This is the first of several noir novels featuring Aud Torvingen, a former cop and now private investigator. Aud is a total Mary Sue, and I love her anyway.

I like mysteries set in unfamiliar cities, and The Blue Space gave a good sense of Atlanta, especially the bird life. The fact that I start the review talking about the birds points to the strengths and weaknesses of the book. The descriptions are very nicely done, and easy to read. The mystery was less enticing. I liked Aud Torvingen, the kick ass heroine. I liked that she saw the dangers of every situation, and the costs of that perception. I liked the fact that her sexual orientation was part of the book but not the point of the book. I guess how perfect she was pressed my buttons a little bit - the woodworking sequences somehow weren't real for me, and just reminded me of how some novelists make their charactres play jazz piano to show their other sides. It felt contrived. But that's a minor point.

I don't know why but the book didn't grip me. I started to drift and then skim and by then jump who pages. I didn't believe the entire Norway sequence, it's odd but the Atlanta passage felt far more real to me, the Norway parts never came alive. I found the end gripping, but would have liked to love the book more than I did. ( )

This is an absolutely fantastic book - tightly plotted, searingly emotional and unrelenting. I could not ut it down and I immediately read the next two in the series, finishing all 3 in 4 days. The best thing is that each one in the series is longer and better than the one before. I can't wait to see what happens if she writes another, and I sincerely hope that another in the series is in the works! ( )

A while back I read and reviewed the sequel to this one, Stay. I was surprised upon reading this that knowing how things turned out didn't ruin this one for me. The mystery was still fresh, and I hadn't realized that Aud doesn't know Julia, who she's mourning in Stay, all that long. So there were the details of how they met and came to love each other, plus all the wonderful descriptions of Atlanta and Norway. Griffith is a literary writer who immerses the readers in the details of a place to the point you can hear tires crunching on gravel or the birds singing overhead and smell the flowers blooming in Aud's garden or by the lake. You feel the cold when she's exploring the glacier in Norway and you feel her pain when she finally lets herself love someone with all the fear of losing that special someone.

Aud is one of the strongest female characters you can meet in fiction. Tall, physically capable, a trained cop skilled in martial arts, knowledgeable about more things that the average person, someone who can build furniture and repair homes, Aud has enough money to not need to work, a curiosity and need to stay busy that leads her to take work, and a closed off psyche. For all of her physical attributes, emotionally, she has plenty of room for growth. ( )

A spare, cold suspense thriller — Norwegian noir — with strong, enigmatic characters, rec by prof