The excitement of opening a book you've really been looking forward to...

Who are your favourite authors? You know, the ones you can't wait to get around to reading, whether their latest book, or an older one you hadn't yet read? How exciting is it to have a book from one of those authors in your hands? And what about those authors or books you've heard great things about, but haven't yet experienced? How cool is it to 'discover', for yourself, a new-to-you author that you really, really enjoy?

Reading is a wonderful thing, but some books and some authors can create a level of anticipation more than others - based on our own preferences and reading experiences/history etc. I love reading crime fiction, but will admit that although the act of starting every new-to-me crime novel I open is cool, there are always some books that excite more than others, even before you've turned to the opening page. Books that beckon you from your TBR pile, promising much, and whetting your appetite well ahead of time. Of course some of these books deliver on their promise and anticipation, and some don't.

Today I finally started a book that I've been meaning to get to for a fair while; RED WOLF by Liza Marklund. Only a few chapters in, I'm already enjoying it greatly - and looking forward to seeing how it evolves over the next 400 plus pages. Here's a backcover-style blurb:

AN ACCIDENTAL DEATH? Reporter Annika Bengtzon is working on the story of a devastating crime when she hears that a journalist investigating the same incident has been killed. It appears to be a hit-and-run accident.

A SERIES OF MURDERS. Several brutal killings follow - all linked by handwritten letters sent to the victims' relatives. When Annika unravels a connection with the story she's writing, she is thrown on to the trail of a deadly psychopath.

THE HUNT IS ON. Caught in a frenzied spiral of secrets and violence, Annika finds herself and her marriage at breaking point. Will her refusal to stop pursuing the truth eventually destroy her?

Marklund is one of the biggest names in Scandinavian crime writing, and one of the biggest sellers across Europe, particularly in the non-English language regions. She is becoming much more well-known in English-speaking countries now, thanks to recent translations. I have read one of 'her' books previously, kind of; POSTCARD KILLERS, which she 'co-wrote' with publishing behemoth James Patterson. Although I didn't think very much of that book (see my review here), I remained keen to try one of her own, solo-author efforts. So today is a good reading day, the day I started RED WOLF.

You can read prolific Eurocrime reviewer Maxine Clarke's review of RED WOLF here. I will share my own thought in due course. I hope I like the book as much as Maxine did.

Have you read RED WOLF, or any of Marklund's other tales (in English or other languages)? If not, will you give them a go, or are you a little 'over' the Scandinavian crime wave and it's relentless publicity?

My review of POSTCARD KILLERS on Reviewing the Evidence

One of the great things about writing reviews for a range of newspapers, magazines, and websites in New Zealand, Australia and further abroad, is that I get the opportunity to write reviews of different lengths for different publications - and also the chance to share my views on various crime and thriller titles with different audiences. It gives me more avenues to try to cover as many of the wonderful (and not so wonderful) crime and thriller novels I'm sent to review, as possible. It's also nice to be able to write slightly longer reviews now and then.

As I said last October, I have started occasionally contributing to Reviewing the Evidence, a website set up by Barbara Franchi in 2001 to help fill the growing void of mystery review websites. It now boasts thousands of reviews of mysteries and thrillers of all categories, and has more than 30 reviewers from the US, the UK, and Australia.

The site is edited by Sharon Wheeler, a UK-based journalist, and by writer and translator Yvonne Klein. I am their first NZ-based reviewer, and I will be looking to contribute semi-regular reviews to their site. Each fortnight or so they publish about 15-20 reviews, and their most recent 'release' included my review of James Patterson and Liza Marklund's recently-released POSTCARD KILLERS.

In POSTCARD KILLERS, touted as "the scariest vacation thriller ever," NYPD cop Jacob Kanon has been chasing a pair of vicious killers across the capitals and holiday hotspots of Europe. Killers who kick-started their murderous spree by butchering his beloved daughter and her fiancé in Rome. Before each murder, a postcard is sent to a local newspaper, but the police remain largely clueless as the murderers run free. When Stockholm-based crime reporter Dessie Larsson receives the latest note, she and Kanon eventually team up to try to stop the killers once and for all.

You can read my review here.

Reading it over now (I submitted it a couple of weeks ago), I may have come across as 'piling on' a little bit, not that I now disagree with anything I've said. I read almost all of James Patterson's Alex Cross novels when I was at high school and Uni (and enjoyed many of them), and have continued to read some of his books now and then, even as he's co-opted various co-authors in recent years. I also think James Patterson has done a lot of great things for literacy, and promoting reading (particularly kids reading). I'd probably give POSTCARD KILLERS a 2-star rating out of 5, where perhaps some people might read my review as more '1 star' in nature at times...

What do you think of my review? Was a bit too harsh on Patterson's latest? Do the things that bothered me about the book (thin characters, cliche and contrivance, etc) really matter when you're reading crime novels? Have you read POSTCARD KILLERS? What do you think?