Review: 5 Big Shiny Stars!
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 02 15, 2014
This novel caught my attention as its blurb made me think of Larsson's Salander, and as I miss Lisbeth, I was looking for her fill-in. Is Katla Lisbeth? No. Is she an intelligent, resourceful, rather sociopathic misfit? Uh huh. Loved her.Katla is a freelance assassin whose career choice comes from moral ambiguity in her character. She spends no time in tedious self-examination. She has thought through her philosophies and occasionally gives voice to them - and her reasoning - but there is zero angst. Is she an emotionless automaton? Not even a little bit. She's smart. She's practical. She makes mistakes. But when she does, they are usually subtle, and the author doesn't insult you by holding your hand through them. Did you notice her errors? Maybe; maybe not. They'll be revealed when the time is right - not before, and not after.Okay, must backtrack a little. I started the novel and promptly ran into a glossary. Now, I'm on the fence about the glossary - lots of words I already knew and it delayed my immediate dive into the book. Could I have looked up everything on Google? Yep. Was I glad I didn't have to take time out from reading this novel to do so? You betcha.The point being - don't get in a twist about it. Read the glossary. Don't read the glossary. Just . . . don't let it stop you from reading the book. [Edit: I have just learned that I had an older edition in my possession, and the novel has since been updated; the glossary has been moved to the back in the current version.][Formal style note: In the narrative, there was some lack of commas where I would normally put / expect to see them, but I'm convinced Mr. Halm omitted them deliberately to keep me from taking the slightest breath!]So, the story. Tiny setup. Action. Kill. Tension. Katla breaks a professional rule by not killing a witness - the exquisitely written Bram - who is blind. More setup. Action! Kill, kill, kill, kill! Exciting stuff - tension for sure, but lazy tension, because you believe Katla's going to come out okay. [Much of the tension throughout comes from knowing Katla is capable of anything. Whether she follows through or not, never matters. It's that "everybody's going to die" feeling that sweeps you up and carries you along.] Then:[There's just a simple line - but I can't give it, as it would constitute a spoiler. However . . .]My heart was in my throat. I swear! All hell breaks loose.[These are good times.] The entire sequence is handled so adroitly . . . you can smell it, hear it, feel it.This is a great novel. With a huge cast of characters introduced deftly and three-dimensionally, the story didn't drag for a second. I hate being endlessly "explained" to, and here, there is no boring background narrative endlessly rambling on about stuff - especially things that don't matter! [For instance, Bram's relationship with his sister Bianca is mostly revealed in dialogue. What do siblings flick-off about with each other? Not necessarily anything extreme - or interesting. So the author leaves all that out. Interagency in-fighting? Also done well through suggestive dialogue, not ridiculous posturing.] Revealed information passed on to other characters is not repeated in the narrative, i.e.: recorded telephone conversations already "heard" by the reader are silently consumed by subsequent characters with occasional comments to remind of significant detail or shed new light.By the time the scene with Simon and Trix fills in some background and missing information, I'm ready for it. If this had come earlier, it might have appeared as an infodump by talking heads. But it's not. I'm ready to have those holes filled in, learn that lacking information. What's more, it's so cleanly structured, so interesting, I'm not even aware I'm being "told".And yet the economy of Mr. Halm's style did not make the story shallow. There were nice touches of detail - I love knowing what things are called, and Mr. Halm told me all sorts of names of things. And interesting facts: caffeine is toxic to birds. Who knew? I was jazzed to read mention of Toronto Bridge [Torontobrug] since I've so often crossed Amsterdam Bridge here in Toronto [these bridges were named in the 'seventies, I believe, when the cities were twinned]. Could I have lived without the autopsy deets? Sure - not because they're gross [didn't bother me], but they didn't directly serve the plot. But Mr. Halm made a good choice leaving those in because the scene fleshed out [so to speak!] some character bits and layered on a significant amount of really interesting info.There's lots of gearhead/boy stuff: Ducatis and Triumphs and Nortons, oh my! And the novel is threaded with humour - not cheesy one-liners you'd find in an action movie, just human situations and observations. Some favourite lines [some out of context, of course]:"That was more accommodating than she'd expected.""`Must've been a German shepherd.'""`. . . but if everybody was original, that would become ordinary too, right?'""`You expected something blatant?'"The author keeps the novel from being a mere shoot 'em up actioner. As a storyteller, Mr. Halm knows how to ply his craft. And it's about trust - the trust he inspires in his reader. "What'd ya mean?" you ask. Well:Trust is hard for a reader to find. We're cynical because we see error all the time in books. We look for it, roll our eyes, assume the author's forgotten details . . . But by the time blind Bram suggests going to see a movie with Katla, Mr. Halm had my trust. Which meant I didn't even blink over this apparent slip. And when all's explained half a page later, I breezed by it, nodding; chuckling even. But I didn't question it in the moment because I already trusted Mr. Halm's skill. In his writing, nothing is done carelessly. Everything has a purpose. And if Mr. Halm's eye for detail and excellence in verisimilitude ever wanders into simulacra, I, for one, have neither the competence to say so categorically, nor do I care.He's that good.Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to buy the sequel!