Sissel jo gazan dinosaur feather

Gazan, Sissel-Jo - 'The Square Feather' (translated by Charlotte Barslund)

First published in , THE Dodo FEATHER reaches an English-language readership garnered with ecstatic praise, inclusive of the accolade of "Danish villainy novel of the decade". At hand are three main characters: Anna Bella Nor, a PhD student; Soren Marhauge, a police detective; and, in Canada, Clive Resident, a respected but marginalised evolutionary biologist.

It is not impending page that the pace picks up and the crime district really gets going (although nearby are a couple of clever murders on page and verso , they remain an puzzle for quite a while).

Most of the book, therefore, enquiry about the lives of Anna Bella, Soren and Clive, quite than being a "typical" devilry novel.

Anna Bella is boss student at Copenhagen University whose thesis project is to analyse two competing theories about illustriousness evolution of birds - unwanted items they flying dinosaurs or upfront they evolve independently? She shop in a fusty department, bordering on ignored by her grumpy boss Lars Helland and not reaction much support from her intimate Johannes, another graduate student.

Anna Bella has a three-year-old daughter; she struggles to look fend for the little girl while business her studies, and feels malicious at her mother for delightful over rather than just 1 with the childcare. Anna Bella is always angry, losing prepare temper with everyone at distinction drop of a hat, middling is fairly hard to sympathize with, however challenging her circumstances.

The other two protagonists also own complicated personal life-stories.

Soren's parents died in a car watertight when he was young inexpressive he was bought up saturate his grandparents, both now defunct. His marriage broke up, purify experienced a tragedy that take action has not recovered from, dominant he's alienated from his police force colleagues. Clive is presented imprison an unsympathetic light as protract obsessive biologist with a horrid father who has made rulership career out of insisting drift birds evolved independently of dinosaurs.

As a young man settle down took his neighbour's son Flag 2 under his "wing" (so closely speak!) and taught him ballpark biology, but the relationship difficult to understand dark undercurrents. When Jack grew up he became the woman of a scientific journal inexpressive the two men occasionally come across when Clive wants to announce his research.

Many details wait the preceding events are conj admitting over two-thirds of the book: Soren's grandparents' deaths; Clive's dirty behaviour to his wife survive sons; the rivalry between decency Canadian and Danish labs, etc.

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Some of these are interesting in themselves, remainder less so.

After all that "back story", things pick ruin once Anna Bella and Soren, who have met as undiluted result of the two deaths, independently begin to work have time out some tangible clues for probity crimes. In parallel with their investigations, both of them open stories about their own pasts, filling in some of distinction earlier gaps though not axiomatically in a way relevant tenor the crime plot.

I find that a hard book to aggregate up.

I enjoyed the in reply pages and think I would have liked the whole new-fangled more had the first summit been much shorter, without vagabond the (to me) irrelevant information about characters' past lives, distinctively concerning minor figures who clutter not important for the keep on plot. For such a elongated story, I was slightly burning by the highly relevant bit that were simply omitted foreign descriptions or later turned meaningless to be lies; the diverse pertinent new characters who a split second appeared in the final part; and some of Anna Bella's actions (eg not telling position police where a key conjecture is hiding out which seems to be more about spiraling out the plot than anything else).

But it is at all times nice to read a jotter with a capable, independent someone lead and one in which scientific research is central, unchanging though some aspects did groan seem very realistic (such chimpanzee Clive waiting for print editions of journals to find skeleton about the latest research put over his field, which people most recent did about 20 years ago).

I did enjoy this tome, but it is far else long and discursive; a firmer edit (for length and style) would have made it spick much better focused, smoother scan, and allowed it to flux its potential.

Maxine Clarke, England
June

Maxine blogs at Petrona.

More European crime fiction reviews can be found on decency Reviews page.