Book 78, Country 84 - Scotland

Death of a Nag by M.C. Beaton - first published in the UK in 1995

This is the first of the many Hamish Macbeth murder mysteries I have read.  I have never seen any of the 1995-97 TV series, starring Robert Carlyle in the title role.  Hamish goes on holiday to the fictional village of Skag on the Moray Firth.    He stays in a guesthouse where the food is awful and there are several other guests in residence.  He has only been there a couple of days when the unlikable husband of one of the fellow guests is murdered and he offers to help the local police with their enquiries.  The book has an old fashioned 'Agatha Christie' kind of feel to it  e.g. no one feels very sorry for the deceased and the murderer must be one of the fellow guests.  7/10

1st September 2012

Book 77, Country 83 - Iceland

Tainted Blood by Arnaldur Indridason - translated from Icelandic and first published in the UK as Jar City in 2004

An excellent crime novel set in and around Reykjavik.  A man is murdered in his flat and a cryptic note is left behind by the murderer.  Detective Erlendur and his team delve into his past and discover that he was accused of rape 40 years earlier.  As they unravel more they discover that the true story is far more complicated than it first appears and involves Iceland's Genetic Research Centre.  The same team of detectives appears in other novels by the same author but each novel stands up well on its own.  Maps of Iceland and Reykjavik are included, which are useful for those of us whose geography of Icleand is minimal.   8/10

25th August 2012

Book 76 - Country 82 - Greenland

Cold Earth by Sarah Moss - first published in the UK in 2009

 A team of 6 archaeologists travel to a remote and unpopulated place on the west coast of Greenland to excavate a Viking settlement.  However the group members fail to 'gel' and gradually they realise that their leader hasn't brought enough food or made firm arrangements for them to be collected at the end of their stay.  The story is narrated by each of the team in turn but mostly by Nina, who soon becomes aware of a ghostly stranger in their midst.  She thinks it is a Viking, who is unhappy that the team are digging up human skeletons in a graveyard.  The rest of the team think Nina is just neurotic.  Meanwhile back in the rest of the world a flu pandemic is spreading across the world.  Then the team's communication links with the outside world fail and no one comes to pick them up, as the long dark cold Arctic winter approaches and their food runs out.   The story then ends abruptly with the survivors having been rescued and returning to their homes.  However details of the rescue are absent and it all feels a bit unsatisfactory and unclear with several unanswered questions, e.g. who rescued them, and what was the outcome of the pandemic.  The book reminded me of Michel Paver's Dark Matter but it much less convincing or terrifying than that excellent book, which is set on the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard in the 1930s.      6/10

10th August 2012