by Alicia Rudnicki, Library Mix

A Most Peculiar Malaysian Murder, by Shamini Flint
Piatkus Books, 2009
ISBN 978-0-749-92975-6

Flint is a children’s author as well as a writer of adult mysteries. A Most Peculiar Malaysian Murder is the first novel in her Her Inspector Singh series. Singh is an overweight, rumply, taciturn police detective who is, nevertheless, charming due to his essential goodness. Inspector Singh may be in a bad mood about having to leave his home in Singapore to solve a celebrity murder in Malaysia, but he is a dogged investigator who strives to set the world right.

by Alicia Rudnicki, Library Mix

Faithful Place, by Tana French
Viking, 2010
ISBN 978-0-143-11949-4

French’s gritty, working-class Dublin doesn’t seem all that far away from the mean streets of blue-collar Boston in Dennis LeHane’s mysteries. It is no surprise that French chose  LeHane's Mystic River as one of her top 10 favorite mysteries in an article for the Guardian. Similar to so many of LeHane’s stories, French’s tales are driven by dark, long-buried secrets of friends and family.

So far, French has published three novels, all interconnected through related characters, but not really a series. Each is haunting in its own way. In Faithful Place, a detective learns that although you can go home, it may be more like a visit to Hell than to a safe harbor.

by Alicia Rudnicki, Library Mix

The Boy in the Suitcase, by Lene Kaaberbol and Agnette Friis
Soho Press, English translation 2011
ISBN 978-1-569-47981-0

Nina Borg is a nurse and an ardent advocate for the underdog, who works with refugee children in Denmark. It is her do-good nature and persistence that causes a long-estranged friend to ask Nina to pick up a suitcase from a public locker in the Copenhagen train station.

The suitcase is unusually heavy. When Nina opens it, she discovers a toddler, alive but powerfully drugged. Soon Nina is living on the run, temporarily abandoning family and work to protect the boy from the evil that chases him.

The Boy in the Suitcase is compelling and will cause readers to search for more translations of works by this deft writing team. Unfortunately, there is little information about Kaaberbol and Friis online. This is their first novel in the Borg series and was translated to English by Kaaberbol. Similar to Sara Paretsky’s work it focuses heavily on fighting for social injustice.

by Alicia Rudnicki, Library Mix

Broken, A Mystery, by Karin Fossum, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2010,
ISBN 0-547-52036-0


 A line of sad-looking people lingers in the driveway of an author’s house at all hours. “There are so many of them, they are hard to count,” she reflects while preparing for bed.

After midnight, the stairs creak. One of the strangers has entered her bedroom and her life uninvited. Similar to all the others in the queue, he isn’t real. He is an unnamed man who lives in the limbo of her imagination — an unformed character who demands that she create a story for him to inhabit.

Meek, mild, and murderous
So begins Karin Fossum’s Broken, an unusual and thought-provoking mystery. Although the author character remains unnamed throughout the novel, she gives her meek anti-hero a name, Alvar Eide, and a life as a quiet art gallery salesman who can’t say no and is forever changed by the demands of a drug- addicted acquaintance.

Although it is subtitled “A Mystery,” Fossum lets readers in on whodunit without subterfuge. There is no puzzling over clues; we know what happened and why. But the book presents other riddles. For me, Broken is ultimately about the mysteries of how a novel evolves, why the author creates it, and how the characters affect both novelist and readers.

As Eide’s story grows, so does concern for him. The sleeplessness of the nameless author telegraphs her worry. Readers may find themselves troubling over her stress as well as Eide’s emotionally sterile life that proves to be fertile ground for bad decisions.

Eide reminds me of a butterfly, which can never fly properly if it doesn’t have enough room to completely stretch out its wings upon emerging from its cocoon. His childhood has made it nearly impossible for him to form the family and friendships necessary to enjoy and navigate social interaction.

Characters who come to life
It is difficult not to believe in Eide’s existence; he seems so real. Some readers might even visualize themselves grabbing his shoulders and facing Eide for a heart-to-heart bit of advice. But it is a wasted fantasy. The fictional author who is creating him lets Eide be whom he is, someone who recoils from touch and involvement let alone bravery.

I was reminded of this transference of feelings — real-life worry for a fictitious person — long after I finished Broken, said goodbye to Eide and let him disappear into the queue of characters that may linger on or fall into potholes along the driveway of my memory.

But sometimes characters step out of line and remain with me, demanding my fascination and concern. It’s difficult to say goodbye to them. Such is the case not only with Eide but also with the mysterious, unnamed author who creates his story. I wonder whether she ever reappears in the queue of characters in Karin Fossum’s imagination requesting an opportunity to tell a new story. I would like to hear from her again.