Review - THE BOY WHO STOLE FROM THE DEAD, Orest Stelmach

The second book in the Nadia Tesla series, THE BOY WHO STOLE FROM THE DEAD starts out in Alaska with a sports journalist Lauren Ross in pursuit of the story of a mysterious young hockey player who seems to have appeared out of nowhere. He's certainly noticeable now though, having been charged with the death of a man in New York City.

From Alaska to New York City, onto Ukraine and other locations, there is a real attempt at pace and tension in THE BOY WHO STOLE FROM THE DEAD. To start out, the plot pushes forward in bursts, unfortunately getting bogged down by back-story which, presumably, harks back to events in the first book. It's a tricky prospect obviously, but, particularly in a thriller, that need to flesh out a lot of details really does slow things down, often at the wrong time. There are also a couple of dangling elements, such as the sports journalist who appears, and then strangely sort of fades away or becomes less of a focus. On the other hand, it was particularly timely to find out some of the background to Russian / Ukraine animosity.

Strangely for something with that much harking back, there were still elements to some of the characters which didn't quite seem to add up. Although I will admit that could be specific to this reader who was really struggling at points - connecting with some of these characters was elusive, and I'm not talking "like" but understand. So many things didn't make a lot of sense, not helped by the fact that I also found myself struggling with some of the dialogue which seemed very formal, stilted even.

To be fair, this could very well be a series that you absolutely must read from the start. The plot here is so intricate that keeping up with it, and working out who is who at the same time was a big undertaking. Have added the first book to the read list though, just to see if things make a bit more sense when you start at the very beginning.