Harvill Secker

ITALIAN SHOES by Henning Mankell goes to prove, once again, that a really good writer is a really good writer, regardless of the genre, styling, or setting of the book.  Exploring the themes of estrangement, loss, fear and isolation ITALIAN SHOES isn't a crime fiction novel, it's a poignant, beautiful, sad, uplifting and evocative look at a man, his life, his mistakes and his redemption.

Frederick Welin is sixty-six years old, a former surgeon who has spent the last 12 years of his life, purposely exiled to the island home that his grandparents left him.  He has carved out a life with his dog, his cat, and occasional visits from Jansson the postman.  Woken just before dawn on a dark December morning, the sound of the "ice singing" evokes memories of his past - his father, his grandparents, his island, his professional and personal mistakes.

In a strange way he's not surprised then, when early in the New Year his past comes back to him in the form of a little old lady on a walker, making painful slow progress across the ice towards him.  He had loved Harriet Hörnfeldt intensely, and he'd abandoned her abruptly in 1966.  Dying of cancer, she has come looking for him.  She wants answers, she wants Frederick to finally make good on a promise he made all those years ago.  She wants to see the pool in the middle of the northern forest, where he talked of one joyous day with his father.

A road journey, in a beat up old car, in the harshest weather in decades, follows.  Unsure if he can even find the pond, the two embark not just on a quest for the place, but also, in a touchingly clumsy manner, some understanding of how they both got to where they are now jointly and separately in their lives.  They argue and bicker, rescue abandoned dogs, leave behind Frederick's own pets in a mildly distracting way, but find the pool.  Frederick nearly loses his own life on the ice in the pond, Harriet saves him, they move on in the journey, to somebody, somewhere... but more would be telling too much.

ITALIAN SHOES is a moving, tightly drawn portrait of a couple of people who could seem, on the face of it, emotionally shut down and withdrawn.  What Mankell does is draw you into the lives and thoughts of Frederick mostly, and Harriet to a slightly lesser degree as Frederick is forced to consider his past and how he wants his future to be.  What Mankell has done is written a central character who it is really easy to dislike, and yet...  A profoundly self-centred man, Frederick's life has been an odd combination of bravado and running away.  He's a faithless lover, a haphazard animal owner, a brilliant surgeon whose arrogance led him to make a profound mistake - which he ran away from.  A snoop, a bad-tempered man, a loner who regards the world with suspicion there's an awful lot to dislike about Frederick, and yet, Frederick is very human and his slow, hesitant steps to redemption, recompense, are profoundly touching in the main because of their simple humanity.  

Quiet, intense, low key almost ITALIAN SHOES is a beautiful, glorious tale of confrontation, human frailty and redemption.

One of the things that I particularly love about really good crime fiction is the way that it highlights the human condition - warts and all.  The thing I particularly love about Karin Fossum's books is the way that she explores the notion of the sad, the stupid, the moments in which things go awry.  To my mind, there's something profoundly more sobering about the notion of momentary mistake or misjudgement - rather than the automatic presumption of evil.

THE WATER'S EDGE tackles the difficult subject of the death of a child (and the disappearance of another).  When Reinhardt and Kristine Ris briefly pass an agitated man at the start of one of their regular walks, they have no idea that they will need to remember that man, his appearance, his state of mind and his vehicle.  They only realise that after they discover the body of a young boy in the woods, and Inspector Sejer starts asking a lot of questions.  The circumstances of the boy's death appear to be indicating a dreadful fate for the little boy, although the exact cause of death remains a mystery for quite a while.  Sejer's investigation takes on an even more sinister overtone when a second little boy disappears.

Whilst the death of the little boy and the search for his attacker is paramount to Sejer, there's some interesting psychological exploration going on in THE WATER'S EDGE.  Reinhardt and Kristine's marriage is a fragile affair to start off with, although Reinhardt's bull-headed stubbornness and self-involvement means he probably had no idea that Kristine has been having second thoughts about the relationship for a long time.  As Reinhardt's voyeuristic reaction to the discover of the little boy becomes more and more extreme, it simply confirms for Kristine that her marriage has been a mistake.  Add to that Reinhardt's refusal to have children and Kristine's increasing yearning for a child, and this is a relationship which is destined for problems.  The portrayal of the affects of the boy's death in such a personal thing as the relationship of the hapless discoverers of the body poignantly draws a picture of how profound and unexpected the affects of murder can be.

The other side of the story - the perpetrator is equally telling.  As strange as this may seem, there's some room for compassion for the perpetrator of these acts - these moments of misjudgement.  Lifelong damage, instant mistakes, the sad, the pathetic, the inexcusable, the stupid, the unwittingly cruel, shame and personal loathing.  It applies equally to the death of a poor little boy, his body laid out with some care and reverence in the woods, as it does to another little boy - overweight, over-indulged, different, ashamed and shamed against, who has gone missing.

THE CHALK CIRCLE MAN is the first book in the Adamsberg series by French writer Fred Vargas.  As they have been translated out of series order, fans of this fantastic set of books know Adamsberg well by now, without having had the chance to be in at the beginning so to speak.  This release gives the reader a unique opportunity.  For existing fans a chance to see where Adamsberg came from, and to consider a first book, in light of knowing how good the series has become.  For new readers a chance to start at the beginning if that is your preference.

The strange blue circles that start appearing overnight on the pavements of Paris, each circle enclosing a seemingly pointless and meaningless little article - cigarette lighters, badges, a hat, a doll's head, seem to most people to be a distraction.  The press take up the story with great amusement and psychiatrists and other experts are soon making pronouncements on what the artist is trying to say (or not!).  Adamsberg seems to be the only person who feels the stirring of malice and sees cruelty in the circles.  He is the only person who doesn't seem all that surprised when the body of a woman is found - her throat savagely cut, placed carefully in the middle of one of the chalk circles.

Adamsberg is not your traditional policeman.  He's unorthodox, seemingly permanently distracted, he's a thinker and an acute, but unobtrusive observer.  He's profoundly aware of human nature yet he often has flashes of insight which seem to have come from nowhere.  He constantly baffles his colleagues but his methods work and he's comfortable with who he is.

The thing a new reader to this series is going to get most clearly from THE CHALK CIRCLE MAN is a sense of the quirkiness of Adamsberg.  The other ongoing feature of the books is the wonderful cast of supporting characters - mainly of them as eccentric as Adamsberg.  All the characterisations become more assured as the series goes on, and at no stage does anyone become cartoonish or unbelievable.  There is something quintessentially French about Adamsberg and the world that he inhabits - to this outsider at least.  There's also something delightfully matter of fact about them all, and in particular, the way that Adamsberg works - leaving it totally up to his colleagues to adjust, just as it will undoubtedly require from some readers.

I understand that the translation order of a series is often dictated by the perceived popularity of a particular book.  Perhaps it was felt that the character of Adamsberg got stronger, more clearly drawn in later books.  Perhaps it was felt that the plot was not quite as unique as some of the later books.  Regardless of the reason, it's a good book, it introduces Adamsberg with a very deft touch, and it does hint at where the rest of the series is going.

If you're new to the Adamsberg series, you could start with THE CHALK CIRCLE MAN and get a sense of how the rest of the series is going to progress.  You can also read the entire series out of order if needs must and that's how the books become available for you.  But if you're a fan of something with a strong sense of a place and the people, with a central character who is not afraid to be a little odd, a little eccentric, a little different; decent, caring and extremely human make sure you read these books.

The books in translated order:

• 2003 - Have Mercy On Us All (Published in French in 2001)
• 2004 - Seeking Whom He May Devour (Published in French in 1999)
• 2007 - Wash This Blood Clean from My Hand (Published in French in 2004)
• 2008 - This Night's Foul Work (Published in French in 2006)
• 2009 - The Chalk Circle Man (Published in French in 1996)

There is also a standalone novel, released in translation in 2006

• The Three Evangelists (Published in French in 1995)

There are some authors who are on my buy immediately list.  Some of these books I can happily hoard - waiting until just the right moment to sit and enjoy them.   And there are the ones that are buy and read immediately.  ARCTIC CHILL has definitely been one of those books.  As soon as it arrived in the house it danced around before my eyes until I could finish what I was reading and start this one.

And you know when you've picked up a fabulous book because you find yourself sitting in the car, reading it - "it's no problem I can wait in the car while you run in and do ......".  You don't mind missing meals, you forget your favourite TV shows and you're finding excuses to miss meetings and social events so that you can just finish this book.

ARCTIC CHILL is also one of those unputdownable books because of the stylish way in which it scratches a number of itches - works on those points that I think make good crime fiction stand head and shoulders above many other possible reading options for me.

There's discussion and revelations of the society in which the crime occurs.  In this case there is some stark observations of the difficulties of immigration within Icelandic society - from both the immigrants and the native resident viewpoint.  The portrayal of both sides of the issue was fair, and deftly done - no preaching / no overt support for one side or the other.  Many of these elements have considerable echoes with issues that arise in my own country, and the reminder that intolerance, suspicion as well as acceptance can be anywhere is both timely and pointed. 

There's also one of those tremendous senses of place.  Not just because Iceland is different climatically from elsewhere, but also in the way that the society itself is portrayed.  Obviously it's a much smaller country than so many others, and their societal structures work differently from many that - for example - I'm used to.  But the way that the Icelandic sensibility is portrayed in all of the Indridason books is revealing, without being a travelogue, too sentimental or too much of a documentary.

There are also great individual characters.  The focus switches a little around a central group of police investigators all of whom take a different prominence throughout the individual stories, and throughout all the books.  The central investigator though, the wonderfully rumpled, questioning, almost quixotic Erlendur always remains the central focus of the team though.  His own personal background is complicated by the disappearance of his brother as children - an event that he has never fully come to terms with - and his divorce from his wife and separation from his children.  All throught their adult years Erlendur and his two children have struggled to form a relationship which works for them all, and that struggle, whilst not taking over from the investigation or the crimes in each book, adds a level of sadness and somewhat unexpectedly hope to Erlendur.

And finally there's a good story about the death of a little boy.  A child who it seems nobody could possibly have wanted dead.  Unless there is a racial motive.  Maybe revenge.  The ultimate resolution is stark in what it says about the true nature of so much violent crime. 

These books are definitely police procedurals, but they incorporate a lot of social commentary and personal insight.  As atmospheric perhaps as Henning Mankell's Wallender series, Erlendur, however, isn't Wallender and there's a very different personality at work here.  If you haven't read any of Arnaldur Indridason's fabulous books, then start somewhere with the series.  If you can go back to the beginning, then you'll learn about him and his team as the books progress, but each also stands alone if you can't.   The books so far have been:

• Jar City (also published as Tainted Blood)
• Silence of the Grave
• Voices
• The Draining Lake
• Arctic Chill