Here’s a dilemma for a lawyer: A serial killer was convicted of a murder and locked up. Now, 10 years later, it comes out that he was framed. The victim’s knife wounds were not caused by the wide Bowie knife that must have been planted at the scene by the police.
Dennis Drabelle can’t help thinking of this diabolically entertaining novel as “Rosemary’s Baby’s Parents.” Not that Rosemary Woodhousehas been appropriated by the author, Chase Novak. But the basic situation is similar.
As a setting for crime fiction, Istanbul offers a peerless set of ingredients: exotic beauty, a long and complex history, a charged location where Europe and Asia dissolve into each other.
Warning to readers: This gripping, unsettling thriller may call for a little extra work on your part. The author, Camilla Lackberg, likes to shift suddenly, sometimes a bit confusingly, from one set of dramatis personae to another.
In Harris’s expert hands, »The Fear Index« becomes an eerily troubling book, reminding us of the vulnerability brought into our lives by yo-yoing stock markets, Ponzi schemes, joblessness, downsizing, foreclosed mortgages and exhausted pension funds.
Jan Costin Wagner seems less interested in springing whodunit surprises than on showing how a murder can affect those left behind: »Silence« is a brilliant demonstration of how the lineaments of crime fiction can be put to the service of tragedy.