Procure The Winter Of The Lions Compiled By Jan Costin Wagner Displayed In Manuscript
read Wagners first book Ice Moon when it came out inand loved it, It was a moving tale of a murder investigation set to the background of a mans grief for his recently dead wife, It could have been a difficult subject to get right but was very well done, However the writer dropped off my radar and his followup book Silence, published in, passed me by, I noticed recently that he had had a third book published inso I did a quick catch up over Christmas, taking in both Silence and his latest book The Winter of Lions.
The Winter of Lions features, once again, Detective Kimmo Joentaa who is investigating the murder of two men who have recently been guests on a famous TV talk show.
The subject of the discussion had been the investigation of violent
death and now both the forensic pathologist and the puppet maker, an expert at recreating dead bodies, have been killed.
Kimmo is convinced that the key to the murder lies in the lifelike nature of the puppets and that one of the models was recognised by the killer.
Once again Wagner manages to make the plot interesting without being too gruesome, The puppet maker has used photographs of violent deaths from plane and train crashes and somehow this doesnt come across too gory in Wagners hands.
The plot is slightly bizarre, but not so much so that it is completely unbelievable,
An interesting subplot was the emergence of a woman in Kimmos life, the enigmatic Larissa whose background is uncertain, She is a hazy and slightly suspicious figure although Kimmo is obviously drawn to her, I imagine that she will feature heavily on later books but here she plays a supporting role, entering Kimmos life during the lonely Christmas period.
I had forgotten what a good writer Wagner was, His prose has a sparseness and matter of fact quality which works so well when dealing with difficult subjects, He is most definitely back on my radar now,
Ok, mehr allerdings nicht, Es fehlt mir etwas an Spannung, der Polizeialltag wird wahrscheinlich zu realistisch dargestellt und der ist vermutlich halt nicht so spannend Kimmo Joenta ist auch im dritten Roman von Jan Costin Wagners Reihe um den finnischen Kommissar noch verstört vom Tod seiner Frau Sanna.
So erwartet er nicht viel vom Weihnachtsfest, Doch die Dinge entwickeln sich anders, als eine junge Prostituierte, die sich Larissa nennt, sich in sein Leben und in seine Wohnung drängt, nachdem er zuvor auf dem Revier ihrem Bericht von einem übergriffigem Freier zugehört hatte.
Dann werden kurz nacheinander erst ein langjähriger Kollege, ein Gerichtsmediziner, und ein Filmpuppenbauer erstochen aufgefunden, Beide waren zu Gast in einer Talkshow bei dem Talkmaster Petteri Hämäläinen, der kurz darauf nur knapp einem Anschlag entkommt,
Larissa spricht es als Erste aus: Irgend etwas in dieser Talkshow muss jemanden sehr wütend gemacht haben, so wütend, dass er oder sie diese Morde begeht.
Die Ermittlungen kommen nur langsam voran, weil die möglichen Motive zahlreich und der Personenkreis der möglichen Beteiligten groß ist, Gleichzeitig erfahren wir aus der Perspektive der Täterin, was sie antreibt und welche verstörenden Erlebnisse hinter ihr liegen, Gleichzeitig löst sich Kimmo langsam aus seiner emotionalen Starre und beginnt, Anteil zu nehmen an dem Leben seiner Kollegen und sich wieder Freude im Leben zu erlauben.
Parallele Erzählperspektiven sind oft spannungsfördernd, geben Einblicke und dadurch Hinweise auf Motive, die den Leser mit in die Rolle eines Ermittelnden mit Wissensvorsprung geben.
In Im Winter der Löwen liegen hingegen durch die Täterperspektive die Beweggründe und Zusammenhänge offen, so dass man eher den Eindruck hat, man schaut nun nur noch zu, wie Kimmo und seine Kollegen ihre Arbeit machen, während man selbst schon Bescheid weiß.
Spannend hingegen sind die Facetten von Tod und Trauer in der Täterin und in Kimmo Joenta,
.I thought this book was really good! It was well written and they gave you just enough pieces of the mystery to be able to piece it together with the detective but not enough that you could figure it out from the beginning.
The problem I had that kept it from being astar book was that there were unfinished side plots, The ending of the mystery itself was fine, but there was other things around it that were never given proper closure, This is the third book I've read by Wagner, after Ice Moon and Silence, and it's just as brooding and griefhaunted as the first two an aspect which perfectly suits Wagner's wounded detective Kimmo Joentaa.
Wagner has been called "sitelinkthe antiwriter of pop literature, " I'm not sure what that means, but it's true that his crime novels are eccentric even by Scandinavian standards, Maybe it's because Wagner is German and his novels are set in Finland, Whatever the reason, I enjoy the offbeat abstract quality that makes them more meditations than mysteries,
The Winter of the Lions features a charming talkshow host and a confused, stricken woman bent on metaphysical revenge, There's also a willowy gay puppeteer, who of course is suicidal, The plot doesn't actually make a lot of sense, but somehow the writing comes close to redeeming everything, Even though the morose, damaged Scandinavian detective is by now as much a cliché as Hercule Poirot and his curled mustache, this book won't disappoint readers who prefer their characters disappointed.
.Have really gotten to like the brooding and grief stricken Kammo and the insights he manages to come up with to solve crimes, The writing style is a little different, a little choppier, but once one gets used to that the story lines are very interesting, Liked the addition is this one of the mysterious woman who comes to visit and stays, Liked the ending also which nicely wrapped up the case and gave the reader a little hint of who this woman might be, Look forward to the next one, As usual the mood is "somber", However, there is a change in Kimmo's life :
The mystery is told from the perspective of Kimmo and the perpetrator,people are murdered, and one almost murdered, Allwere on a TV talk show shortly before the incidents, What is the connection
Kimmo works in his usual strange fashion to begin to put together the pieces, A very interesting novel The Germans have their place in the history of time, and when it comes to the vocabulary, it follows exactly the exact same heritage.
German Classes in Pune at SevenMentor institute helps many Indians to fulfill their dreams,
sitelink sevenmentor. com/germanla I cannot believe, firstly that I've left the last two books in this series unread for so long, and secondly I'd be daft enough to read the third, THE WINTER OF THE LIONS out of order.
Not that it made a lot of difference to the experience, It's hard to use the word enjoyable when you're referring to any of the books by Jan Costin Wagner as they are so steeped in grief and brooding, although, there was just a glimmer that Kimmo Joentaa might be ready to move on a little.
Even though the death of his wife is still the defining thing in his life, he is forced to look outside himself, despite it being Christmas, the time of year he most dreads.
Set in Finland, Wagner is a German writer with a unique sense of the culture and the country, His writing is pared down, emotional and dark, The plotting of the book is slow, often impenetrable, yet for this reader, it simply didn't matter, The storytelling really is astoundingly affecting and involving, Joentaa is magnificently morose, but without a feeling of overwhelming selfpity,
The first book in the series, ICE MOON, was a revelation when I first read it and I waited impatiently for the next to be translated.
Then for reasons best known to my idiot self, I bought and then never picked up the next book in the series SILENCE, There really are times when I could kick myself, or at least put the book immediately on the bedside table,
somewhere between a.and a.
The short backcover blurb by The Financial Times calls this book "snownoir, " There seems to be a noir for everything these days, a concept that doesn't really sit well with me but that's another story so we'll save it for another time or I'll just get myself all worked up.
But really, there is nothing better when your brain is overloaded than a good mystery to carry you away, And this one is good,
The Winter of the Lions is third in a series set in Finland, featuring Detective Kimmo Joentaa whose wife has passed away and who finds it hard to move away from his grief.
There are two central mysteries in this book having to do with a series of crimes that hits close to home for our grieving detective and a third, more peripheral puzzle which centers around a strange woman who latches on to Joentaa shortly after meeting him at the police station on Christmas Eve.
When all is said and done, The Winter of the Lions turned out to be a dark, haunting read that kept me turning pages during an allday readfest.
Just briefly, because it's difficult to talk about this book without giving too much away, Joentaa and his colleagues are called to the scene of an horrific crime, involving someone close to the squad.
The forensic pathologist has been brutally murdered while out crosscountry skiing, While coming to terms with his death, the detectives soon find themselves with another victim on their hands, a man who makes puppet models of corpses for television and movies.
In both cases the clues are virtually nonexistent it is only through a chance remark that Joentaa reveals that both victims had been together as guests on a popular TV talk show.
After reviewing a DVD of that particular episode, Joentaa and colleagues are no closer to finding the killer, but it does give our angsty, griefstricken detective a line of inquiry to follow.
Mystery number two, which is written quite well, involves an unidentified someone known only as "She, " Her story is revealed slowly until the full weight of what's happened to her comes down on the reader like a ton of bricks.
Mystery number three is, as I said, sort of peripheral to the main events of this novel, involving a young woman who first encounters Joentaa on Christmas Eve while reporting a rape.
She refuses to give up any details except the name of the guy who did it and eventually walks out of the station in frustration, only to show up at Joentaa's doorstep the next day, basically moving into his house.
All three of these plotlines weave together into a very slowburning mystery which, once things start to unravel, turns into a dark and haunting story that examines the effects of grief and loss, also pointing to the ways in which people cope with personal tragedy.
One reader review of this novel notes that he/she didn't understand why Joentaa didn't figure things out earlier than he did, a question I normally find myself asking in many a mystery novel, but this time I'm going to disagree with that opinion.
The pacing in this book is slow for a reason, and in my opinion, very well executed, Even though his wife has been dead for some time, Joentaa continues to exist in a sort of haze, reminded of her last days at every turn.
Not only that, but our detective has other things to worry about the strange young woman staying at his house, a colleague who is up to his ears and in denial about his gambling problem, and a few other distractions.
There are many other things about this novel that, in my opinion, speak highly in its favor, but the high believeability factor okay, I know that's not a real word but I like it of the characters and the slowpaced investigation and final reveal combine to make this book pop.
I will say that I am a wee bit tired of angsty cops does every detective in Scandinavia have emotional/mental issues
Confession time: normally I'm a series purist, and while I do own Wagner's first two novels in this series Ice Moon and Silence, they've sat unread on my shelf for a long time due to a personal need for a Scandinavian crimereading hiatus.
The thing is though that the author does such a good job in covering Joentaa's backstory here that it is unnecessary to have read the previous books.
Obviously, I would have preferred to have been more prepared characterwise, but not reading the other series entries wasn't detrimental to my understanding and appreciation of this book.
Actually, the truth is that even with the angsty detective, The Winter of the Lions turned out to be a fine read something very different than its competitors in the world of "snownoir," and one I'd definitely recommend.
This author just appeals to me in the story line of his protagonist who is in perpetual mourning for his wife, investigating crimes in Finland.
It has the right amount of darkness about the story, yet it is not trite or depressing, He is up there in my book with others like Nesbo and p d james as an author whose books I happily anticipate, I do like this series, The books are relentlessly gloomy and the lead detective kimmo joentaa makes Kurt wallander look like polyanna, In the third of the series kimmo investigates the murder of two men who both have appeared on a well known chat show, a pathologist and a man who makes life size puppets for crime scenes etc.
At the same time he starts a bizarre relationship with a very damaged woman, It was a good plot, the writing is succinct, and having started at bookI am enjoying this very miserable hero what does that say about me, am I now a grumpy old man.
It certainly makes me realise that so often crime novels are two hundred pages too long, anyway id recommend it but suggest start at book one first 'ice moon'.
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