This crime novel is a German export translated to English
and written by Nele Neuhaus, eleven years ago two girls went missing in the
small German village of Altenheim, Stefanie "Snow White" and Laura whilst their bodies were never recovered
local boy Tobias Sartorius was convicted of their murders, after ten years in
prison Tobias is released and returns home where everything has changed. The
village is in uproar at the idea of a murderer walking the streets and when
local girl Amelie disappears the fingers once again point at Tobias.
I’ll start with what I didn’t love, there are a lot of characters
in this novel, I mean, a lot and they all have difficult to pronounce names.
They have very complicated lives, shitty personalities and very twisted lives.
You really have to focus on this novel to keep up with everything that’s happening
and it’s definitely not an easy light-hearted read. Secondly, I know this is a
book in a series, I’m unsure if the other novels follow the same two detectives
and that’s why there was so much backstory to them, but at times in felt unneeded
and I really found that I didn’t care about Bodensteins’ bitchy wife cheating
on him or whether Pia would have her house knocked down. Finally the biggest
hurdle in this novel is that at times the translation is disjointed and
occasionally cheesy, which I think alters some of the books tone, had I been
able to read German I probably would have been left with a different feeling by
the end. My final gripe is that by the end of the novel, the hints that a much
older Tobias might end up with a much younger Amelie were creepy.
But what I did love was the fact that Neuhaus weaved a
fascinating, gritty and at times, disturbing story that I wanted to finish,
that hooked me in and that was full of twists and turns. I didn’t guess the
ending ahead of time and I quite liked Tobias as a character, despite his
initial introduction as a murderer.
Another solid 3, though I did debate a 4, but the English
translation was sometimes a little too uneven and left the book with a tone
that didn’t always fit the genre.
No comments:
Post a Comment