Berätta aldrig det här

 Det är mors dag och Frida har glömt att skicka blommor till sin mamma Rosita. När hon även missar moderns telefonsamtal har hon ingen aning om att katastrofen är ett faktum. Dagen efter kommer beskedet att Rosita har hittats död. Men det är när Frida upptäcker hennes sista hälsning som världen fullkomligt rämnar. 

Frida
Nu fick du som du ville!
Jag vill inte ha någon dödsannons.
Jag behöver ingen begravning.
Någon gravsten behöver jag inte heller.
Hoppas ni blir nöjda nu.
Mamma

Och på köksbordet ett besked om uppsagd livförsäkring. 

The Punishment She Deserves

The cozy, bucolic town of Ludlow is stunned when one of its most revered and respected citizens–Ian Druitt, the local deacon–is accused of a serious crime. Then, while in police custody, Ian is found dead. Did he kill himself? Or was he murdered?

When Barbara Havers is sent to Ludlow to investigate the chain of events that led to Ian’s death, all the evidence points to suicide. But Barbara can’t shake the feeling that she’s missing something. She decides to take a closer look at the seemingly ordinary inhabitants of Ludlow–mainly elderly retirees and college students–and discovers that almost everyone in town has something to hide.

Jag vet inte om EG´s böcker har blivit sämre eller om jag har tröttnat, men den här var alldeles för lång, mycket i boken hade bara kunnat strykas. Och personerna är alla underliga och obegripliga och deras relationer är ännu underligare.

The Man Who Dies Twice

It's the following Thursday. Elizabeth has received a letter from an old colleague, a man with whom she has a long history. He's made a big mistake, and he needs her help.

His story involves stolen diamonds, a violent mobster, and a very real threat to his life. As bodies start piling up, Elizabeth enlists Joyce, Ibrahim and Ron in the hunt for a ruthless murderer. And if they find the diamonds too? Well, wouldn't that be a bonus? But this time they are up against an enemy who wouldn't bat an eyelid at knocking off four septuagenarians.

Can The Thursday Murder Club find the killer (and the diamonds) before the killer finds them?

Silent Voices

When DI Vera Stanhope finds the body of a woman in the sauna room of her local gym, she wonders briefly if, for once in her life, she's uncovered a simple death from natural causes. But a closer inspection reveals ligature marks around the victim's throat - death is never that simple.

Doing what she does best, Vera pulls her team together and sets them interviewing staff and those connected to the victim, while she and colleague, Sergeant Joe Ashworth, work to find a motive. While Joe struggles to reconcile his home life with the demands made on him by the job, Vera revels being back in charge of an investigation again. Death has never made her feel so alive.

And when they discover that the victim had worked in social services, and had been involved in a shocking case involving a young child, then it appears obvious that the two are somehow connected. Though things are never as they seem...

the Last Train to London

Bättre än jättebra! Det tog ett tag att komma in i boken och i början tänkte jag till och med kanske sluta läsa. "Jag ger den ett tag till", tänkte jag, och sen var jag snart fast. Boken är skriven i mycket korta kapitel och historien byggs upp av många talande detaljer, som till exempel att Eichmann låter sin personal bli blöt i ösregnet för att kunna hålla hans hund torr under ett paraply. Eller att han på en bjudning, för att fira att de blivit av med 600 judiska barn, alltså bland sina bundsförvanter, låter de andra vänta på sin tårta tills han har ätit sin och hållit tal. Den tog lång tid att läsa, för ofta läste jag bara ett par kapitel och kände att det räckte. Ett enormt extra plus för de sista kapitlen där författaren redovisar vilken fakta romanen grundar sig i och vilka (små) förändringar hon gjort i historien.

 In 1936, the Nazi are little more than loud, brutish bores to fifteen-year old Stephan Neuman, the son of a wealthy and influential Jewish family and budding playwright whose playground extends from Vienna’s streets to its intricate underground tunnels. Stephan’s best friend and companion is the brilliant Žofie-Helene, a Christian girl whose mother edits a progressive, anti-Nazi newspaper. But the two adolescents’ carefree innocence is shattered when the Nazis’ take control.

There is hope in the darkness, though. Truus Wijsmuller, a member of the Dutch resistance, risks her life smuggling Jewish children out of Nazi Germany to the nations that will take them. It is a mission that becomes even more dangerous after the Anschluss—Hitler’s annexation of Austria—as, across Europe, countries close their borders to the growing number of refugees desperate to escape.

Tante Truus, as she is known, is determined to save as many children as she can. After Britain passes a measure to take in at-risk child refugees from the German Reich, she dares to approach Adolf Eichmann, the man who would later help devise the “Final Solution to the Jewish Question,” in a race against time to bring children like Stephan, his young brother Walter, and Žofie-Helene on a perilous journey to an uncertain future abroad.

Ålevangeliet

Hur mycket kan man veta om en ål? Eller om en människa?
"Ålevangeliet" är en bok om världens mest gåtfulla fisk. En fisk som gett upphov till ett alldeles eget mysterium inom naturvetenskapen, det som kallas ”ålfrågan”. En fisk som alla från Aristoteles till Sigmund Freud försökt förstå sig på, utan att lyckas. Och som nu dör ifrån oss, i mångt och mycket fortfarande en gåta.
Men ”Ålevangeliet” är också en bok om författaren och hans far och hur ålen förde dem samman. En berättelse om ursprung, öde, livet och hur det bör levas. Samt om det som är livets sista och ofrånkomliga utmaning: hur man hanterar döden.

Hidden Depths

Jag älskar sista stycket:

Vera watched him walk to his car, the champagne in one hand, the flowers in the other. Thought that if she´d been married to someone like Joe Ashworth, she´d be so bored she´d commit murder herself.

A hot summer on the Northumberland coast, and Julie Armstrong arrives home from a night out to find her son murdered. Luke has been strangled, laid out in a bath of water and covered with wild flowers.

This stylized murder scene has Inspector Vera Stanhope and her team intrigued. But then a second body - that of beautiful young teacher Lily Marsh - is discovered laid out in a rock pool, the water strewn with flowers. Now, Vera must work quickly to find this dramatist, this killer who is making art out of death.

Clues are slow to emerge from those who had known Luke and Lily, but Vera soon finds herself drawn towards the curious group of friends who discovered Lily's body. What unites these four men and one woman? Are they really the close-knit, trustworthy unit they claim to be? As local residents are forced to share their private lives and those of their loved ones, sinister secrets are slowly unearthed.

And all the while the killer remains in their midst, waiting for an opportunity to prepare another beautiful, watery grave ...