A really fun read, solid characters, great setting, and a rolling plot involving a dose of historical science and mystery.

Some issues with grammar and historical usage of phrases but not enough to detract from the authenticity and enjoyment of the overall story.

I’ll read this series. It’s off to a good start.

Well, it’s epic. Lots of adventure with intriguing world politics and clashing governing systems and beliefs —all built on a fantasy world of vast imagination.

The characters were well described but… but well, I lacked empathy (is that on me?) because they didn’t ask for me to care enough, they didn’t really grasp my attention or draw me in quite the way I’d hoped and wanted. And I wanted to love them more. But meh. It just wasn’t there. Not for me.

However, it was epic. And epic is loads of fun. An epic tale stretching and twining around a complicated plot amid a stunning world-build gets you a four-star rating—even if I’m more of a strong-characters girl.

The journey drives a hard tempo and swerves with surprises, and adversaries taunt along the way, all the while we’re hoping our band of common heroes finds success. There are some thrilling battle scenes, and a world build that’s well thought through to keep interest. 

At the end of the read, though, I’m going to have to be contrary to myself and admit that The Wheel of Time television series is more worthwhile than reading this book.

You never heard me say that.

This is a high level 3. A worthwhile time-passer. Love the concept and elements involved: intrigue, murder, forensic investigation, deception, Georgian Era England, the American Revolution rumbling over the pond in the backdrop, and a load of messy entwined relationships. Details outline the real helplessness of women in this society, and in our century we want those female voices to stand up more for themselves, but we know that just wasn’t their reality. So, it’s well represented. And truly, the injustices against women are what drive this story.

Of course, the American is the true honest hero in the story. Hold on, I can’t see to type, my eyes are on the ceiling…

There were certainly some things involved in the plot that produced bursting guffaws of incredulity, but for the most part it was well-researched and presented in a highly readable style. The plot offered plenty of seemingly predictable twists that turned out not to be what you might have thought after all. Maybe.

I wanted more from the characters. Surprisingly, Franklin the pet rat inspires more appeal than the budding romance (though we don’t quite know or see how this happens).

Despite those few little bits that leave you with one eyebrow raised, the overall novel was paced in a way that kept you reading and was full of enough complex content to maintain piqued interest.

If you’ve got a few hours and want an easy, fast read, with relatively smart and interesting elements, set out as a kinda early forensic-based mystery of the Georgian Era—this will entertain.

Gimme more gimme more..

…and apparently Gabaldon is finished with writing this series now after her latest installation. Was it #9? Go on. Make it an even 10. I’ve just finished #6 here. We can’t get enough. They’re not dead yet. They’re only in their 50s—loads of life and history yet to explore! Keep writing…….

More happened in this one as far as plot twists—and of course the plot here is always a long haul with short blips of crashing terror and putting the ‘promise in peril’ if you will: that Jamie and Claire remain faithful and together in love. Attack that and it’s a cliff edge tightrope walk until resolution. But we have faith it’ll always be resolved. Well, I do…

War looms at the beginning of this one and by the time you get through one thousand four hundred and thirty-eight pages it’s still friggin looming. If you’ve ever lived under the threat of any kind of war… well, perpetual looming is the correct feel for the thing.

Again, can’t get enough. I hope there’s more about marine biology (we never get enough of that in the land-locked narratives), another good dose of zoology, and all the herbal medicinal tidbits of ecological smattered among the historical details in the next one.

As with all Moriarty's novels, this one starts on a cliff and drops you onto a rollercoaster, diving over curves and corners and sharp turns with surprise after revelation on towards the twisted end. It's well-timed, well-spaced, with juicy but realistic enough well-flawed characters from the protagonist to the third-level support.

The plot starts at the climax, then wraps round to the beginning and unwinds from the third person perspective of each participant in this crime, bouncing comprehensively back and forth on the timeline in a way that keeps you reading to find out more about that crime. If there's a crime. But yes, there's definitely a crime that's happened somewhere along the way... we're just very uncertain what it might be.

In the meantime, we get sucked into all the messy relationships and misunderstandings, and beg for the shining light of hope in all their lives in one way or another. Even for the most vile of these people, that hope might win out in the end. Cos we need hope in our world in these times.

Moriarty keeps you hooked and involved, desperate for the details till the unexpected end.

I was expecting more. 

The highlight of this novel is the landscape. As with the first, you can picture the vast desolation —that claustrophobic sensation of being trapped in too much space, though not quite mid-Saskatchewan, cos this contains all the majestic fjords and mountains and icebergs. An inspiring setting, no question. 

Unfortunately, the setting is the best part. The characters sort of drop in without much development, and the plot isn’t overly complex, though the progression of the storytelling is… interesting… different… a break from the norm.

The writing is a bit clunky—though I might also call it strictly functional—so I’m not sure that’s a translation thing or an intentional style… but we don’t really get sucked into caring for many of these characters as a result. I was hoping to feel more for Hulda, but she doesn’t seem to feel much for herself even when she’s addressing her feelings; she’s coldly resigned to her fate, and only in the smallest devious manner willing to fight for her own status in the workplace—which I suppose is an accurate picture of what Icelandic women in the nineties had to face and overcome. It should be a more rage-inducing insight, and definitely interesting, but comes across as flat fact and reality to fester over delivering no hope for change—and I’d say maybe that’s an Icelandic approach except it was Icelandic women, stoic and determined, who walked off the job to protest inequality in the workplace. Of course, that wasn’t until years after the setting in this novel, and you can feel the rippling vibes of it beginning here in this text. But I want Hulda to care more, and it’s like she comes to the line but is terrified to step a toe over—and possibly too exhausted and worn out to do so. Can you blame her in that environment? You see her trying, though, with a bit of effort, to stand up to the chauvinism and injustice all around—and pouring herself into her work with excessive dedication. We do get the feeling of her detachment and the sense that she’s so very lonely…

This needs to be read through the lens of cultural and historical context. Heavily.

It is an unbiased yet well-characterised interaction with the five major clashing philosophies in the country of India. Kipling paints a good picture of how a survivalist manages to adopt and adapt to each philosophy or religion and the people who adhere to each. Well documented is the journey he takes with the Lama, and that lingering belief and similar treatment of monks still exists in many parts of Asia where monks and novices can survive at the mercy of the people without money or belongings (I’ve seen it myself in Thailand and Laos). And there’s a touch of spying and adventure (very specifically sensitive to the politics of the time) throw in to spice up what is overall a very deeply philosophical narrative.

The language is straight out of the tail end of the 19th century, so if you’re looking for something equivalent to The Hardy Boys of the mid-20th or one of these spy-kid novels of the 21st, please note: this ain’t it. 

But it’s ‘clean’ right the way through, even if a ten year old might be stumped by the overall language construction; the censorship of the time restricted Kipling to using only the profanity viewed as mild for his era. 

For example (this gave me a giggle) in the dialogue between Kim and a benefactor who hosts him (though she’s a bit peeved in this scene)—

<i>‘A thousand blessings upon your house.’
‘The house be unblessed.’
It is impossible to give exactly the old lady’s word.</i>

…you can almost hear the cursed muttering under her breath.

This may have been a children’s book in 1900, but as with many books written in eras past, this text needs two or three equivalent alongside to explain the politics, culture and realities of an abandoned Irish boy in the India governed under British Imperialism. Good for an upper level or university class on any of those subjects, possibly alongside Frances Burnett Hodgson’s <i>The Secret Garden</i> as her novel begins in relatively the same era.


A Reviewer’s Reviews Response:
**It would do some readers well to scan a biographical summary of Kipling himself, a man born and raised in India at the time of his own writing (some of the other reviewers seem not to have realised that fact—I mean, he didn’t drop onto the continent for a three-week first class holiday in the 21st century, so it’s a bit odd to expect that sort of perspective from this writing)… we readers from the future aren’t required to agree with political and social perspectives that are outdated and imperialistic—of course not! But God forbid we throw away the incriminating evidence of ‘what was’ because we don’t like or agree with what happened. History is recorded not to give accolades to the dead (though some might think) but to learn from experiences both positive and negative, for the betterment of our present age, and the promise of the future. Better to read, intelligibly analyse, dissect, evaluate, and compare ‘what might have been then’ and ‘what should be now’ with greater insight, understanding and reaching for higher standards of equality and love among all of humanity.

I thought I was going to hate this all the way through, and in some way, there are things I hate about how this ended, but in the end, Nesbø heartwarmingly surprised me, and we’re all okay again.

The thing is, I LOVE these characters from the start. All of them. And going into reading this series, I hadn’t thought I would get this attached to any of them. Now that I’m done the series, I feel a bit of a hole left, and like at the end of all great stories, I mourn the loss at the termination of this reading adventure. This diverse cast, broken and clashing to make things right in the world, have darkened my nights of obsessed reading since I began this adventure and I’ll miss this lot. Thanks to Gunner, Katrine, Øystein, Bjarne, Oleg, Rakel, Kaja, Bjørn, Aune—and all the other faithfuls who kept Harry alive and passionate and focused.

The first novel set the stage well, and truthfully not many of the peeps from that one were long-memorable, but then came Ellen… and the torrent of falling in love with this delightful variety of personalities in the characters that surround our desperately failed hero began. And Nesbø killed me every time, first with Ellen, then Beate, and finally the worse blow of all in this novel. I mean, you start to get the idea that Nesbø actually doesn’t like Harry and wants to put him through the worst hells known to man. And as a friend of Harry, rooting that he’ll do the right thing (as he usually does, no matter the round-about journey to get there), we too are broken-hearted and can even understand his desperate actions. But we also have faith in Harry—despite all the evidence—because we know this character.

But somehow Harry always bounces back, overcomes, finds a path to twisted justice, and like Ozzy, he never succumbs to the fatal desire he displays to do himself in with the continued mistreatment of his body. It’s like life isn’t done with him yet, and it’s a good thing because there are still people left (amazingly) who need him.

I thought I was going to hate how this all ended, and in some ways I do, but what a ride… thanks for sharing Harry and his world with us, Nesbø.

In the end, I truly loved the ending.

‘Poverty Porn’ sayeth the woke masses. Je m'en fiche parce que j'aime son style d'écriture.

Le style d'écriture est composé de phrases courtes. Cela ne me dérange pas. Mais peut-être que c'est du porno de la pauvreté comme disent les masses éveillées. Est-ce que quelqu'un ne peut pas raconter une histoire sans la poo-poo du club « Je connais le mieux » dessus ?

The first two of these were better crafted, whereas this one seems rushed and even the red herring is kinda predictable—almost as if it really did happen and he was loathe to write about it, but had already signed the contract so had little choice… I’m a bit surprised by the feeling the writing gave me. Literally as though he was so opposed to writing this novel but felt forced to finish to fulfil an obligation. Is that what happened here…?

The trip to the island reminds me of several Christie-like novels I’ve read in the past few years; a stiff nod to And Then There Were None, Ruth Ware’s One by One or Lucy Foley’s The Hunting Party—but not quite hitting the same tone of suspense and never delivering the thrills—and then dropping short of killing more people off than these other authors.

Anthony doesn’t like the former detective he’s shadowing—and we like Hawthorne better than we like our narrator, but the annoyed put-out Anthony transmits his vibe with effectiveness. I felt annoyed and put-out most of the way through too.

The murders are not exactly cosy, but they’re not bloody gory passion crimes either, and the (somewhat predictable) conclusion leaves the self-debasing Anthony baffled, even if he writes it in a way that we all kinda saw it coming. I don’t know how he made himself look so clueless when he’s the one dropping the clues all along—that was interesting.

Then, in the end, there a sniff of something more interesting to come… or is it…?