SARA
BLAEDEL – Only One Life
I suppose the only reason we have been
crept up on by Nordic Noir is the barrier created by our refusal to accept that
people speak and write in languages other than English. Why else should we be
surprised at the breadth and depth of literature from other countries.
It wouldn’t surprise me if the majority of
UK readers think of Dumas, or even Tolstoy as English. We, or some of us have
embraced sub titled versions classic Nordic Noir crime stories, even with
sub-titles the “foreign” version of Wallander was closer to the book, assuming
the translation was accurate than the somewhat anodyne UK rendition.
So it was with eager anticipation that I
opened Sara Blaedel . Louise Rick does not have the same psychological problems
that most Nordic detectives are usually portrayed with, but the book does
tackle the racial prejudices of Denmark, that seem no different from the UK. It
did seem that just like in UK soaps, the Police in fiction don’t really need
any proper evidence to make arrests.
I suppose it is a matter of taste whether
you would like this or not, it’s not really a thriller or a detective novel,
rather a bit of both, it took a bit to get going, but I did enjoy it. I am
always disappointed when the crime is solved in an Agatha Christie sort of way,
in other words a new fact is introduced to solve the crime surreptitiously
rather than with Holmes like deduction, but that’s my preference.
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