Ursina's Shelf - Mystery Edition
Issue 3
Welcome to all mystery fans. My love for reading started with trips to the library on Thursday afternoons after school to borrow a TKKG book, in which four German teenagers—Tim, Karl, Klösschen, and Gaby—and Gaby’s cocker spaniel solved the latest mysteries. When we found out we would be moving to the US, my mom encouraged me to learn reading English with Agatha Christie books. To this day, mysteries let me escape to other worlds, whether close to home with Rabbi Klein solving mysteries in Zurich or far away with Australian policeman Aaron Falk in the outback. In this first mystery edition of the newsletter, let me introduce you to three favorites.
Three Mystery Series
Sebastian Bergman series by Michael Hjorth and Hans Rosenfeldt (6 books to date)
My Description: A true Nordic noir, set in Sweden, the protagonist is a womanizer and famous profiler hated by most of his friends and colleagues for his fairly rude behavior. He rejoins his team to solve brutal crimes committed by serial killers and the likes. Readers learn more and more about the background of each team member, even warming up to Sebastian, while each character also develops further, and not all for the good.
My Take: I could not put these down, and at least four esteemed newsletter readers have also read each of these. Any fans of Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy (The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, etc.) will likely enjoy these.
Bonus fact: The books are written by two authors originally in Swedish and translated into 33 languages.
Cormoran Strike and Robin Ellacott series by Robert Galbraith (alias of J.K. Rowling) (4 books to date)
My Description: Cormoran, a war veteran and private detective in London, teams up with Robin, a college drop-out and temp with a natural talent and ambition for detective work. The crimes they solve take them to the upper echelons of high society, the publishing industry, political halls, and more, all while attempting to move past their own scars.
My Take: J.K. Rowling is a masterful storyteller with flowing writing and many end-of-chapter cliffhangers. Not only are the books suspenseful, they are also critiques of society, such as the publishing industry in London. Anyone who is more into mysteries for character development will enjoy these, and you will be just in time for book 5’s release on September 15th.
Bonus fact: J.K. Rowling revealed in an NPR interview, that she read accounts left by Ted Bundy as inspiration for the misogynist villain in Career of Evil (book 3 in the series), and these gave her nightmares.
Note: I condemn recent statements by J.K. Rowling on transgender people.
Madame le Commissaire by Pierre Martin (7 books to date)
My Description: To recuperate from an explosion, anti-terrorist forces commander Isabelle Bonnet returns to her small hometown in the hills behind the Côte-d’Azure, where she soon stumbles across a first case, while reconnecting with old friends and finding a new love interest or two.
My Take: These books feel like a vacation. While the crimes are serious, our protagonist often connects the dots over a glass of white wine, the plat du jour at the local bistro, playing pétanque with the town elders, or swimming at her favorite hidden beach. Her fiercely loyal and disheveled side kick and her amorous pursuers round out these lovely stories.
Bonus fact: Pierre Martin is also an alias! This time of a well-regarded German author. Sadly these are only published in German so far.
The Jury Is In!
Dominic and my parents share my love for mysteries and read even more of them than I do, so I asked them for their recommendations too.
Dominic added the Maarten S. Sneijder and Sabine Nemez series by Andreas Gruber, which I have devoured as well. In these books, the experienced Sneijder and young ambitious Nemez team up (if you can call their partnership a team) to solve grizzly crimes and track horrifying serial killers that will make you question this author’s imagination and keep you up at night turning the page or having nightmares. (German only so far)
My dad Andreas recommends German author Inge Löhning’s Kommissar Dühnfort series. I am excited to give these a read, as they are set in Munich. (German only so far)
My mom Vera is a huge fan of Kathy Reichs, the famous Forensic Anthropologists who specializes in recovering and identifying human remains, and created the character Temperance Brennan in an ongoing series of thrillers that have become the basis for the hit TV show Bones.
Currently reading: Y: The Last Man by Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra.
That is it for today, but this certainly is not the last issue on mysteries. Wishing you all a lovely weekend, and please send your mystery recommendations and feedback to ursinab@gmail.com . Thank you for reading!