound technician. Won't it be fun?" 

Carl glared and was about to give him a piece of his mind but thought better of it. Maybe this would present him with an opportunity for sabotage and Lars Bjorn would be sorry. 

"Yes, it sounds like fun." He nodded with his eyes fixed on the notes Marcus Jacobsen had given him and which were now scattered unread on his desk. "Actually, we're investigating a case that might interest you. A very current murder case that could be perfect for your program, and which I happen to think is connected to one of our cold cases." 

That caught his attention. (156)

Dozy drunk:

Carl turned toward the woman. "You wouldn't happen to have an extra key to your mother's apartment, would you, Birgit?" 

She huffed a couple of times, as if he was putting her to a lot of bother. They needed to hurry things along before she fell asleep. 

Then she suddenly lifted her head, answering with surprising clarity that she did because her mother was always losing her keys. She had once had ten sets cut, and there were still four sets in the drawer.She gave them a single set but insisted on seeing their ID first. When she had scrutinized Carl's, he passed it behind his back to Laursen so she would see the same one again. She seemed satisfied with this. She forgot about Assad. 

"Just one final thing, Birgit Zimmermann," said Carl when they were standing in the doorway. "Denise Zimmermann, is that a relative of yours?" 

She nodded joylessly. 

"A daughter?" asked Assad. 

She turned awkwardly toward him. 

"She isn't home," she said. "I haven't spoken with her since the funeral." (203-4)

Jane Harper. Force of Nature. Sydney, Australia: Macmillan, 2017.

Oz author Harper's deft hand at suspense continues since her debut with The Dry. A forward-looking company sends some of its executives and others into the wilderness for a three-day teambuilding retreat. The inexperienced women's team of five gets lost; when they do stumble out much later to the rendezvous point, battered and scared, Alice Russell is missing. Not only is she now the subject of a search-and-rescue operation, she was an important secret informer for finance investigator cop Aaron Falk. Falk and his partner Carmen Cooper had been expecting Alice to hand them contract documents that would incriminate the company owners. Interviews with the remaining four women give few clues to how or why Alice disappeared. Stories of a not-so-long-ago human predator in the bushland begin to circulate.

But we the readers witness the dynamics among the women as the timeline shifts back and forth. Two are twins, working in separate areas of the company. Two have known each other since school days; also, their teenage daughters have been schoolmates. Under pressure to find out if Alice had actually obtained the documents, Falk and Cooper wonder if their secret somehow caused her to go missing. Slowly they identify the personal tensions driving each woman, managing to prevent a suicide ~ no spoilers here. Falk is a character worth watching, and it's a great setting in both the Australian bush and the story lines.

One-liners:

It had seemed wrong, running away to the city with the scent of fear and suspicion lodged in their nostrils. (91)

A slip of the foot and suddenly she was weightless as she plunged through the branches. (134)

"It hasn't been easy around here lately, but at least I got to come home." (236)

Not the first disappearance:

" ... And there was a Kiwi couple about ten years ago. That was a bit of a strange one. Early thirties, fit, fairly experienced. It came out quite a lot later that they'd run up some heavy debts back in New Zealand." 

"So, what, you think they disappeared on purpose?" Falk said. 

"Not for me to say, mate. But it wouldn't have been the worst thing in the world for them to fall off the radar. 

Falk and Carmen exchanged a glance. 

"So what's happened this time?" Carmen said. 

"Alice Russell was in a group of five women dropped off at the start of Mirror Falls trail on Thursday arvo ‒ someone can show you that later if you want ‒ armed with your basic supplies. A map, tents, compass, some food. They were supposed to head pretty much due west, complete some of those bloody teambuilding obstacles during the day, camp for three nights." (33)

Painful past:

Carmen was saying something. 

"Sorry?" 

"I asked what your mum made of it all." 

"Oh. Nothing. She died when I was really young." 

Giving birth to him, in fact, but Falk avoided specifying that where possible. It seemed to make people very uncomfortable, and prompted some ‒ women, usually ‒ to look at him with an appraising glint in their eye. Were you worth it? He avoided asking himself the same question, but at times caught himself wondering what his mother's thoughts had been. He hoped not entirely full of regret. (92)

Unhappy colleagues:

After twenty minutes, Alice had unfolded her arms from across her chest and came over to help. She was obviously more cold than she was angry, Lauren thought. Jill and the twins had retreated into the cabin. Eventually Alice had cleared her throat. 

"I'm sorry about before." Her voice had been hard to hear. Alice's apologies, when they came at all, always managed to sound begrudging. 

"It's okay. We're all tired." Lauren had braced herself for another argument, but Alice had continued fiddling with the fire. She'd seemed distracted, putting sticks into small piles, then breaking them down to rebuild them. 

"Lauren, how's Rebecca?" 

The question had come out of nowhere and Lauren had blinked in surprise. (237-8)

Terry Hayes. I Am Pilgrim. Gale/Thorndike Press (large print), 2014.

Recommended at the Bouchercon Conference by Lindsay Barclay as an excellent book he's read this year. Hayes has a stellar resumé in TV/film scriptwriting (e.g. Dead Calm, Mad Max) so the impact of his first novel should be no surprise. Our protagonist who begins adult life as Scott Murdoch is muy sympatico, quite a writing triumph in characterizing a top-level espionage agent with a licence to kill. Just when he's retiring in his thirties from a dangerous world, he can't refuse the job to find the terrorist called Saracen. Most fascinating is the detailed, essential background that moulded both opponents. From a resort town in Turkey to the restoration workshops of the famed Uffizi Gallery to the wild mountains of Afghanistan, the reader is swept on an epic tide. I mean epic.

The trail begins with a murder in New York, developing into a massive threat against America ‒ the great Satan. At first, no-one knows what form the deadly attack will take. Be warned: scenes of waterboarding; but you might as well know that any country will stoop to torture for information. Hayes makes it all real whether it's medical technology or conflicting personal feelings. I can't recall a more original or intricate story-telling in this genre, ever. The old saw ~ I couldn't put it down ~ applies. And for some odd reason the title recalls for me the classic John Bunyan hymn. Despite a few logistical wonders and an "off of," it's a long, engaging, intelligent read. Just get it!

One-liners:

Edmund Burke said the problem with war is that it usually consumes the very things you're fighting for — justice, decency, humanity — and I couldn't help but think of how many times I had violated our nation's deepest values in order to protect them. (73)

Late one afternoon, a few weeks hence, I would be dragged back into the secret world and any hope I had of reaching for normal would be gone, probably forever. (97)

I hadn't jumped anything like eighteen feet through thin air since training, and even then I was more wooden spoon than gold medal. (576)

I returned to my car and under a single streetlamp in a dark corner of a Bulgarian town nobody ever heard of, surrounded by farmland and young Gypsy hookers, where I made a call to a number with an area code that didn't exist. (598)

Two-liners:

"It's a Zen story, of course," he said, smiling again. "The point is — if you want to be free, all you have to do is let go." (82)

"You know your trouble, Bill?" she said. "You're a porter — you see anyone with baggage and you've always got to help them." (265)

Fine deceptions:

To the world at large I tried to be what I thought Bill and Grace wanted and ended up being a stranger to them both. 

Sitting in that room outside Langley I realized that taking on another identity, masking so much of who you are and what you feel, was ideal training for the secret world. 

In the years that followed — the ones I spent secretly traveling the world under a score of different names — I have to say the best spooks I ever met had learned to live a double life long before they joined any agency. (35)

Final solution:

It wasn't comfortable to hear, but he had a right to say it — he was my case officer. 

"If for some reason it all goes to hell and you're certain they're going to work on you, don't wait too long — hit the eject button." 

"Take myself out, you mean?" 

He didn't answer, not directly. "Ever get to Afghanistan?" he wanted to know. 

"No, I didn't," I said. 

"Lucky you. I did a few years in Kabul — twice. The Brits were there a hundred years before us, but things weren't much different. The used to have a song they'd sing — 

When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains,And the women come out to cut up what remains,Just roll to your rifle and blow out your brainsAnd go to your God like a soldier." (390-1)

Pessimism or reality?

His voice was quieter, but it wasn't due to fatigue or old age, it was resignation. "You know, we've outsourced everything in this country. Do we actually make anything anymore? When you rely on imports for so much, there's no security. Not real security. Who the hell would bother with vectors? 

"I'm not an alarmist, I'm a scientist, and I'm saying you can forget them. It's contamination. Find something ordinary and send your pathogen in from overseas — the new version of the blanket. That's how a modern, intelligent enemy would do it." (395-6)

A unique command of English:

"Some man of idiot brain broke into a house belonging to a cop of the female," he continued. 

"Broke into a cop's house? Yeah — what an idiot brain." 

"Probably a Greek people," he said, absolutely serious. 

"When did this happen?" I asked, trying to act normal, just kicking it along. Everybody else was standing near the desk, and the manager and I were in our own private world. 

"Last of the evening, while you were having your relax with the dinner of the fine quality. Just before you walk in with your bloody—" 

He paused as a thought occurred to him, and though he tried to haul the sentence back he couldn't. 

"They say the killer ran from the boat place with a trail-of-the-blood injury," he said. He stopped and looked at me. (591-2)