Novels No. 72

 

Jo Nesbo. Blood Ties. Toronto: Random House Canada, 2024.

Possibly Nesbo has written the most dynamic novel, ever, of corruption galore. Corrupt individuals, yet human. Roy Opgard narrates his journey approaching middle age; he and his brother Carl have always been inextricably close. Through wheeling and dealing, constructing an impressive mansion, and plans to expand his hotel, Carl considers himself the most important man in a Norwegian town called Os. Roy intends to build an amusement park with the world's biggest roller-coaster. Much business goes on here, enough to make my head swim over loans and mortgages and shareholders and percentages. Blackmail is often the leverage for clinching many financial deals, sometimes a double-cross included. By his own count, Roy has killed seven people without detection, although the circumstances vary. Sheriff Kurt Olsen is working hard on his suspicions of several car crashes in the mountains.

Despite the nefarious activity, Roy's position as narrator makes him a sympathetic figure. So too thinks the hotel's new marketing manager Natalie, to Roy's great pleasure. Or did he ever get over his first love, Shannon, the brilliant architect once married to Carl? Natalie has her own guilty needs. Domestic abuse is a trigger for Roy's anger ‒ it started his whole sorry sequence ‒ so often employed to protect Carl; Roy's character is adroitly nuanced as he begins to weigh his responsibilities, constantly questioning his choices. A full cast of characters pushes one event after another in swift succession while the town gossips chorus relentlessly on whose finger is in whose pie. Typical Nesbo: kinda wild but totally compelling in a train wreck kind of way.

Fragments

▪ In my own mind, in my own head, I'm a hick, nothing but a fucking peasant. A dyslexic and socially dysfunctional loner with no more education and no more refinement than I've been able to pick up for myself in a remote mountain village. (10)

▪ Rita smiled. "Do you want to own more of Os than your brother? Is that it?" (33)

▪ "Just a shame for you that the statute of limitations was repealed. It means I'm going to be after you both till the day you die." (44)

▪ Because when you realize that what you do, and what you are, are without value, then perhaps you're better off putting a bullet through your forehead. (84)

▪ "That loan is for the amusement park, Carl. You must understand that I can't use it to get you out of a mess." (113)

▪ "That's what I recognized in your father. The shame. It weighed on him. Like a backpack filled with rocks." (119)

▪ "Either you nip out that bullet or I'll take a pair of tweezers at home, heat them up with a lighter and do it myself." (241)

▪ "Some family trees spread sickness. They should've been cut down a long time ago." (263)

▪ "You steal my hotel and you've got the cheek to claim you're doing me a favor." (295)

▪ "I know how you feel," said Carl. "But this makes us even and we can make a fresh start. Team Opgard. What d'you say?" (301)

Claire Cameron. How to Survive a Bear Attack. Toronto: Alfred A. Knopf Canada, 2025.

Words to describe this memoir almost fail me. First, it's from the talented author of bestselling The Last Neanderthal (loved it) and previous novels. Secondly, Claire is the daughter of a longtime friend of mine. Thirdly, the story has to tell itself: a rare but fatal experience for some island campers and a personal journey to solve the mystery. Algonquin Park, a determined cancer survivor, and a crime investigation. I'm not enamoured of bears, nor probably are most people, but bear is half this story. Cameron's knowledge of the natural environment is boundless. Being active outdoors—camp counsellor, guiding, adventuring—was instrumental in healing the wound of her father's premature death. The dad who told her Old English stories of Beowulf and kenning words.

Surely Cameron herself rivals the special knowledge of bears by the experts she quotes. Off and on, it seems, for years she puzzled on the atypical behaviour of a black bear that killed two campers. Her investigation took on full shape after her diagnosis of the same cancer ‒ a genetic mutation ‒ that killed her father. Being outdoors, being anywhere in UV rays, was to be avoided now as much as possible. She gets her answers as to why this was a rare bear attack and in doing so, learned to be alive.

Fragments

▪ I still missed my dad. My grief could be sharp, but the wilderness held so many ways to divert my attention. (21)

▪ He mostly scavenged and foraged, but he craved protein because it added bulk to his muscles like nothing else could. He always had an eye out for meat. (38)

▪ All these tools mean the bear can detect human food or our bodies from up to twenty miles away. (87)

▪ I'd been preparing to fight a bear when the thing that would most likely kill me—my own DNA—had been lurking in a place much closer. (123)

▪ If a cache of meat is large enough, bears have been observed guarding it for five days or longer. (148)

▪ I was tough and could weather hard things. What I couldn't face was the 50 percent chance that I had passed the mutation on to my sons. (187)

▪ I'd been so caught up in dying that I'd forgotten something more important. I needed to focus on being alive. (189)

▪ The attack happened because the bear made a decision—he had taken risks that paid off in the past. (253)

Emma C. Wells. This Girl's a Killer. USA: Poisoned Pen Press/Sourcebooks, 2024.

Here's a busy, confident, outspoken pharmaceutical sales rep called Cordelia Black. Her chosen family is her best friend Diane and Diane's child Samantha. Behind the scenes, Cordelia is skimming off a few drugs here and there, referring to her real "work" and her "work studio." Her work is killing bad men and selling the corpses to a bodysnatcher for parts. So far she's getting away with it. I believe it's all meant to be taken lightly as satire. Cordelia's not really likeable, being glib and smart-ass with no redeeming qualities. In two early scenes with men she's not met before, she deliberately provokes and antagonizes them.

I stopped around page 70, that's enough. I've read my share of psycho stories where by and large they've been well-researched and the disorders comprehensible. But here, the protagonist is at odds with the author's contrived breeziness. Cordelia takes gleeful self-satisfaction in threatening and torturing human beings, justifying her pleasure in it by assuring herself it's for the greater good: ridding the world of sadistic, predatory men. We are not told of the equally(?) depraved acts they committed, for which she condemns them; it's already overkill. For me the entire atmosphere is poisoned by pretending there's something humorous about the concept and the character.