| Product: |
Blood Eagle - Craig Russell |
| Date: |
20.10.07 (161 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: A good idea
Disadvantages: Overly descriptive and complicated in places
After having read Russel’s second book about Jan Fabel, Brother Grimm, I wasn’t overly keen on reading anything else by this author. I had enjoyed Brother Grimm in places but found it to be disappointing over all. However, somehow I still ended up with Blood Eagle in my hands. This is the first book in the series of Jan Fabel, Erster Kriminalhauptkommissar (Principal Chief Commissar) with the Hamburg Police murder squad.
The book starts with an email from “Son of Sven” to Fabel which makes it clear that this Son of Sven character is a murderer and who is taunting Fabel personally with the notion that this is only the beginning and that he will not stop until he is made to do so. So far so run of the mill crime book. However, the plot quickly thickens as Fabel starts to investigate the brutal and apparently ritualistic murders of young women. One of the murdered women was a journalist who was desperately trying to contact Fabel - why? Does this have anything to do with her murder and are the women in any way connected?
As Fabel investigates the brutal, ritualistic aspect of the murders he is drawn into a world of old Viking mythology and legend which proves to still have many modern day followers. But is he really chasing a psychopathic murderer who kills as part of his belief in the old Viking belief, the Asatru, or is something else involved? The deeper he gets into the investigation the more he starts to doubt there is a simple solution as there are suggestions of Turkish and Ukrainian gangs violently trying to take control of the city. Is it possible that they are involved in the murders for specific reasons or is this just a red herring? The questions are many and seem to build throughout most of the book.
Unlike some crime novels it is impossible to guess who has committed the murders and especially why they have been committed. Personally, I enjoy the not knowing, but I found that the many different threads took too long to tie up and I started to lose interest around half way through as it was getting a bit too complex following them all.
The characterisation I found to be a bit weak at times. Fabel is the more or less typical brooding police man with the world on his shoulders. He is, rather conveniently, half-German half Scottish which apparently helps explain some of his more eccentric ideas at least in the eye of his colleagues. I do like the fact that unlike near enough any other main character in this type of book Fabel is blond - for some reason characters of this type tend to be dark but I think in this case it helps set him apart. The other main characters include for example the small, pretty and very aggressive female cop who is, of course, simply hiding her vulnerability and the beautiful, intelligent psychologist/profiler. It is not that the characters are badly drawn, they are just so stereotypical, and in my mind at least, that makes them less believable.
Craig Russell is a Scot but all his Fabel books are set in Hamburg and he clearly has a great interest in German history, language and politics. Not only does he speak German he also clearly has a passion for the city of Hamburg. I cannot vouch for the authenticity of his descriptions of the city but as far as the book goes it works. Russell’s interest in history, both German and European, is clearly obvious throughout and on one level the book is about life in post-war Europe thus adding yet another layer to the book. German words are often used but I found that in the cases where I didn’t know the word itself it was made clear by the context what it meant and I never found myself struggling to understand anything.
Whereas in Brother Grimm I found it disappointing that not enough was made of such a brilliant basic idea Blood Eagle is the opposite to me. The basic story is still good but in this case it seems to me that too much is being made from it. It detracts from the story that there are so very many different elements in my view. Maybe I’m just being picky but I like a genuinely brilliant, simple idea to be handled with respect and even though I found both books readable there is just something about the way Russell writes which does not ring true to me. Maybe this is also why it took me unusually long to get through the 482 pages, nearly 3 weeks! I found it quite refreshing to read a book set in Hamburg, a place I know very little about. The author clearly loves the city and his descriptions of it is what makes the story come alive, much more so than any of the characters. I also found the explanations and descriptions of the Asatru very interesting. Being Swedish I have already read a great deal about the religion of my ancestors but many things were still new to me.
If you wish to judge this book for yourself you can easily pick up a copy from amazon used & new from only £0.01 plus postage and packaging.
Summary: A good story which has been made overly complicated
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