Ameise1 (Barbara)'s 50+ in 2024

A new year and hopefully lots of great, exciting books.

January
# 1 The Invisible Man From Salem by Christoffer Carlsson (4 stars)
# 2 Closed For Winter by Jørn Lier Horst (4½ stars)
# 3 The Paris Bookseller by Kerri Maher (5 stars)
# 4 Schach mit dem Tod by Steffen Jacobsen (4 stars)
# 5 The Golem by Isaak Bashevis Singer (4 stars)
# 6 Mordsand by Romy Fölck (4 stars) 🎧
# 7 Leichenschilf by Anna Jansson (3½ stars)
# 8 The Hunting Dog by Jørn Lier Horst (4½ stars)
# 9 Mitten im August by Luca Ventura (4 stars)
#10 You Will Never Be Found by Tove Alsterdal (4½ stars)

February
#11 Das Leuchten über dem Gipfel by Lenz Koppelstätter (4½ stars)
#12 Aquitania by Eva García Sáenz (5 stars)
#13 Murder At Mallowan Hall by Colleen Cambridge (4½ stars)
#14 Whiteout by Ragnar Jonasson (4 stars)
#15 The Seventh Cross by Anna Seghers (3½ stars) 🎧
#16 Number 11 by Jonathan Coe (3½ stars)
#17 Todesmelodie by Andreas Franz, Daniel Holbe (4 stars)
#18 The Woman in Blue by Elly Griffiths (4½ stars)
#19 Dunkelkinder by Nora Luttmer (4 stars)

March
#20 I Am Your Judge by Nele Neuhaus (4½ stars)
#21 Small Mercies by Dennis Lehane (4½ stars)
#22 Die Hornisse by Marc Raabe (4½ stars) 🎧
#23 Zorn – Tod und Regen by Stephan Ludwig (4 stars)
#24 Die rote Mütze by Daniel de Roulet (4½ stars)
#25 The Bone Readers by Jacob Ross (4½ stars)
#26 Die Spur der Aale by Florian Wacker (4½ stars)
#27 Diary of a Tuscan Bookshop by Alba Donati (4 stars)

April
#28 Mrs. Quinn's Rise to Fame by Olivia Ford (4 stars) 🎧
#29 Eine Formalie in Kiew by Dmitrij Kapitelman (4½ stars)
#30 The Honjin Murders by Seishi Yokomizo (4½ stars)
#31 Zorn - Vom Lieben und Sterben by Stephan Ludwig (4½ stars)
#32 Bittersüsse Zitronen by Luca Ventura (4 stars)
#33 Farewell Ghosts by Nadia Terranova (4½ stars)
#34 Die Kunst des Sterbens by Anna Grue (4 stars) 🎧
#35 The Bastards of Pizzofalcone by Maurizio de Giovanni (4½ stars)
#36 Death in Summer by Lina Areklew (4½ stars)

May
#37 Rachewinter by Andreas Gruber (4½ stars)
#38 Deadline in Athens by Pétros Márkaris (4 stars)
#39 Die Infantin trägt den Scheitel links by Helena Adler (5 stars)
#40 Eine Frau aus Tirana by Helena Kadare (4 stars)
#41 Der rote Judas by Thomas Ziebula (4 stars)
#41 Congo Requiem by Jean-Christophe Grangé (4½ stars) 🎧
#42 A Grave for Two by Anne Holt (4 stars)

book 1 Read in German

 The Invisible Man From Salem

I was recommended Christoffer Carlsson by some platform. My local library has the Leo Junker series, so I started with the first book in it.

The story is very exciting and multi-layered. It jumps from now to then, which irritated me at the beginning because I didn't immediately see the connection with the loose threads. Over time, however, it was great fun to make this leap in time and my thoughts began to see the connections better and better.
Leo Junker is a suspended policeman in whose block of flats a murder took place. He couldn't resist and rushed to the flat to investigate himself. He discovered a necklace that looked familiar to him and so began the time jump in this crime thriller.
We get to know Grim and Julia, who are closely linked to Junker's fate.
Despite Junker's suspension, he is inwardly driven to investigate himself and puts himself and those following him in great danger.

Written in a very exciting and varied way. I will certainly read the other books as well.

book 2 Read in German

 Closed For Winter

I discovered this series last autumn and it's addictive.

Chief Inspector William Wisting once again has to deal with many loose ends that he believes somehow belong together. But he still has to convince others of this, which is sometimes difficult as other police departments are involved in solving a drug case with some of his suspects. To make matters worse, his daughter Line is also dragged into the whole mess and, as a father, he fears the worst.
Several summer houses by the sea have been broken into and all the electronic equipment has been stolen. A dead body was found by a neighbour. Instead of being taken to the coroner's office, the body mysteriously disappears. Soon two more dead bodies are found.
Line moves into one of the summer houses because she wants her boyfriend to leave her flat and find something of his own. But this boyfriend is also a business partner of a well-known drug dealer.
Wisting's investigation shuttles between Norway and Lithuania. Every time he senses a breakthrough, a different loose end begins to give him a headache.
The story is written in a very exciting way and only at the very end are all the loose ends tied up.

book 3 Read in German

 The Paris Bookseller

I saw this book on Thomas' thread. Thank you so much for recommending this book.

It's the story of Sylvia Beach, a women's rights activist, a bookseller, the woman who was the first to produce Ulysses when no male publisher cared and nearly perished in the process.
In 1919 Sylvia opened her bookshop 'Shakespeare and Company'. She did this with the support of her friend and later partner Adrienne Monnier, who already had a French bookshop where French authors and intellectuals came and went. This encouraged Sylvia to open an English-language bookshop. Not only did the French authors support her, but she soon counted American and English authors among her friends. On the one hand, she ran the bookshop as a kind of lending library and on the other, she also sold the books.
Everything was going well until James Joyce came to her, who was looking to get his book Ulysses published somehow. In America, the first chapters were already among the 'forbidden books'. There was no chance that his work would ever be published. Joyce was a very unpleasant contemporary. Many of Sylvia's friends called him the false Jesus. He took the worst possible advantage of his fellow human beings and disappeared when he had to pay his debts.
Sylvia, however, felt that she had to support him and threw herself into an adventure as a publisher, but also into debt and hopelessness until her health suffered.

I was very impressed by this story. I also didn't realise that at the beginning of the 20th century, same-sex love and cohabitation were not a problem in France.
I can warmly recommend this book.

book 4 Read in German

 Schach mit dem Tod

I love Steffen Jacobsen's books (I've also read the whole Michael Sander and Lene Jensen series). As always, his thrillers are based on historical fact, in this case about Los Alamos in 1945 and the development of the atomic bomb. The characters he uses are mostly people who actually worked on the development of the bomb. Oppenheimer also plays a major role in this book.
David Adler is a Danish electrical engineer who worked for years in Murmansk. In January 1945, he is recruited by Russia as a spy to take part in the Manhattan Project. As a relative of Niels Bohr, he quickly gains the great scientist's trust and becomes his personal assistant. As a result, he is constantly around Oppenheimer and the other researchers.
David watches the development of the atomic bomb with horror. He also realises that other Russian spies are involved. Who can he trust and who must he eliminate?
It is excitingly written.

Last summer I bought J. Rober Oppenheimer - The Biography. It's quite a tome, but I'll be taking it with me to Davos when we go on our skiing holiday to Davos on 17 February.

book 5 Read in German

 The Golem

A member of the Jewish community in old Prague is accused of ritual murder, the judges are on the side of the denouncers and a pogrom threatens. The wise Rabbi Löw, not only a Talmudic scholar but also a friend of magic and mysticism, has a vision during the midnight intercession: he will mould a giant golem out of clay that can save the Jews from mortal danger.
After fulfilling the golem's mission, the rabbi is unable to destroy the golem again. The golem increasingly developed human traits, which led to certain situations becoming absurd.
I like legends and this one also had its charm and humour, even if the subject is very serious.

The master story is dedicated to "the persecuted and oppressed in the world, in the hope against all hope that the time of false accusations will one day end".

book 6 🎧 Read in German

 Mordsand

Mordsand is the fourth crime thriller in the series centred around Frida Paulsen and Bjarne Haverkorn. Once again, Romy Fölck takes us to the Elbe marshes, where a skeleton is found in the mud, bound hand and foot. A short time later, a controversial building contractor is found dead on a neighbouring island, also tied up. Frida, Bjarne and their team from the Itzeho police investigate. Dr Torben Kielmann also plays a key role - not only in identifying the skeleton, but also in Frida's life. This case pushes both of them to their health limits.
A big plus point in the crime novels in this series has always been the skilful depiction of the landscape along the Elbe. Fölck has always been able to depict the atmosphere by the river, in the orchards and in the flat marshland so vividly that it is easy to transport yourself there while listening. This time, too, she manages to vividly convey autumn in this region: The damp cold, the rain showers, the musty smell at the water's edge and the loneliness of the Elbe islands create a great atmosphere.

book 7 Read in German

 Leichenschilf

Leichenschilf is the first volume in the Kristoffer Bark series. It took me a moment to 'warm up' to this crime thriller. I was particularly disturbed by the fate of Inspector Bark, which was more than obsessive and took up a lot of space, which made me feel at first how the protagonists and the course of the plot were interlinked.
Five years ago, his daughter Vera disappeared without a trace at Lake Hjälmar on her hen night. Her body was never found. Since then, Bark has been constantly searching for her or her trail, driving everyone around him mad. Vera's girlfriend also disappeared at the same time, but was found dead. Now a corpse appears on the lake shore. Who is she? What does she have to do with Vera's disappearance?
Even after all these years, Vera's fiancé is not making a good trap. Could he have something to do with Vera's disappearance or the body that was found?
Questions upon questions that kept me guessing what had happened in the last five years.

book 8 Read in German

 The Hunting Dogs

This is now the 3rd volume in the William Wisting series that I've read and I'm enjoying it more and more. The protagonists are so familiar to me that I actually sympathise with them.
In this book, Wisting is suspended, but not because he messed something up years ago, but because he was the person in charge of the case. It was the newspaper, where his daughter Line works, that made this public. Cecilia Linde disappeared 17 years ago. A perpetrator was found, but after his release he claims that he was imprisoned on false pretences, that evidence had been tampered with. After Wisting's suspension, he sets about going through the old files. He receives support from his friend, the former forensic scientist, and from his daughter. The latter was at a crime scene for a report where a man was beaten to death. Over time, it becomes increasingly clear that this death is connected to Wisting's case. It also became clear that the falsified evidence was made by a police officer. Then another young woman disappears. It's a race against time.
It is written in an incredibly exciting way and kept me guessing until the very end who the culprit was.

book 9 Read in German

 Mitten im August

As they say, I stumbled across this book on a visit to the library and have not regretted it. It's the first volume in the Capri-Krimi series.
Island policeman Enrico Rizzi usually only has to deal with minor offences on Capri. He also helps his father with the farming. They grow vegetables, which they also sell to the restaurants, as well as various types of fruit and wine.
One morning, a dead man is found in a rowing boat in a bay. As it turned out, he was a student of oceanology and the scion of an industrialist family from the north. His girlfriend, also an oceanology student, had gone into hiding. While Rizzi and his mysterious new colleague Antonia Cirillo try to solve the murder, you also learn a lot about the marine pollution around the Gulf of Naples, as an obscure professor also plays his part.
It is a cosy mystery that brings you closer to the way of life in southern Italy. I will enjoy reading the other volumes.

book 10 Read in German

 You Will Never Be Found

I read the first volume of this trilogy last October. The second volume also gripped me from the start.
The young policewoman Eira Sjödin again has her hands full. Her mother, who suffers from dementia, is admitted to a nursing home, which she really likes. But what to keep and what to take away is a challenge for Eira. She packs together with her mother, but she unpacks everything behind her back. When everything has been moved, Eira wants to clear out the house, but as her brother Marius is in prison (innocent), she is left with everything. On top of everything else, a murder case takes up all her time.
A male corpse is found in the cellar of an abandoned house in the woods. It looks like he was locked up and died of starvation and thirst. She rejoins the investigation team. She soon realises that this murder victim is not the only one and it even looks like it is a serial murder. The worst thing for her is that someone close to her disappears and time is running out to find him alive.
It was exciting from the first to the last page and I'm already looking forward to the next volume.

book 11 Read in German

 Das Leuchten über dem Gipfel

The fifth volume in the Commissario Grauner series was also a hit. I like this series because Grauner, an older South Tyrolean inspector who prefers to be a farmer and above all loves Mahler, investigates together with the young Neapolitan inspector Saltapepe, who has been transferred. The two could not be more different and yet they cannot do without each other.
It is high summer and Grauner believes that Saltapepe is on holiday in his beloved Naples. But this is not the case, because the die-hard football fan Saltapepe is visiting the training camp of his favourite football team, SSC Naples, in the Pusta Valley (South Tyrol). A player disappears and Saltapepe asks Grauner for help. He is not enthusiastic at first, as he finds football boring, but the Mahler Festival is taking place in Toblach at the same time and so he agrees. But what they both don't know is that it's not just about this missing player, but about large-scale betting fraud in football. During the investigation, more and more corpses pave the way for the two of them and they and their loved ones also find themselves in great danger.
A great, cosy mystery set in beautiful South Tyrol, excitingly written and often a source of smiles.

book 12 Read in German

 Aquitania

This is the fourth book I've read by Eva García Sáenz and once again I was absolutely thrilled. She writes in her concluding remarks:
The life of Eleanor of Aquitaine provides material not only for a novel, but for an entire encyclopaedia. She lived an unusually long life for her time and died at the age of 82 in her beloved Fontevrault Abbey, where she had retired.
When I began to look into her life, I realised that I would only be able to follow her for a few years in a novel, her life was so eventful. I decided to focus on the early years, from her father's death to her return from the Holy Land.

Sáenz has an excellent ability to describe the Middle Ages with all its quarrels. It is an exciting story from the first to the last page. It begins in 1137 and lasts until 1149. Eleonora becomes the ruler of Aquitaine after the death of her father and, for tactical reasons, decides to marry the weak son of the king of France and later King Louis VII. She believed that this would also enable her to gain power over the Carpathians. However, she did not realise from the outset that many intrigues and power games would prevent her from doing so for a long time.
It is a historical novel that I can recommend to everyone.

book 13 Read in German

 Murder At Mallowan Hall

It was a great, cosy mystery.
The story is set in Agatha Christie's estate. She appears from time to time, but the main role is played by her housekeeper Phyllida Bright, a mysterious woman who has known Agatha Christie since wartime and seems to be very familiar with her.
Guests are invited to stay at Mallowan Hall for three days. An unknown guest arrives shortly before dinner and asks for accommodation. It seems that nobody knows him. The next morning, when Phyllida opens the curtains in the library, she finds the unknown guest stabbed to death with a fountain pen.
Naturally, she calls the police, but is convinced that they will surely be incompetent.
This mystery is written with many twists and turns. There is a lot to smile about and the characters are excellently described.

book 14 Read in German

 Whiteout

The fourth volume of the Dark Iceland series was also exciting.
A young woman returns to the place where she spent the first years of her life. During this time, her mother and sister died tragically. These deaths were never solved. Now the same fate befalls her, but investigators Tómas and Ari Pór don't believe it was suicide. Both investigators delve into a dark secret involving all the protagonists, which leads to another death.
As always, it is very excitingly written and keeps you guessing until the end how everything fits together.

book 15 🎧 Read in German

 The Seventh Cross

Seven prisoners have escaped from the Westhofen concentration camp, but only one reaches the saving shore. On his escape route, Georg Heisler meets men and women who have to choose between betrayal and loyalty, selfish renunciation and humanity, denunciation and solidarity.
Despite the oppressive subject matter, the tone of the novel is upbeat.
The seven days of the escape correspond to seven chapters. Simultaneous events are depicted in short, consecutive scenes.
The Christian motif of crucifixion is reversed: redemption lies in the fact that Georg Heisler's cross remains free.
I was partly fascinated by the different human ways of thinking, but sometimes also repelled and even bored after a while. It is certainly an important book that shows a time window of National Socialism, but often a little long-winded.

book 16 Read in German

 Number 11

Somehow this book only partially captivated me. I found it exciting how the different social classes were described from the perspective of people who are not so favoured but who have great values and dreams. Various topics are touched on, such as the decadent lives of the super-rich who don't care how the rest of the population is doing. Obsession that can lead to death. The food bank and how the people who need it are ashamed that they have to go there to survive. How the participants in the jungle camp are treated. Honestly, I watched this programme once and found it very repulsive. Well, I can't do anything with so-called celebrities anyway. On the other hand, I found it interesting how a simple policeman tries to solve a case and even surprises Scotland Yard in the process. Then there was something paranormal at the beginning and end, which didn't interest me much. And then there was the friendship between Alison and Rachel, who grow closer and separate again and again in the course of the story.
Sometimes it was written very humorously, which made the whole thing worth reading.

book 17 Read in German

 Todesmelodie

For me, this is the first volume in the Julia Durant series, even though it is the 12th volume in the series. The good thing about it is that this is the first volume that Daniel Holbe completed from manuscripts started by the late Andreas Franz, so it's like a kind of 'reboot' of the series.
Julia Durant, chief inspector in Frankfurt, returns to her department after a year's 'recuperation break'. At first she is transferred to the back office, which doesn't suit her at all, so she always has the feeling that she only gets half of the case.
A dead, abused young student is found in a shared student flat. Who has done this to her? Four students are arrested, but the reader soon realises that these four did not kill the victim. However, they are convicted because they abused the victim and offered no help. Another student is acquitted for lack of evidence. Of course, the reader immediately has the feeling that he must be the perpetrator.
Two years later, more women are brutally murdered, following the same pattern. They are filmed and these films are sold on the Darnet. In addition to the women's bodies, a male corpse is also found, equally abused and killed. How does he fit into this scheme? The man who brutally killed the women is also found abused and dead himself.
There are many unanswered questions that Julia Durant and her team have to solve.
It is very excitingly written and I read it in one go.

book 18 Read in German

 The Woman in Blue

This Griffiths was also a pageturner as always.
Even though Ruth Galloway is not in demand as an archaeologist this time, she can't stop investigating, even if she finds it hard to hold back.
Cathbad looks after a friend's house in the pilgrimage town of Walsingham. In the middle of the night, he sees a young woman dressed in a blue cloak in the graveyard. Shortly afterwards she is found dead in a ditch. She was a patient in a nearby private rehab clinic. Who has a reason to kill the young woman and why? At the same time, a former fellow student of Ruth's gets in touch with her. She has been receiving threatening letters for some time because she is now a priestess. In Walsingham, she takes part in a seminar for prospective female bishops. Soon afterwards, a member of this group is also found murdered and DCI Nelson's wife, who looks strikingly similar to the two dead women, is also attacked.
Events come thick and fast, both privately and in the investigation.

book 19 Read in German ROOT 1

 Dunkelkinder

What fascinates me about Nora Luttmer's books is that she is very knowledgeable about the life and culture of Vietnam. In addition to being an author, she is also a journalist, studied Southeast Asian Studies with a focus on Vietnam and regularly spent long periods of time in Hanoi in the 1990s.
This story is set in Hamburg, but the protagonists are Vietnamese. Inspector Mia Paulsen comes across a dead 'ghost child' in a cold case where nobody knows where it came from or who it was. Shortly after she takes on the case, two fresh corpses are found at the same location. The coroner's office establishes that these bodies are from Vietnam. Mia sees a connection to her cold case and wonders whether the dead child might also have come from Vietnam. The deeper she digs, the more complicated the whole thing becomes.
This story is also about the Vietnamese drug cartel in Germany. The story is told from different points of view: Mia, Luka (son of a murdered policeman), Sam (a 'ghost child', very much alive) and Aunt Lien (interpreter for the police, but deeply involved with the Vietnamese drug cartel).
It is written in a very exciting and varied way.

book 20 Read in German ROOT 2

 I Am Your Judge

Detective Inspector Pia Kirchhoff is actually on her way to her honeymoon, but a mysterious murder case makes her stay at home. An elderly lady is shot in the head at long range while walking her dog. What at first seems like a big mystery soon turns out to be a serial killer who has an agenda as an 'avenger'. Kirchhoff and her colleague von Bodenstein are always one step behind the murderer during their investigations. The underlying theme is organ donation and how some doctors deal with it.
Another very exciting crime thriller by Nele Neuhaus, which I can highly recommend.

book 21 Read in German ROOT 3

 Small Mercies

This was another Lehane that made me think a lot. Please don't get me wrong, I am against any form of racism, but the way the solutions were implemented in Boston to bring about mixing was doomed to failure in my eyes. How is this supposed to work when children are bussed across the city to attend a school where there are mixed races? The question that should have been asked is how to mix neighbourhoods so that different ethnicities can live together and the school would also be mixed. This is hardly possible in America because rich parents send their children to private schools and the public schools (as it seems here in Switzerland) do not have the best reputation.
The second focus is drug dealing and consumption. How easy it is as an Irish population that is against the mixing of the races, but big in the drugs business, to blame all misdeeds on the weak population. They are often supported/covered up by the 'white' police.
Sometimes I felt really sick while reading, with so much injustice. And I ask myself, when I look at today's American politics from a distance, why after so many years the USA has somehow still not come up with a solution to racism.

book 22 Read in German 🎧

 Die Hornisse

The third part of the Tom Babylon series was also very exciting.
It seems that Tom's partner is involved in a murder. Not only does this 'construction site' hit Tom hard, no, he also has to deal with his parents' past during the GDR era.
A singer is found brutally murdered. All the clues lead to Tom's partner and so he is excluded from the investigation, but that doesn't stop Tom from investigating himself. In doing so, he puts not only himself but also his son, his stepmother and his partner in great danger.
Nothing seems as it should be. He realises that Phil is not his biological son, that the murdered singer's agent also has a secret and that his mother was a spy in the GDR.
It gripped me from the first to the last minute and I am very much looking forward to the sequel.

book 23 Read in German

 Zorn – Tod und Regen

Sigh, I once again stumbled upon a series that was new to me and was hooked on the first page of it, so I'm going to read the rest of the books too.
Inspector Claudius Zorn doesn't particularly love his job. In the department he is also described as lazy and grumpy. His love life is flighty and relatively 'unhealthy' for these women. His partner, Inspector Schröder, who is obese and yet in better health than Zorn, is a meticulous investigator who knows the overview and the details very well.
One day a woman's bled-out body is found on the river bank. She was brutally murdered. Why? Who is behind it? During the investigation, more and more dead people appear. Including the public prosecutor, who appears to be blocking the investigation. While the two inspectors soon have the feeling that they are on the trail of the culprit, they are soon proven wrong in a brutal way.

book 24 Read in German

 Die rote Mütze

I couldn't put this historical novel down. De Roulet writes about Swiss mercenaries in French service during the French Revolution. He describes the upheaval during this period (which lasted decades), when the people wanted equal rights and the brutal way in which the authorities acted against the common people. In his book, he accompanies seven men from the Geneva region (who actually existed) and uses historical facts to tell the story of what happened to them over five years.
At the end of the book, de Roulet writes:

How to tell of their misery?
How to talk about the cruelty of their officers, whose names can be found on street signs and engraved on monuments?
while the insurgent soldiers
only had a claim
to a shameful entry
in the big book of the prison?

I have memorised the names of seven mercenaries
and that of the martyred Andé Soret.
I made figures out of these names.

The powerful crush you
with their success.
Their slaves,
the less fortunate,
are only granted by literature
the word

I think de Roulet has done a marvellous job of giving the seven mercenaries a voice.

book 25 Read in German

 The Bone Readers

This is the first volume of the Camaho Quartet and I was immediately captivated by it.
Michael 'Digger' Digson is recruited by Detective Superintendent Chilman for a newly formed police force. Digger has his own agenda, however, as he wants to find out what happened to his mother. He is an illegitimate child and his biological father is the chief of police of the Caribbean island of Camaho.
It soon becomes clear that the women and girls on the island are oppressed and abused and that only a few of them fight back, but have to pay for it with their lives. The men always get away scot-free. Digger wants to take action against this, but it's not that easy. With the help of Chilman's daughter Miss Stanislaus, a secretary at the police station and DS Chilman's backing, he manages to solve the cases.
Very excitingly written with lots of insight knowledge about a world that is foreign to me.

book 26 Read in German

 Die Spur der Aale

An exciting start to a new crime series centred around public prosecutor Greta Vogelsang.
Vogelsang is primarily responsible for ecological matters, which is why she had to quickly hand over the case of the murdered customs officer Mathissen, as this does not fall within her remit. She was only on site because she was on call.
Mathissen's death leaves her no peace, however, as he sent her an email shortly before his death asking for an urgent meeting. Vogelsang now begins to investigate on her own, which does not go down well with the public prosecutor. In the process, she puts some people in danger.
The story is that the eels in the Rhine-Main river are almost extinct and Mathissen was on the trail of a smuggling ring from Hong Kong.
Very excitingly written with a lot of knowledge about eels and smuggling.

book 27 Read in German

 Diary of a Tuscan Bookshop

This is a highly recommended book and unfortunately I have no idea which thread I saw it on.
It is the biography of Alba Donati when she decided to open a bookshop in her 170 soul village in the Tuscan mountains in 1999. She tackled this project with great enthusiasm and love for the place and its people. With fundrising and the support of her craftsmen, she succeeded. She was soon able to open the tiny little bookshop. She also has a website where you can not only see the wonderful garden to linger in, but also her book recommendations. These are quite something, she always writes at the end of a diary entry which books she has sent. On the one hand, this is very interesting, on the other hand, this recommendation has given me dozens of books that have now ended up on my library list and that I will gradually borrow.
There were also setbacks, such as the pandemic, which was particularly bad in Italy, and her first bookshop burning down shortly after opening. But none of this could stop them and it seems that their project is a great success for everyone.

book 28 Read in German 🎧

 Mrs. Quinn's Rise To Fame

This is a take on the BBC's 'Bake Off' told in a very entertaining way.
Mrs Quinn's passion is baking, the many family recipes are among her most treasured memories, and she loves to treat friends and family to her delicacies. But shortly before her big wedding day with Bernard, everything suddenly changes. All of a sudden, she was more than aware of the urgency of her dwindling existence. She feels that she must take a chance before it is too late. She secretly applies for a popular TV baking show and not only fulfils a big dream, but also puts everything at risk. Because what nobody suspects is that there is a dark secret in Mrs Quinn's life that she thought she had kept well for decades and which she must now finally face up to.

book 29 Read in German

 Eine Formalie in Kiew

This is a touching declaration of love for home and family

Dmitrij Kapitelman can speak Saxon better than the official from whom he applied for a German passport. After 25 years as a countryman, most of his life. But no formality is too small for the bureaucracy when it comes to immigrants. Ms. Kunze requests an apostille from Kiev. So he travels to his hometown, with which he has nothing but childhood memories. These memories are beautiful, as loving, infallible parents wait in them. And difficult, because the family is currently divided.
Before he leaves, he is instructed by his family that the only way to get the documents he wants is to bribe them. He tried to do it without bribery and succeeded. But he realized that bribery was still common in Kiev when his father, who had traveled there, needed intensive medical care. ›A formality in Kiev‹ is the story of a family that once moved abroad full of hope and in the end is left without a home. Told with the bittersweet humor of a son who stoically tries to become German.

book 30 Read in German

 The Honjin Murders

This is a real 'locked-room murder mystery' that young private detective Kosuke Kindaichi is determined to solve.
During the wedding night, the head of the Ichiyanagis and his bride are brutally killed. When they were found in the morning, no traces were found in the fresh snow around the building, all the shutters were closed and the door was locked from the inside. How could the murderer have escaped? What happened? This mystery is written with many twists and turns. On the one hand, the reader thinks he is on the trail of the murderer, but soon realises that he is looking in the wrong direction.
It was a very exciting and amusing read.

book 31 Read in German

 Zorn - Vom Lieben und Sterben

Zorn and Schröder's second case also captivated me. While you learnt a lot about Zorn's character in the first volume, a lot of Schröder's life and character comes to light in this volume, making him even more likeable and you now also understand his quirks.
A 'decapitated' teenager is found dead. He rides his mountain bike into a tightrope. Why was this tightrope strung? Why did this young man from a good family have to die? Zorn and Schröder have a lot of dirt to dig up and, to make matters worse, more young people die in brutal ways. The investigators soon realise that it has something to do with paedophilia. But who is the culprit?

book 32 Read in German

 Bittersüsse Zitronen

The second volume of the Capri crime series was also an amusing read.
The main themes are the famous southern Italian lemons, limoncello, crowdfarming, love affairs and family feuds.
Elisa Constantini dies in a car accident. Rizzi does not believe that it was a tragic accident but claims that the three-wheeled Ape has been tampered with and that it is therefore a murder. He tries to solve the case with his colleague Cirillo, who, as usual, he only feeds with 'half-infos'.
The good thing about this crime thriller is that the reader is often misled. If you think you know who the murderer is, you'll be disabused shortly afterwards. It remains exciting from the first to the last page.

book 33 Read in German

 Farewell Ghosts

This was a recommendation from the book Diary of a Tuscan Bookshop and I was not disappointed for a moment.
The author writes in the first person and you almost get the feeling that everything described happened to her personally.
Ida receives a phone call from her mother asking her to come home because she wants to sell the flat and Ida should sort out the things she wants to keep. Ida fled to Rome years earlier to escape her nightmares and now lives with her husband in a flat in Rome.
Going home to Messina in Sicily is not easy for Ida because she has to come to terms with her past. This also means letting go of her father figure, who suddenly disappeared one morning when Ida was thirteen years old. His body was never found, so even twenty years later Ida still can't believe that he could be dead. She still sees him in front of her and he not only appears in her sleep but also in various places in Messina.
The book is very impressive and lovingly written. It shows how people can repress, but also how they cannot let go.
I can warmly recommend this book.

book 34 🎧 Read in German

 Die Kunst zu sterben

There are people who nobody likes and so nobody is surprised when they are one day from this world to the hereafter. But there are also people who nobody actually likes, but who are nevertheless uninteresting and irrelevant, so that everyone is surprised when they one day become victims of murder.
The artist Kamille Schwerin can confidently be categorised in the second group. She has gained a certain international reputation with her installations - but no one really knows why, she is a member of various important committees - but likes to shamelessly exploit her position in favour of personal antipathies and is a real pain in the neck to those around her because of real or imagined allergies. In short - the woman is annoying. Nevertheless, Justitia is also blind as to whether a murdered person was one of the most sympathetic or not, which is why the Swedish police and the detective Dan Sommerdahl, already famous from two previous volumes, naturally also investigate this case.
An amusing and entertaining investigation that is ideal as an audio book.

book 35 Read in German

 The Bastards of Pizzofalcone

I'm a big fan of Maurizio de Giovanni's crime novels and the second volume of the Giuseppe Lojacono series also gripped me from the first to the last page.
The Pizzofalcone police station is in danger of being disbanded. The most 'hated' officers from various police stations in Naples are transferred to this police station. What nobody thinks is possible is that this conspiratorial squad can get together and solve unsolvable cases.
The wife of a notary is found dead in her flat. All the evidence points to the notary and his mistress. Only Inspector Lojacono doubts it. But finding the real murderer seems to be a sisifus job. At the same time, an old woman reports the new occupant of the neighbouring house. Is she being held captive there? This case also seems to be tricky, but the two new ruffians at the police station have a good feeling and are able to solve this mystery too. There are also various 'suicides' that the station's oldest policeman refuses to believe in. And last but not least, there is Lojacono's love and family life, where things don't seem to be moving forward either.

book 36 Read in German

 Death in Summer

This is the first volume in the Sofia Hjortén series, set in the archipelago of Sweden. Written in a very exciting and varied way, with lots of details about the different characters. I will definitely continue reading this series.
Sofia Hjortén has turned her back on her career as a detective in Stockholm and is devoting herself to the unagitated police service in the coastal region of Ulvön. But then, on Midsummer, a man is found horribly beaten to death on the jetty. Not only Sofia's current love life, but also that of the past, interfere with her solving the case. What's more, nobody realises for a long time that this murder and the subsequent ones have something to do with a midsummer forty years ago. Who is taking revenge after such a long time?

book 37 Read in German

 Rachewinter

The third volume of the Walter Pulaski series was also captivating.
People are being murdered by a mysterious woman in a red dress in and around Leibzig and Vienna. While Pulaski is convinced that the dead man in the motel, who was the father of his daughter's best friend, did not die of natural causes, the dead man in Vienna was brutally murdered. Evelyn Meyers is supposed to represent the guilty party in court, but soon realises that the accused is probably not the culprit, but someone else who bears a striking resemblance to him. What is behind this?
In Leibzig, Pulaski is mainly concerned with preventing his daughter and her friend from investigating on their own.
Very slowly, with enormous suspense, the reader is drawn into the machinations of a family drama. Whereas in previous cases Pulaski and Meyers investigated very quickly, in this case it takes a long time for their paths to cross.

book 38 Read in German ROOT 4

 Deadline in Athenes

This is the first volume in the Inspector Kostas Charitos series. He is the head of the homicide squad in Athens and is supervised by Nikolaos Gikas. They are not always on the same page, as Charitos is a gut man and his boss only works with facts. Despite many misunderstandings, Gikas has Charitos' back. Charitos is married, and even though he loves his wife, they often have arguments.
Charitos investigates together with Sotiris and Thanassis. They are called to a house where two Albanians have been found dead. Despite questioning the neighbours, they make no progress. If it wasn't for the ambitious journalist Jana Karajorgi, who spreads the word that there must be another child. The TV journalist stops at nothing and keeps spreading new stories until she is found murdered shortly before the midnight programme. Now Charitos and his team get a new lead and wonder why the journalist had to die. Her successor is also found dead shortly afterwards. Charitos also realises that there is a mole inside the police department. Who is it?
The case escalates into child trafficking and power games. It is written in such an exciting and varied way that the reader only realises who the culprit is on the last page.

book 39 Read in German

 Die Infantin trägt den Scheitel links

The first thing to say: Powerful language - unambiguous-ambiguous. The author has such powerful language that it is a real pleasure to read this book.
She, the youngest daughter, the tender child, burns down her parents' farm. It is not an accident, but also self-defence. An act of self-assertion against the imposition of growing up under the regime of her parents, a sanctimonious, bigoted mother and a father with a fatal penchant for alcohol, pyrotechnics and esotericism. Not to mention the older twin sisters, two ice princesses who have sprung from an evil fairy tale and play tricks on her, the infanta in stable boots, wherever they can. And, of course, the huntsmen, priest, relatives and mayor are not absent from this idyllic home, which is painted in the most beautiful colours of hell and where things are so tangible and hearty. It tells of things as if they were beyond belief. Shrill, coarse, unadorned, snotty and tough as country life can be.
I had a great time, even if certain things make you think.

book 40 Read in German

 Eine Frau aus Tirana

I can't remember who recommended this book to me, but it was definitely worth reading.
The story is told by a young woman who works in the state book publishing house in Albania, which was still closed at the time under the leadership of Enver Hoxha. 'The Big Boss', as he is known in the publishing industry, dominates the events of this book.
On the one hand, it is forbidden to make references to great authors from earlier times because, despite their great renown, they do not fit in politically with the times. It is as if they are trying to erase the history of Albania. This is almost unbearable for many employees in the publishing industry. They live in constant fear of being punished and the punishments were terrible.
On the other hand, the protagonist talks about the role of women in the closed Albania, which nobody would accept from today's perspective of the Western world.
This story gives a deep insight into life at that time, how people tried to cope with everyday life and how 'rebellious spirits' tried to create small freedoms for themselves.
It is a book that I can warmly recommend.

book 41 Read in German

 Der rote Judas

A new series for me centred around Inspector Paul Stainer, set in Leibzig around 1920.
Inspector Paul Stainer is one of the first soldiers to return home from being a prisoner of war in France. He is back on his birthday of all days and wants to fall into the arms of his beloved wife Edith. But some of the letters he received from her during the war do not bode well. The marriage had not been perfect before, too often his job took precedence. Then Edith thought he was dead and has been in a relationship with Eugen Brand for some time, who, to Paul's annoyance, is around twenty years older. But while things are in crisis in his private life, an unexpected professional opportunity arises, as the Chief of Police, Dr Kubitz, is expecting him back on duty. Not only that, but he is also promoted to detective inspector and thus head of the criminal investigation department. However, there is not much time for reflection as events suddenly come thick and fast. A secondary school teacher is murdered, a tax official from Berlin allegedly commits suicide by hanging and there is a wild shoot-out in a villa belonging to Weingarten, a well-known factory owner, in which three people are killed. Stainer and trainee detective Siegfried Junghans are soon on the trail of a perfidious network, as the deaths are connected and affect Stainer more personally than he could have imagined.
A very vivid portrayal of the post-war period with a gripping plot that frequently switches between the police and the perpetrators. The characters are superbly designed, there is plenty of action and political background knowledge. This makes history fun.

book 42 Read in German 🎧

 Congo Requiem

A hellish ride into the heart of African darkness.
No one keeps his dark secrets as well hidden as Grégoire Morvan: family tyrant, unscrupulous businessman and grey eminence of the French Ministry of the Interior. In the 1970s, Morvan brought down a bestial killer in the Congo. Following a cruel ritual, the "nail man" left his victims riddled with nails and shards of mirror.
And now he seems to have a mysterious successor who is threatening Morvan's entire family! Morvan's son Erwan, an inspector with the Paris police, travels to the Congo on his own to find out his father's true story. Little does he realise that he is opening the gates to hell.
What impressed me was that Grangé is able to describe the political events in the Congo and the catastrophic life for the population there so accurately. The tragic thing is that not much has changed to this day.
It was exciting from the very beginning and keeps you guessing until the very end how things will turn out.

book 43 Read in German

 A Grave for Two

This is the first volume in the Selma Falck series and it grabbed me straight away.
Selma is a lawyer, but because she has done some crooked things and relieved clients, in particular Jan Morell, of money, she is now faced with nothing and fights to prevent charges being brought against her. Jan Morell gives her a chance, but in return she has to find out why Jan's daughter, a gifted cross-country skier, gave a positive doping test. Selma soon realises that things are going wrong in the Norwegian cross-country skiing association. What's more, well-known personalities (athletes, but also members of the association) are being found dead. Who is behind it all? Selma gets support from a sports journalist. While Morell was more of a hindrance at the beginning, he proves to be a help towards the end.
Grippingly written, with many twists and turns. I will definitely continue with this series.