Falling in love with a detective

Have you ever fallen in love with a literary creation? Had a character who suddenly came to life in your mind, and you find yourself thinking about them long after you've finished the book?

I don't mean that I hold conversations with the character! I mean, more like, this character has come alive for me. He has come out of the story, and I see him in my mind's eye, and I want to know more about him. Has that ever happened to you?

He's Harry Hole, the detective featured in Jo Nesbo's Norwegian detective series beginning with The Redbreast, and continuing through Nemesis, The Devil's Star, and The Redeemer. The latest one, The Snowman, has just been released here in Canada.

First of all I must give a lovely thank you to Kerrie over at Mysteries in Paradise. It was her review she gave of The Redeemer that brought Jo Nesbo to my attention. She gives reviews for all four books, which is when I realized I was really interested in this series. Yes, it took me six months to find The Redbreast! And oh, I am so glad I did. Because Harry Hole is a detective that over the course of the first book, I found myself falling ever so slowly in love with. In the back of my mind I saw him as I saw John Rebus of the Ian Rankin mysteries, middle-aged, about to retire, trying to ignore authority and drinking when not on the job. I deeply admire John Rebus and secretly hope many of our police forces have detectives like him. Harry, though, Harry is in his mid-thirties. Blonde. And a drunk. He's also got very good instincts and like the best detective characters in fiction, is willing to go against his bosses to follow what only he thinks is a trail.

I know it's shallow of me, but when I saw that description of him as tall and blonde, I swear my heart went thump! and then a most terrible crime is committed in the middle of the book, that left me crying out, actually crying so hard that I had to put the book down. I can't tell you more as it's a key plot point for the series, but it broke my heart. And when I picked the book up again and saw that it broke Harry's heart too, that is when I fell completely in love with him. Yes, I love Harry Hole. And so, even though I am in the midst of the Once Upon a Time Challenge, I have bought The Devil's Star already and am panicking because I can't find Nemesis and I must return to Harry and his story quickly!

I know, I didn't think that as I approached middle age, I could still fall for a pair of blue eyes and a slightly morose character, but apparently I will never be immune to this habit. I hope it never fades! Long live my love affair with books!

Hmm, I can see the more serious mystery readers among you wondering when I'll get to the mystery: Yes, my dear Gentle Readers, The Redbreast rated 4/5 for me. I found the plot a little confusing, and sorting who the killer is and names of the characters had me flipping back to check different sections. It's not the writing, nor the translation. It's because the mystery itself is based on something that happened during WW2, that we also witness, that is having repercussions now, and Harry has to sort through other people's memories and stories to find the truth. It's a very good mystery, that is resolved very satisfyingly. It has a most chilling killer, a most awful betrayal, and the prettiest love interest in a while.......I really enjoyed the premise of this story, and the various characters, especially Harry's budding romance (and no, I don't hate her! I'm happy he's happy!). I love the set-up at his police station, the various officers he has to contend with, and I really enjoyed the history of WW 2 from a Norwegian perspective, which I have only a very rudimentary knowledge of. Most of all, this mystery is about people, and what they will do to survive in the most extreme of situations. What makes people go on?

At Detectives Beyond Borders book blog, Peter Rozovsky has a two part interview with Jo Nesbo about Harry and the books so far; Part one and Part two. It was here that I learned that it's Harry""Heuleh" not 'Hole' pronounciation, and that Harry is a mock term for country bumpkin. And lots of other things, including that Norway thinks of itself somewhat in the same terms with its neighbor Sweden as we do here in Canada with the US. By the way, the translation by Don Bartlett is so good that I forgot I was reading a translated book. It read like it had been written in English. It is excellent.

Just so you know how much I like *have a book crush* on Harry Hole, I much prefer him and this book to The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, which I reviewed here last year. Hmm, I see even though I gave it 5/5 it didn't make it on my books of the year list!! How can I prefer a book I give 4/5 to one that's 5/5? Easy. The further I am away from The Girl with a Dragon Tattoo, the more I am aware that it's a story written at a very fast pace, that allows us to miss certain plot holes that now that I'm farther away, I have more difficulties with. I can also barely remember Mikael the hero, whereas Harry - well, we all know about Harry now! I think the difference is that if I don't read the sequel to Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, I wouldn't be dreadfully upset - I want to read it, but it's not important that I do. Whereas it's really important for me to keep reading the Harry Hole series. I must know what happens next, and to him.

So my dear Gentle Readers, have you ever fallen in love with a character? who makes you read every book featuring them?

Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is a translated mystery by Swedish writer Stieg Larsson. It is the first of a trilogy, featuring Mikael Blomquist and Lisbeth Salander. He is a journalist, she is a dysfunctional amoral young woman whose only skills lie in investigating people, since socializing comes so difficult for her. They do not know each other at the beginning of the book, although she has investigated him through her work.

The mystery involves the Vander family, a Swedish industrial family who have made their fortune over the 20th century in various ventures. One of the younger Vangers went missing 40 years ago, and Blomquist is hired by her grandfather to find out if she is dead, because every year since her disappearance, the same kind of gift she used to give her grandfather, arrives for his birthday and he thinks the killer is taunting him. He wants to know if she is dead, and how.

This is a gritty Swedish mystery. It is also a love story, and about all kinds of love, and about relationships of all kinds. The best mysteries I find always involve the human heart. This book has heart, and plenty. It is also different because part of the story involves Mikael's public humiliation when he is found guilty of slander in an article he wrote on a mafia-like financier, and how he comes to believe in himself again and redeem himself. Lisbeth is his key. They make a very unusual detective team, their skills balancing one another's; they are good for one another.

It is unputdownable, literally. I read through lunch, through several Smallville episodes (we are working our way through Season one again as the kids search for something to watch in the evenings), through dinners, any time I could get last weekend was spent with this book. In fact, I read it through much of Sunday afternoon, finishing it blissfully on the sofa, enjoying the luxury of reading while the kids were awake.

I can't say enough about the characters, because they seemed so real, so life-like, that I always had the sense the conversation continued off the page, that the characters had a life away from the page, and we just got to see part of it. I really enjoyed getting to know all the various characters, and the Vanger family are numerous and exquisitely drawn, as are Mikael's colleagues and other secondary characters. As Mikael earns Lisbeth's trust, we come to know her better too. This is the story of how Mikael finds redemption and Lisbeth learns to trust. And it's about how the truth is never quite what we think it is. Unusually too this is a mystery about ethics, and I enjoyed this angle very much also.

The translation is so good that the book reads like it had been written in English! Only occasionally does something with a foreign understanding of our language slip in.

The mystery? This is part of what made the book so thrilling to read; it was so hard to put the book down. The mystery is dark, and very very bad. There are several layers of darkness in this book. Very good, very creepy, funny in places, and a lovely sense of some of Sweden outside of Stockholm.

I really enjoyed this book. I had think it is deserving of all the acclaim it has received. Highly recommended; just make sure you have some free time before you pick it up! 5/5

Other reviews:
Fyrefly's Book Blog
Literate Housewife Review
S. Krishna's Books

Today's ghost story from Bluenose Ghosts:
Mrs McGillivray of Marion Bridge, told of another strange ocurrence.
"One evening many years ago Uncle Neil was visiting us and I went to the windo to draw the blinds. I stood there for a moment looking out at the night, when I saw a light moving up by the apple trees. I said, "I think you're having a visitor. It must be someone carrying a lantern.' He said, "I must go." (Cape Bretoners are always considerate of visitors and would not dream of being away when a call was made.) I said, "No, don't go. I'm making the tea." (That too is a Cape Breton custom; they always make tea for their guests.) But he felt he should return home.
The next time we met he looked at me strangely and said, "Was that a trick you played on me the other night when you saw a light going up to my place?" I said, "No, I wouldn't do such a thing when you were out ceilidhing (visiting). Mother and I were so glad to have you ." When he arrived home that night he found no visitor there, nor had any of the neighbours called. That was October. December his daughter died. It was probably a forerunner of her casket, for it had looked like a light carried by a person on a wagon."

Lost in The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, and Bluenose Ghosts

I was going to post about Carl's RIPIV challenge, but I am having problems narrowing down my list! I have 3 books at the library waiting to be picked up, and 15 books I pulled off my shelves!!! so tomorrow I will choose a list of what I'd like to read...I have begun reading one book, Bluenose Ghosts by Dr Helen Creighton.


This is a way cooler cover than the one I have. I have the first paperback edition from 1976 with a blue cover, and this edition was just released this year. If I'd seen this version, *sigh* I love the cover, suddenly I am afficted with booklust again even though I own a copy!!!

Helen Creighton was a Canadian folklorist, and collected Maritime (which means the east coast, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, PEI, and Newfoundland for us) folktales for over 50 years. This is organized into chapter headings such as : Forerunners, Phantom Ships and Sea Mysteries, Ghosts Helpful, Harmful and Headless, Haunted Houses and Poltergeists, and Ghosts as Animals and Lights. These kinds of stories, related by the living, about what they've experienced of the paranormal or unexplained, always give me delicious chills and half-frighten me just reading them. Lovely! One idea for the challenge that I have from this book, is to give a quote from it - hopefully every day through September and October, at the very least every time I post. So here is today's excerpt:

Through the tutelage of the Hartlan men I understood for the first time the meaning of a strange event in my own life that had occurred not too long before. This had happened just prior to the death of my eldest brother's wife. It had been a long illness, one that was very hard on both the patient and her family. We turned to anything that would distract the children, and one evening three of us sat in the drawing room playing cards. Suddenly we were interrupted by a loud knocking. We all heard it and stopped playing. I made the obvious remark, "There's someone at the door." "There can't be," Kathleen said. "There isn't any door on this side of the house." That was quite true, for the house was built on a hill, and that side, although on the first floor, was high above the ground. Nevertheless to satisfy me Barbara went to the nearest door. "There's no one there," she said in a tone which inferred this was no more than she expected. We were mystified but I forgot about it until the Hartlans took on my education. Then I realized that what we heard were the three death knocks. These are heard in certain houses or by certain people and they come as warning of approaching death. Whether my sister-in-law died on the day following the knocks or a few days later, none of us could recall. Kathleen remembers the incident, but Babara was too young. Certainly at the time we all heard it - three slow deliberate knocks that insisted on our attention.

I think I will copy a tale every time I post, throughout Carl's challenge! See if I can give you chills, dear Gentle Reader.

And, this gives me another book for the Canada 3 Book Challenge!

I am lost in The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson. I am on page 209, after starting the book yesterday morning on the bus. If I hadn't been so tired last night I would have read more, but I sadly fell asleep as soon as the children did! Such is my exciting life with young children. I am amazed at how good the translation is - it reads almost as if it were written in English first. Mikael Blomquist is a quiet intelligent hero, and Lisbeth Salander is an extraordinary character - she literally jumps off the page, alive, exciting, and dangerous. Blomquist has just begun his enquiry into the Vanger family. I love the island he is staying on, and that it's three hours north of Stockholm, so we get to visit some of the Swedish countryside/seaside again. It's also set in the depths of winter, so I will remember this when we reach 0 degrees Fahrenheit, that we aren't the only country that gets that cold! The storytelling is really good - I simply do not want to put this book down. We have heavy rain today, perfect reading whether - unfortunately, I am booked on a date with my daughter: we are going to see Walking With Dinosaurs late this morning, at the Palladium! It's playing for 4 days only, and our youngest child is a little too young - the dinosaurs are very large in this production, and loud, and didn't want to go - but Holly-Anne is so excited she leaps whenever she things about it!

How can you tell when you love books? when everything seems to take you away from reading one!! I love dinosaurs, I know I will thoroughly enjoy this show and day out with my daughter, but I resent that I can't just read my lovely book all day!