Killing spree
Tallying the body counts in the latest crime novels.
Maja and her troubled boyfriend, Sebastian, walk into their classroom in a posh Stockholm suburb. Sebastian pulls out a gun and starts shooting; Maja grabs a second gun and kills her best friend, Amanda, and then Sebastian. Now Maja, reviled as a monster by the news media, is
on trial for murder. QUICKSAND by Malin
Persson Giolito (Simon & Schuster, $35) covers the trial, in which Maja is represented by a star lawyer, with flashbacks illuminating the build-up to the tragedy. Maja had been in love with Sebastian, but he became more and more difficult because of his drug-taking and his hate-hate relationship with his billionaire father. Insights into people’s thought processes and relationships help explain how a nice girl such as Maja could end up in such a predicament. This is a book that makes the reader think.
THE BALTIMORE BOYS, by Swiss-French writer
Joël Dicker (MacLehose
Press, $37.99), is also about relationships. Three teenage American boys, the
“Goldman Gang”, pledge allegiance to each other, but narrator Marcus Goldman forms a relationship outside this trio with the beautiful Alexandra. A clash of loyalties between the gang and Alexandra prompts Marcus to make a very bad decision. Much later, long after a tragedy that is explained only near the end of the novel, Marcus accidentally encounters Alexandra and realises he still loves her. He is now a successful novelist and she a famous singer. Other relationships are also examined, such as those between the rich and less rich branches of the Goldman families, but really this book works because of
its fine writing.
$29.99), is indeed set in Marlborough, mainly in Havelock at the base of the Sounds. English detective Nick Chester spent two years undercover with a criminal gang, testified in court against the crime boss, went into witness protection and moved with his family to New Zealand with a different name. Havelock should be a nice quiet place for a paranoid policeman, but someone is abducting and killing young boys; Nick suspects the local rich bastard, but evidence is scant. Then Nick realises that the crime boss is sending killers to wreak revenge. Plenty of action, some well-wrought characterisation and nice evocations of the Marlborough Sounds make for a good solid Kiwi book. Workers digging up the Alden-Stowe family cemetery in rural California find a fresh body. Then the skeleton of a young boy is found in a chimney of the now-decrepit family castle. This is the promising start to THE
LUCKY ONE, by Caroline Overington (HarperCol
lins, $35), and the ending is quite nifty, too, but in-between the story sags badly.
It’s like a sandwich with slices of crime holding a filling of soap opera based on the machinations of the scheming Jesalyn, who is trying to get her hands on the family fortune when the aged patriarch dies. Other characters are just quick sketches. Certainly not a great book, but oddly readable nevertheless.