There are three weeks to the September Crime book club, where we are reading The Silent Wife by A. S. A. Harrison. That gives us three weeks to vote for the next choice so that I can announce the group decision at the end of the next meeting.
I have picked these books again, but don’t forget, if there is a book you specifically want to see on the nomination list, just let me know. You can do that by getting hold of me on any of the many places you can find me online. This is your book club, so feel free to be active.
I’ve gone for a bit of a foreign crime feel for the next choice and the three choices are;
Norwegian by Night by Derek B. Miller
Sheldon Horowitz-widowed, impatient, impertinent-has grudgingly agreed to leave New York and move in with his granddaughter, Rhea, and her new husband, Lars, in Norway: a country of blue and ice with one thousand Jews, not one of them a former Marine sniper in the Korean War turned watch repairman, who failed his only son by sending him to Vietnam to die. Not until now, anyway.
Home alone one morning, Sheldon witnesses a dispute between the woman who lives upstairs and an aggressive stranger. When events turn dire, Sheldon seizes and shields the neighbor’s young son from the violence, and they flee the scene. But old age and circumstances are altering Sheldon’s experience of time and memory. He is haunted by dreams of his son Saul’s life and by guilt over his death. As Sheldon and the boy look for a haven in an alien world, reality and fantasy, past and present, weave together, forcing them ever forward to a wrenching moment of truth.
Norwegian by Night introduces an ensemble of unforgettable characters-Sheldon and the boy, Rhea and Lars, a Balkan war criminal named Enver, and Sigrid and Petter, the brilliantly dry-witted investigating officers-as they chase one another, and their own demons, through the wilderness at the end of the world.
White Heat by M. J. McGrath
Half Inuit, half outsider, Edie Kiglatuk is the best guide in her corner of the Arctic, but as a woman she gets only grudging respect from the elders of her isolated community on Ellesmere Island. When a man is shot and killed while on an ”authentic” Arctic adventure under her watch, the murder attracts police sergeant Derek Palliser’s attention. As Edie sets out to discover what those tourists were really after, she’s shocked by the suicide of someone close to her. The events seem unrelated, but Edie’s Inuit hunter sensibility tells her otherwise. With or without Derek’s help, she’s determined to find the connection–a search that takes her beyond her village and into the far reaches of the tundra.”White Heat” is a stunning debut novel set in an utterly foreign culture amid an unforgiving landscape of ice and rock, of spirit ancestors and never-rotting bones. ‘White Heat’ is a stunning debut novel, a suspense-filled adventure story that will captivate fans of Henning Mankell.
and
The Keeper of Lost Causes by Jussi Adler-Olsen
The Keeper of Lost Causes, the first installment of Adler- Olsen’s Department Q series, features the deeply flawed chief detective Carl MØrck, who used to be a good homicide detective-one of Copenhagen’s best. Then a bullet almost took his life. Two of his colleagues weren’t so lucky, and Carl, who didn’t draw his weapon, blames himself.
So a promotion is the last thing Carl expects.
But it all becomes clear when he sees his new office in the basement. Carl’s been selected to run Department Q, a new special investigations division that turns out to be a department of one. With a stack of Copenhagen’s coldest cases to keep him company, Carl’s been put out to pasture. So he’s as surprised as anyone when a case actually captures his interest. A missing politician vanished without a trace five years earlier. The world assumes she’s dead. His colleagues snicker about the time he’s wasting. But Carl may have the last laugh, and redeem himself in the process.
Because she isn’t dead . . . yet.
You can vote in the comments here, on the Facebook page, on Google+ or on Twitter using the #crimebookclub hashtag. And don’t forget you can get this information straight to your inbox by subscribing to the newsletter Here.
Margot Kinberg says
Oh, Rebecca, these are all great novels! I’d be happy with any of them really. But what about Norwegian By Night?
Hunter says
I vote for the second one, White Heat. But I’d be happy with any.
jamieayres says
I’ll recommend these picks to my real life book club next month 🙂 I’m part of 2 book clubs . . . hard to keep up with the reads sometimes b/c of all my other reading too, but they’re so much fun that I don’t want to give either up!
DJ Kirkby says
White Heat please – it sounds so good!
Rebecca Bradley says
From Alison Gray on Twitter “@_alisongray
@RebeccaJBradley I vote for Norwegian by Night for #crimebookclub in October.”
Rebecca Bradley says
From Denyse Kirkby on Twitter “@djkirkby
I vote for White Heat for our #crimebookclub October read.”
Rebecca Bradley says
From @mellsworld on Twitter “@RebeccaJBradley Hi, Norwegian by night gets my vote, closely followed by Keeper of lost causes!”
Rebecca Bradley says
From Nicola Johnston on Twitter “@Nicola_Johnston
@RebeccaJBradley keeper of lost causes for me. White Heat was a Harrogate new blood book a couple of years ago. I really enjoyed it”
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