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Calling Out For You!

Although I’ve watched the Swedish TV adaptations of Steig Larsson’s books, reading Calling Out For You! (note the exclamation!) by Karin Fossum was my first foray into the so-called New Wave of Scandinavian Crime Fiction.  The story of Jomann, a lonely middle-aged man who travels to India to find a bride, and two investigators, Skarre and Sejer, who are tasked with finding the perpetrator of the bride’s brutal murder on her arrival in Norway, it is a tale of sinister greys.

Vividly conjuring an image of small town Norway, where everyone knows everyone, everyone knows something, and nobody wants to admit to knowing anything.  Without any apparent motive, the crime serves as the object through which Fossum is able to reveal the inner beings of the townspeople, each of whom turns out to be a deeply flawed witness.  Atmospheric and with an undertone of malice throughout, the book is a page turner from beginning to end as Fossum expertly elucidates a crime where unlike those on North American TV, in the end no explanation may be possible.

Verdict: 4.5/5

ISBN: 978-0099474661

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A Death In Belmont

The titular act in Sebastian Junger‘s A Death in Belmont is the 1963 rape and murder of Bessie Goldberg in Belmont, a quiet, white suburb of Boston.  There was no sign of forced entry and within a couple of days of the murder, the police arrested Roy Smith, a career petty criminal who had been hired to clean the Goldberg’s house on the day of the murder.  Tried on purely circumstantial evidence, Smith was convicted of murder, yet acquitted of rape, thus sparing him the death penalty, but still sending him to prison for life.  Later in life he became a cause celebre amongst many people, who lobbied aggressively for his commutation, arguing that had he been white, he never would have even been arrested.

Meanwhile, from 1962 to 1964, Boston was terrorized by the infamous Boston Strangler, and although the Goldberg murder fit the pattern of the Strangler, Smith was quickly ruled out as being the Strangler seeing as he had been imprisoned at the time of many of the attacks.  However, in early 1964, a victim identified the Strangler as Albert DeSalvo, and on his arrest, he confessed to being the Strangler, although his descriptions of the attacks contained flaws and doubts have always remained as to whether he was in fact the real Boston Strangler.  Fascinatingly, DeSalvo was once a contractor for Junger’s family, and at one point cornered Junger’s mother in their house, only to be deterred when Junger’s mother claimed that her husband was in the next room.  Thus Junger grew up knowing that the Boston Strangler had almost had his mother as well.

Junger does an excellent job at bringing to life the early 60s and vividly demonstrating how the dogmas and prejudices of the time shaped the investigation and prosecution of Smith and DeSalvo.  Through clear and crisp prose, he investigates whether it was indeed likely that Smith was not the real killer of Goldberg, and whether there is in fact reasonable doubt that DeSalvo was the Boston Strangler.  In the end, all he can conclude is that in the age before DNA testing, it was extremely hard for a case to be black and white, and that both individuals there is both strong evidence that they did in fact perform the crimes for which they were convicted as well as compelling reasons to doubt their guilt.

Verdict: 4/5

ISBN: 0393059804

 

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Pygmy

Chuck Palahniuk is well known due to the success of the movie rendition of his first novel, ‘Fight Club’, as well as his prolific output in the decade and a half since the publication of that book, but until this week I had never actually read any of his work.

Pygmy is an unusual book, both in style and content.  Written in Cold War movie villain dialect Engrish (“Fellow operatives already pass immigration control, exit through secure doors and to embrace own other host family people”), it is the tale of a young boy known as “Pygmy” who travels to live as an exchange student in America.  In America he is to carry out acts of terrorism, such as constructing a nefarious science fair project and spreading his “seed” into the seed vesicles of the mid west, all while attending religious services with his adoptive family, using his martial arts skills to become a local hero, and quoting the totalitarian leaders of the 20th century.  The leftist slogans and other quirks, such as the recitation of elements from the periodic table reminded me of Douglas Coupland, even if the events described are further from reality than what you’d find in a Coupland novel.

Although Pygmy is indubitably creative, the distinctive language used holds the book back and despite its originality, the plot itself isn’t very deep.  In the end the book never rises above the level of “pretty good”. Nonetheless, it is a worthwhile read, if only to see the unique mind of Palahniuk.

Verdict: 3/5

ISBN: 978-0385526340

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