Review by New York Times Review
If you're among the legions who devoured "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo," you can turn immediately to Page 125 of THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE (Knopf, $25.95), Stieg Larsson's feverish sequel to his 2008 best seller. There you'll discover the fresh perils in store for Larsson's extraordinary heroine, Lisbeth Salander, a freakishly gifted savant whose horrific childhood has imprinted her with a lust for revenge. Not that the first 124 pages of this thriller aren't fun. In bringing us up to snuff on the global wanderings of his heroine - a computer hacker with a photographic memory and formidable mathematical skills who is on her way to solving Fermat's last theorem - Larsson tosses in everything from a hurricane in Grenada to a shopping spree in Sweden. But unless you take a voyeur's intense interest in which tattoo Salander had removed or how her breast implants turned out, it's more gratifying when the plot finally kicks in. This happens after Mia Johansson completes her doctoral dissertation on the sex trafficking of women from Russia and Eastern Europe - and Millennium, the crusading magazine published by Salander's former lover, Mikael Blomkvist, moves ahead with plans for a journalistic treatment of the subject, written by Mia's research partner, Dag Svensson. In his eagerness to get behind "the toughest exposé of trafficking that's ever been published in Sweden," Blomkvist promises that names will be named, not realizing that Salander's politically powerful enemies are among them. This draws her into the picture and, through a perverse twist, makes her the chief suspect when Mia and Dag are murdered. For all the complications of the melodramatic story, which advances at a brisk, violently cinematic clip in Reg Keeland's translation, it's clear where Larsson's strongest interests lie - in his heroine and the ill-concealed attitudes she brings out in men. "Salander," he explains, "was the woman who hated men who hate women." If the sadistic men in pursuit of this doll-like creature represent the suppressed fear and loathing of a dominant male culture under threat, then Salander surely stands for the female life force, the enraged and implacable avenger of victims of that culture. They never last very long, those anonymous joggers and dog-walkers whose only purpose in a crime story is to trip over the body in the woods. Unless, of course, they figure in a novel by Karin Fossum, who makes it her business - and the business of her uncommonly sensitive Norwegian detective, Inspector Konrad Sejer - to scrutinize in great depth and detail every person touched by a murder. In THE WATER'S EDGE (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $25), Kristine and Reinhardt Ris discover the abused corpse of 7-year-old Jonas August Lowe when they're out walking in the woods. Being a kind and gentle person, Kristine is appalled. But her bullying husband is so fascinated by the savage crime that he intrudes on the police investigation, revealing his own secret urges and destroying his marriage. And they aren't even the central characters. Fossum takes an insightful, mostly sympathetic view of everyone in the novel, including a disarming sex offender who does his best to help the police understand the mind of a pedophile-helpful advice when a second boy goes missing. And while this happens to be an exceptionally fine story, Fossum's real narrative appeal, readily apparent in Charlotte Barslund's translation, rests on her ability to see the humanity in even the most wretched soul. Who wants to catch a thief when he's as endearing as Martin Railsback, the oddball hero of Matthew Dicks's first novel, SOMETHING MISSING (Broadway, $14)? Martin is, after all, prone to rob people of items they'll never miss (a bar of soap, a few sticks of butter, the odd diamond) as a way of getting to know them. Despite his obsessive-compulsive work ethic, Martin manages to get himself in trouble over a toothbrush - but not before we've decided to let him in next time he calls. Robert Rivers, the rogue in Steven M. Thomas's CRIMINAL KARMA (Ballantine, $25), is also charming, but in a more conventional way. Although he has no compunctions about stealing pricey items - like the pink diamond necklace he's after here - Rivers has his moral code. ("I knew I was a bad guy, and tried to be as nice about it as I could.") So when the socialite who owns the necklace falls under the spell of a charismatic but possibly crooked guru, Rivers comes to the lady's aid. An energetic writer when describing the roughneck aspects of his hero's profession, Thomas also manages lyrical love notes to his Venice Beach setting. Margaret Maron can make anyone homesick for North Carolina - even if you come from Connecticut Deborah Knott, the quick-on-the-drawl judge who stands by her home state in this dependable series, takes a working vacation in SAND SHARKS (Grand Central, $24.99) to attend a conference in Wrightsville Beach for the state's 300 District Court judges. Between her personal contacts and her nose for professional gossip, Deborah has the assembled company sized up before dessert. But after the murder of a colleague so corrupt he's considered "a judicial disaster," she rethinks her assumptions. Even as she warily eyeballs her fellow judges, Deborah finds time to mull over the sorry fact that "minor sexual misconduct" is more likely to get you censured - or even killed - than "major judicial malfeasance." Stieg Larsson's heroine is a freakishly gifted savant whose horrific childhood has inspired a lust for revenge.
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [October 27, 2009]
Review by Booklist Review
North Carolina district judge Deborah Knott is in a snit as she leaves for her first state conference at the beach since her recent wedding to sheriff's deputy Dwight Bryant, unfairly angry at him and remembering that such conferences sometimes resulted in romantic entanglements for her in the past. But she's soon distracted by finding the body of a uniformly disliked colleague, who turns out to have been severely lacking in judicial ethics. A hit-and-run attack on a much-loved retiring judge soon after seems connected to the earlier murder, and the discovery of the crashed car and dead driver appears to tie things up tidily. But Deborah, invited in on the case, searches for motive until she puts herself in jeopardy. The fifteenth entry in this series (after Death's Half Acre, 2008) focuses more on the professional than the personal Deborah, who acts annoyingly immature early on. But she redeems herself in the end, and Maron's fine evocation of the Wilmington-Wrightsville Beach area adds to the pleasure. Not a series highlight, but an entertaining installment for longtime fans.--Leber, Michele Copyright 2009 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Discovering a murdered colleague isn't quite the adventure Deborah Knott anticipated during her getaway/conference in Wrightsville Beach, N.C., but as fans of Maron's Edgar- and Anthony-winning series know, trouble seems to cling to her like cornmeal on hush puppies. Her 15th outing (after 2008's Death's Half Acre) finds the feisty judge agreeing to aid local investigators with discreet inquiries among her fellow conventioneers. She quickly encounters plenty of folks none too distressed by the victim's demise, including one of her own exes, and escalating danger. Unfortunately, as the pace quickens the plot starts to fall apart, culminating in a pell-mell scramble to a rather unconvincing denouement. On the plus side, Maron's homespun evocation of people and place is typically pitch-perfect, her use of the judicial milieu skillful-and her engaging heroine as welcome a companion as you could wish for under a beach umbrella. (Aug.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
This 15th entry in Maron's (www.-margaretmaron.com) Edgar and Anthony award-winning "Deborah Knott" series-following Death's Half Acre (2008), also available from Recorded Books-finds Deborah attending a judge's conference in Wrightsville Beach, NC, where she stumbles upon the body of a murdered colleague in the surf. When another death soon follows, the local authorities ask Deborah to go undercover to help them catch the killer. Actress/series narrator C.J. Critt nails the regional accents and reads with occasional humor to keep listeners entertained. Fans of the series and those who like their mysteries enhanced with regional flavor will enjoy.-Phillip Oliver, Univ. of North Alabama Lib., Florence (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
It's open season on the North Carolina judiciary. While her new husband, sheriff's deputy Dwight Bryant, and his son Cal clear out belongings from his first marriage, Judge Deborah Knott (Death's Half Acre, 2008, etc.) heads to Wrightsville Beach for the annual conference of North Carolina district court judges. It has attracted former lovers, would-be lovers, philandering husbands and, once again, a body or two. Slightly bent Judge Jeffreyswho accepted bribes in custody suits, dismissed a case that left a carjacker free to commit rape and murder and ran a dirty campaign that scuttled another man's electionwinds up strangled and tossed in the bushes. Deborah, relieving herself of too many margaritas, finds the body and, bad luck for her, is in the parking lot when Judge Fitzhume is smacked into a coma by a marauding driver who's later found dead in the red Geo that sped from the scene. Could one of the conference attendees be a killer? As a reward for trying to piece together motive and opportunity with the help of local law enforcement, Deborah finds herself locked in the trunk of her own car, escaping thanks to a trick she learned at Dwight's insistence. Deborah's mojo is having an off day, and the tale sorely lacks the gumption of old-timer Kezzie. Midlevel Maron, with slightly repugnant homophobia as a subplot. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
