It is hard to believe the Scandinavians can continue to serve up top shelf crime fiction over such a sustained period. With a glut of outstanding writers in the genre Scandinavia has brought to crime fiction what Spain has done for soccer.

This debut novel makes disputes within science understandable to the non scientific mind, delving as it does into Darwinian research and natural selection. It provides a backcloth to the heated verbal battles that occur so frequently within the academic community and prompts memory of a phrase from Henry Kissinger that disputes within universities are so vicious because they are about so little. Not like the disputes that have raged around Kissinger’s career of mass murder.

The author, Sissel-Jo Gazan graduated from the University of Copenhagen with a degree in biology, so she knows her stuff, and her familiarity with the scientific terrain is easily conveyed to the pages of her book. She runs a number of separate but parallel narratives in this book. Stories of lives within lives where people have their own concerns that consume them but which make them both all the more plausible and interesting as characters. The events of their lives enrich the book and are not thrown in as padding.

Anna Bella Nor has completed writing up her PhD for the University of Copenhagen, and is within weeks from sitting here viva. Her supervisor is found dead with his tongue severed. He seems to have died while reading her thesis, or else his killer placed it in his lap as a means to send a very ominous message.  The supervisor was cantankerous to the point of making enemies, any of which may have borne sufficient grudge to wish him fatal harm.

Soren Marhauge is one of Denmark’s most successful cops and also its youngest police superintendent.   He looks at cases in a different manner from his colleagues and as a result has an impressive success rate. This one baffles him like no other. On another track, he has drifted apart from his long time partner. She wanted children but he did not. A one night stand with another woman leads to a pregnancy. To his surprise he finds himself delighted with the child and after initially agreeing not to intervene in the mother’s new relationship with a partner all too willing to ignore biological origins and become a parent, he insists on paternal rights. It leads to terrible pain.

Clive Freeman, a researcher obsessed with his own notion that the evolutionary path from dinosaur to birds has not been rigorously spelt out, finds it impossible to let go. His own belief in something is validation enough of its authenticity. In spite of all the evidence to the contrary he persists to the point of being violent and therefore becomes a natural suspect. His creepy past imbues the reader with an instant dislike for the character. Yet things still don’t add up for Marhauge the way he thinks they should.

A second murder occurs and now Anna cannot escape the frame. Short fused and moody, she may be stalked by the killer while not ruled out as a suspect by the cops.  The clue might lie in her PhD on birds. A single parent, she has split from her partner, is perpetually at war with her mother, and more than one element of her past life is a constant companion in her present existence.  For the reader interested in reading up a bit about Sissel-Jo Gazan, they might find that the character of Anna draws inspiration from her own troubled private life.

Personal tragedy and broken relationships running alongside Copenhagen’s S & M subculture all feed into, sans colliding, the central theme to throw up a colourful mosaic which does not hide the plot in some labyrinthine maze. Plots ultimately need to be discernible otherwise the suspicion is generated by the reader that the writer is playing mind games, writing for their own pleasure rather than the readers. Sissel-Jo Gazan manages the plot superbly, leaving the reader guessing and feeling compelled to reappraise every step of the way.

When thinking of images of feathers this debut novel is like the peacock’s tail – stunning.

Sissel-Jo Gazan, The Dinosaur Feather, 2012. Quercus: London. ISBN 0857380338.

Dinosaur Feather

It is hard to believe the Scandinavians can continue to serve up top shelf crime fiction over such a sustained period. With a glut of outstanding writers in the genre Scandinavia has brought to crime fiction what Spain has done for soccer.

This debut novel makes disputes within science understandable to the non scientific mind, delving as it does into Darwinian research and natural selection. It provides a backcloth to the heated verbal battles that occur so frequently within the academic community and prompts memory of a phrase from Henry Kissinger that disputes within universities are so vicious because they are about so little. Not like the disputes that have raged around Kissinger’s career of mass murder.

The author, Sissel-Jo Gazan graduated from the University of Copenhagen with a degree in biology, so she knows her stuff, and her familiarity with the scientific terrain is easily conveyed to the pages of her book. She runs a number of separate but parallel narratives in this book. Stories of lives within lives where people have their own concerns that consume them but which make them both all the more plausible and interesting as characters. The events of their lives enrich the book and are not thrown in as padding.

Anna Bella Nor has completed writing up her PhD for the University of Copenhagen, and is within weeks from sitting here viva. Her supervisor is found dead with his tongue severed. He seems to have died while reading her thesis, or else his killer placed it in his lap as a means to send a very ominous message.  The supervisor was cantankerous to the point of making enemies, any of which may have borne sufficient grudge to wish him fatal harm.

Soren Marhauge is one of Denmark’s most successful cops and also its youngest police superintendent.   He looks at cases in a different manner from his colleagues and as a result has an impressive success rate. This one baffles him like no other. On another track, he has drifted apart from his long time partner. She wanted children but he did not. A one night stand with another woman leads to a pregnancy. To his surprise he finds himself delighted with the child and after initially agreeing not to intervene in the mother’s new relationship with a partner all too willing to ignore biological origins and become a parent, he insists on paternal rights. It leads to terrible pain.

Clive Freeman, a researcher obsessed with his own notion that the evolutionary path from dinosaur to birds has not been rigorously spelt out, finds it impossible to let go. His own belief in something is validation enough of its authenticity. In spite of all the evidence to the contrary he persists to the point of being violent and therefore becomes a natural suspect. His creepy past imbues the reader with an instant dislike for the character. Yet things still don’t add up for Marhauge the way he thinks they should.

A second murder occurs and now Anna cannot escape the frame. Short fused and moody, she may be stalked by the killer while not ruled out as a suspect by the cops.  The clue might lie in her PhD on birds. A single parent, she has split from her partner, is perpetually at war with her mother, and more than one element of her past life is a constant companion in her present existence.  For the reader interested in reading up a bit about Sissel-Jo Gazan, they might find that the character of Anna draws inspiration from her own troubled private life.

Personal tragedy and broken relationships running alongside Copenhagen’s S & M subculture all feed into, sans colliding, the central theme to throw up a colourful mosaic which does not hide the plot in some labyrinthine maze. Plots ultimately need to be discernible otherwise the suspicion is generated by the reader that the writer is playing mind games, writing for their own pleasure rather than the readers. Sissel-Jo Gazan manages the plot superbly, leaving the reader guessing and feeling compelled to reappraise every step of the way.

When thinking of images of feathers this debut novel is like the peacock’s tail – stunning.

Sissel-Jo Gazan, The Dinosaur Feather, 2012. Quercus: London. ISBN 0857380338.

9 comments:

  1. Mackers,
    Do you ever sleep? How many books have you gotten through recently?
    I was never one for murder mysteries but you've sold this one well.
    The Dinosaur to bird theory was a main theme in the Jurassic Park block buster and could quite qualify for this type of academic debate.
    Really sounds a great read.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Nuala,

    all the time! I love sleeping. Some of these books I read a while ago, jotted down some notes and have only got around to reviewing them lately. But the Dinosaur Feather was one I read quite recently. I love Scandinavian crime fiction. I tend to have a few on the go at any one time: a mixture of everything. I loved this one.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Mackers,
    I tend to read in bed and something Beano said in another review struck a chord you tend to put the book down once you have finished a chapter.
    When I was younger I would have picked up a book and literally read at every opportunity until I finished it.
    I'm trying to get back to that because I think a good book is as good as it gets.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Nuala,

    I am usually too tired to read when i go up. But for waking up in the middle of the night I have a Kindle beside me so that I can read in the dark (it has a fixed light attached). I do most of my reading on trains or buses and try to get some done sitting here in the living room but the kids go mad. I read most of The Bat by Nesbo just sitting here and the Damned United by Brian Peace.

    ReplyDelete
  5. From Paul Waters

    Just finished The Dinosaur Feather myself the other day. Agree with you. Good read and makes the science accessible.

    I thought that more could have been made of the first murder though - the unusual manner of it - more of a sense of threat or dread for other people. Apart from some understandable nausea, other characters didn't really seem to feel at risk from something similar.

    But still a good read.

    Currently reading Chasing Darkness by Robert Crais - good so far.

    ReplyDelete
  6. AM-

    Finished Sleepers by Lorenzo Carcaterra-i watched the film a few times but the book adds more horror to that film-a great read-

    Reading the forth game of throne book-or book 3 part 2-brilliant-

    My next book is Traitors Gate by
    Michael Ridpath -its about a group
    of german soldiers who fight against the Nazi's from 1938 on-looking forward to that read-

    ReplyDelete
  7. Michaelhenry,

    we watch the Game of Thrones on TV but Carrie has read the books.

    Sleepers - is that the one Brad Pitt acted in?

    Traitors' gate sounds good.

    I have so much to get through

    ReplyDelete
  8. AM-

    Watched the first two series of game of thrones on DVD after I read the first two books-will watch the third DVD when it comes out-should be finished the part 2 of the third book by then-loving it-

    Aye its the Brad pitt one-got the book cheap in a charity shop-but its a rich and moving story to read-

    I always like to have a few books in front of me-

    ReplyDelete
  9. Michaelhenry,

    saw the film Sleepers and really enjoyed it. I am a compulsive buyer of books from charity shops. They have so much you can't get in the normal shops. Bought another two today. The wife just frowned when I came in and referred to my compulsion!!

    ReplyDelete