My Book Reviews

The contents of this book play out in the time after Snowblind. Again it is a pity that there are several little mistakes in the text. You would expect any editor to have seen these. It takes away my wish to give the book 5 stars. There is a red thread in the books: the relationship between main character Ari Thor and his fiance Kristin. It causes Ari Thor to do certain things in a certain way. I will not give away any of the things that happen in the book. Like all human behaviour has it's origin in specific causes according to the books. Action and reaction. That is why the writer lets us read about the thinking of all the characters that make their appearance. There is logic in this and he does it consistently. All in all this was - again - an easy and pleasant read. I certainly will read more books in this series.

A nice entertaining crime novel placed in northern Iceland. The sleuth Ari Thor has everything to be a happy man in Reykjavik, yet he decided to become a police man in a very isolated town. He loses contact with his fiance, becomes lonely and obsessed with the isolation because of snow, snow and snow. The town in which nothing ever happens gets quite some things happening and delivers plenty of work to Ari Thor and his colleagues. It amazed me that in this translation that is not the first print were some mistakes. The editor must have missed them repeatedly. The word "in" three times in a row is a bit much, forgetting the little word "as" makes sentences a bit weird. And forgetting to mark a new paragraph makes it a bit hard to grasp. Forced me to read a bit twice. Bat all in all this was a pleasant yarn, a nice story. I intend to read the whole series. 4 stars are very much deserved.

An excellent book to read if you want to understand how modern China has become what it is now and how it is functioning. Of course I knew a bit about China, like we all do, but the history for me was no more than snippets. This book gives you the full picture, the complete history. The starting point of 1850 of this book is well chosen. From being the poor, very populated country that was kicked around by the more powerful countries of these days things have changed beyond recognition. The path from The Dowager Empress to Sun Yat Sen, Chiang Kai-shek, Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping and finally Xi Jinping has been painful for the country and caused a lot of victims. Especially Mao Zedong who officially should be named the biggest crook in history all over the world. A life in China was never very valuable, but Mao took this principle to the limit. Like all dictators things were double: there is the wish to let the heritage of the rule continue and pick a strong person who can take over, but...

The story is well known by British people. For me it was new. I am still learning a lot about English history, lifestyle and more. Even after living over here more than 12 years I can not pretend I know it all. The tale is well written, I can imagine it all happening in front of my eyes in a TV series about the Tudors. Because of the fact that it is well written I give it 5 stars!

This book was published in 1981; the version I read was a paperback published in 2005. In the meantime there were a lot more diggings in England and more facts came to light. It does not take away that this book has been very educating for me. To get the British nationality I expected to have to know a bit of British, rather English history. So I learned some bits about King Alfred and King Canute. In the end I did not have to do a sort of exam, I got my passport quite smoothly (after paying quite a lot of money). Because I am always interested in history I have been searching for books about the Dark Ages. From William the Conqueror on it is not hard to get information about the history, but before that it is quite a blur. That is why the days between the leaving of the Romans and the arrival of William of Normandy are regarded as "The Dark Ages". I always thought not a lot was known about these days, but this book showed me I was mistaken. It is known who were the Kings of ...

Another good book in the Tuva Moodyson series. They really should make a TV series out of these brilliant books. The story is situated in and around a village and a town in Varmland, a part of Sweden. I have been there myself on a cycle holiday and I can tell you that the description of the woods is very good. I have only been there in the summer time, but I can imagine very well how things would be in autumn. All the (by now) regular characters are in the book and you can see how Tuva's life probably is going to change because of her relationship with police woman Noora. The story - as always - is quite chilling, especially if you are afraid for dentists, like me. Also as always I don't want to spoil the fun and tell anything about the plot. What I dislike is that the story is not totally finished, I prefer novels to have a beginning, something in the middle and an ending. That is my only reason to give this book no more than 3 stars.