Reading in Reykjavík

This is the sixth and final challenge book, the type of house. The choice was limited - there were very few books in my TBR+1 pile that had any kind of abode in the title, let alone a type of house, so I ended up choosing the common, generic word. This literary novel, shortlisted for the Booker the year after it was published, is the story of two cousins, one French, the other half-English, half-French, who grow up in a big house in a small village in France in the 1950s. One of them returns to the house after 20 years in a convent and family secrets and lies are uncovered and events in the village explained as the story plunges back into their childhoods. This is a beautifully written little book, full of descriptions of everyday things loaded with symbolism and metaphor. The story it tells is that of a typical love-hate relationship between two cousins, one who is special and another who longs to be. The narrative is full of twists and hints about dark deeds and while some plot p...

This is both a TBR challenge book and a What’s in a Name challenge book – the one with a number in the title. That leaves only one book in that challenge. Year of publication: 1943: English translation: 1991 Translated by: Peter Hudson No. in series: 1 Genre: Detective story Type of mystery: Murder Type of investigator: Private detective Series detective: Nestor "Dynamite" Burma Setting & time: Lyon and Paris, France; 1941. Former private detective Nestor Burma is released from a POW camp in Germany and sent home to France. At the train station in Lyon he spots an old friend and former employee, who is shot before his eyes and mutters the words “120 Rue de la Gare” before he dies. Having heard the words before, from another man who died shortly afterward, Burma becomes curious and begins to investigate. It immediately becomes apparent that he is in the trail of a ruthless killer, but the more the killer tries to stop Burma, the more Burma becomes dete...

This was my third Chunkster Challenge read, the one for November, but for technical reasons (i.e. it took me 2 days to write the review) I was unable to post it until today. My final book in the challenge will be The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins, which is incidentally also a Top Mysteries Challenge book. Original French title : Les Trois Mousquetaires Genre : Adventure, historical novel Year of publication : 1844 Setting & time : France and England, 1625-28 Translated into English by : William Barrow (1846) Page count : 576 The edition I read is one of the earliest English translations of this classic story. According to Wikipedia, this edition, which seems to have stayed in print all this time is “fairly faithful to the original” with the exception that “all of the explicit and many of the implicit references to sexuality had been removed to conform to 19th-century English standards”. This has made me curious to read a modern, unexpurgated version, but that will hav...

A commenter on the Smart Bitches blog mentioned that the plot of a book a reader was looking for the title of sounded like a modern rip-off of Georgette Heyer's Devil's Cub and set off a discussion of that book. So naturally I had to read it to see for myself what they were talking about. I am ashamed to admit that I have several of Georgette Heyer's novels sitting on my TBR shelf, waiting to be read. You see, I love Heyer's writing. She is my favourite writer of historical novels, and yet I have had some of those books for several years and never tried to read them, because I have just never felt like it. In the meantime I have re-read most of my Heyer favourites at least once. Well, the discussion finally got me into the mood to read more Heyer, and need I say I loved it? I did, although not as much as These Old Shades , in which the Duke of Avon and Léonie, the parents of the hero of this book, found each other. The Marquis of Vidal, their son, is not as attractive...

Originally published in 2004. Author: Peter Mayle Year published: 1991 Genre: Memoir, living abroad Sub-genre(s): People and places Where got: Second-hand bookstore The Story: Unlike the first book in the series, there is no story this time, just chapters on various subjects, ranging from the truffle business, to singing toads, to being a celebrity, wine tasting, turning fifty, eating wonderful food, living in a tourist area and so on. Technique: Written in the same light and humourous style as the previous book, but in some ways a better book. There is no attempt at telling a story, this is just a collection of anecdotes. In A Year in Provence , Mayle connected the chapters together by telling the story of the renovations being made on his house, and it made the book ramble a bit. Here, he is writing for people who have read the first book and know who the people he’s talking about are, so there is no need to introduce any of them, and it makes for a more flowing narrative. This ...

Author: Peter Mayle Year published: 1989 Genre: Biography, living abroad Where got: Charity shop Just finished reading this book ( well, not really - this is a repost from 2004 ). It describes the first year Mayle and his wife spent in their Provence farmhouse, sometime in the 1980's. The story is set up in 12 chapters, each of which covers one month of the year. The two main threads that hold the story together and prevent it from being just a rambling collection of anecdotes are on the one hand their relationship with their rascally old neighbour Massot and his fight to keep tourists away from what he considers to be his land (actually part of a national park), and on the other the alterations being made to the house to make it fit for the Mayles to live in (i.e. installing modern conveniences like central heating) and their relationship with the workmen. Pesky summer visitors make their appearance and are so sarcastically described that one wonders if they were likely ever ...

Original French title: Debout les morts Translator: Siân Reynolds Genre: Mystery Year of publication: original: 1996; in English: 2006 No. in series: 1 Series detectives: Historians Marc, Lucien and Matthias, and former police commissaire (Armand) Vandoosler (Marc’s uncle) Type of investigator: Amateurs and semi-pro Setting & time: Paris (mostly), France; contemporary Story: Three down-on-their-luck historians move into an old run-down house along with the uncle of one of them, a former police commissaire. Because of their names the old man calls them “The Evangelists”: St. Lucas, St. Mark and St. Matthew. The four men quickly make the acquaintance of their neighbour Sophia, a retired Greek opera singer, and also that of Juliette who runs a restaurant nearby. Some weeks later Sophia disappears. Her husband seems unconcerned, but Juliette and Sophia’s niece Alexandra, who turns up shortly afterwards, are both convinced something has happened to her, as are the four men, who...

Genre: Police procedural Year of publication: 1979 No. in series: 2 Series detective: Chief inspector Evariste Clovis Désiré Pel of the French Police Judiciaire's Brigade Criminelle Setting & time: Burgundy, France; contemporary Story: On a miserably cold and windy winter’s night Pel is called out to a farm where the body of a murdered man has been found in front of a memorial for resistance fighters killed by the Germans during World War II. The man has been shot in the face and head in such a way as to make his face unrecognisable, and because his fingerprints are not on file Pel and his men have a hard slog ahead of them to even find out who he is, let alone find his murderer. Complicating things is a second murder and an attempt on the life of a farmer who lives nearby. Then there are the fugitive bank robbers who may be hiding out in the area, and a pesky chicken thief the commissaire of police wants caught. All this weaves together to make an entertaining story. Revi...

Original French title: L’homme à l’envers Genre: Mystery Year of publication: 1999 No. in series: 2 Series detective: Commissaire Adamsberg Type of investigator: Police Setting & time: Rural France, contemporary Story: Camille, an old girlfriend of Commissaire Adamsberg’s, is living in the French Alps with a Canadian who is there to observe and make a documentary about the European wolf. In the area, dozens of sheep have been killed by what appears to be a rogue wolf, but when a woman in the neighbourhood is found dead with her throat torn out by the same creature, rumours about a werewolf start circulating. Camille had been fond of the dead woman and joins her foster-son and her shepherd in a search for the killer, whom they believe to be a man from the neighbourhood who has trained a big dog or a wolf to kill on command. A map found in his house shows a route through rural France he has apparently planned to take, and this they follow, finding the killer always a step ahea...

Fred Vargas’ books are only just beginning to be published in Icelandic. I read this one first as it is the first one published, but it turns out that the second book to be published in Icelandic (English title Seeking Whom He May Devour ) is an earlier book in the Adamsberg series. I hope it doesn’t matter much. I actually read the Icelandic translation, Kallarinn , but I’m giving the English title so my English-speaking readers know which book I am talking about. Original French title: Pars vite et reviens tard Genre: Murder mystery Year of publication: 2001 No. in series: 4 Series detective: Commissaire Jean-Baptiste Adamsberg Type of investigator: Police Setting & time: Paris (mostly, France), contemporary Story: A man who has revived the ancient profession of town crier has been getting messages that are copied passages from old books about the Plague. At the same time the police are baffled by a mysterious symbol that appears on doors across Paris and turns out to be a...

Original French title: Maigret et la grande perche translator: J. Maclaren-Ross Series detective: Chief-Inspector Maigret No. in series: 66 Year of publication: 1951 Type of mystery: Missing person/possible murder Type of investigator: Police Setting & time: Paris, France; 1953s Story: A woman who once embarrassed Maigret when he was a young policeman comes to him with a fantastic story: her husband, a safecracker famous for his bad luck, found a murdered women in one of his break-ins and has fled the city for fear of being suspected of the murder. However, no murder has been reported in the suburb where it happened, and Maigret is unsure as to whether to believe the story or not. After speaking with the inhabitants of the house, a middle-aged man and his mother, his policeman's sixth sense is aroused he begins to believe the story and starts an investigation. Review: It was interesting to read this book so shortly after having watched the same story unfold in an epis...

Title: A Very Long Engagement Original French title: Un long diamanche de fiançailles Year of publication: 1991 (original), 1993 Type of mystery: Missing person Type of investigator: Amateur Setting & time: France, 1917-1924, with flashbacks and flash-forwards Number of corpses: Many Some themes: Love, hate, perseverance, truth, war crimes I had originally intended to review One Deadly Summer ( L'été meurtrier ) because I had seen and enjoyed the film, but I didn't like the first person narrative style of the book and gave up on it. I also suppose it was not that exciting for me to read because I already knew what the surprise twist was. When I came across this book I remembered that there had been a critically acclaimed film of the same title and a random reading of a few lines told me it was not written in the same narrative style as the other book, so I bought it. Story: In the winter of 1917 five French soldiers who have been sentenced to death for cowardice ...

Title: The Murdered House Original French title: La Maison assassinée Translator: Patricia Clancy Year of publication: Translation: 1999; Original: 1984 (I think) Type of mystery: Murder Type of investigator: Amateur Setting & time: Rural France, 1910’s Some themes: Love, hate, murder, revenge Story: In 1896 three week old Séraphin Monge is the only member of his family left alive after a bloody mass murder takes place in the family house in Upper Provence. In 1919 the angelic-looking Séraphin returns to his birthplace to work as a road mender and lays eyes on his legacy: the murder house, which has, like murder houses often do, stood empty and unsellable because people believe it's haunted. In an attempt to eradicate the dreams and visions that begin to haunt him after he is told the story of what happened there, he begins to tear down the house, making everyone think he is mad. He is befriended by another war veteran, who is as scarred on the outside as Séraphin is o...

Title: Maigret in Exile Original French title: La Maison du juge . Translator: Eileen Ellenbogen Series detective: Inspector Maigret No. in series: 21 (of the novels. If the short stories are included: 42) Year of publication: 1942 Type of mystery: Murder, whodunnit Type of investigator: Police Setting & time: Rural France, 1930’s? (The story was written during WW2, but since there is no mention of the German occupation of France, I’m guessing pre-war) Some themes: Love, sexual abuse, adultery, hate Story: Maigret has done something to displease his superiors and has been sent into a kind of exile in a small town on the northern coast of France where nothing ever happens. He has fallen into a boring routine which is broken when a woman from the next town arrives to tell him that a corpse can be seen through her neighbour’s upstairs window. Maigret goes to investigate, and finds the neighbour, a retired judge, trying to dispose of the corpse, apparently not to hide the cri...

I’m almost ashamed to admit that I had never read anything by French author Georges Simenon - who is still the most famous mystery writer of continental Europe - until I read the two following books, especially considering that a number of his books have been translated intro Icelandic. All in all I have read four of his romans policier . I am splitting the review in two and will discuss the author in the second one. It will be interesting to read these books, as they are translated by different translators and have been published under various English titles. Title: Maigret meets a Milord . Originally published in English as Lock 14 . Another alternative title (different translation) is The Crime at Lock 14 Original French title: Le Charretier de la ‘Providence’ Translator: Robert Baldick Series detective: Inspector Maigret No. in series: 2 (possibly). Several Maigret books were published in the same year and may have been written in a different order from the publication) Year...