Sonja van der Westhuizen

Cold Malice by Quentin Bates

28 June, 2020

It’s been less than two years since we’ve heard from Officer Gunnhildur Gisladottir of the Serious Crime Unit in Reykjavik. This shouldn’t come as a surprise. On average, Quentin Bates has written a novel almost annually since 2011. Considering he also translates Ragnar Jonasson and…

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The Summer of Kim Novak by Håkan Nesser

By Sonja van der Westhuizen

10 June, 2020

Translated by Saskia Vogel — Most readers will know Håkan Nesser for his popular and widely read Inspector van Veeteren series set in the fictional city of Maardam. Nesser didn’t set the series in Sweden because he loathes the stereotypical depressed characters and dark and…

Kindle Reviews

Sword by Bogdan Teodorescu

By Sonja van der Westhuizen

8 June, 2020

Translated by Marina Sofia — Crime fiction is the world’s favourite literary genre, and the most international. For the English-speaking reader there is literally a cultural mosaic of work to enjoy – German, French, Scandinavian, Latin American, Japanese, Korean… you name it. One country that…

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The Waiting Rooms by Eve Smith

By Sonja van der Westhuizen

14 May, 2020

Over the past few months our world has changed in ways most of us could never have anticipated. During the Covid-19 pandemic readers might fall in two categories. There are those who gravitate towards books about disasters and dystopian worlds, and those who avoid them…

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The Mist by Ragnar Jonasson

By Sonja van der Westhuizen

11 May, 2020

Translated by Victoria Cribb — The Mist completes – or starts, depending on how you read it – Ragnar Jonasson’s Hidden Iceland series. The first in the series, The Darkness, introduced us to Hulda Hermansdottir, a police detective on the verge of retiring from the…

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Wild Dog by Serge Joncour

By Sonja van der Westhuizen

11 April, 2020

Translated by Jane Aitken & Polly Mackintosh — Novelist and screenwriter Serge Joncour brings us a dual narrative set in a small, rural town high up in the French mountains with Wild Dog, his first novel to appear in English. The year is 2017 and…

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Little Disasters by Sarah Vaughan

By Sonja van der Westhuizen

7 April, 2020

According to NHS statistics, postnatal depression affects more than one in 20 women within a year of giving birth. In Little Disasters, Sarah Vaughan takes on the unspoken, often stigmatised occurrence of postnatal depression and its potentially devastating effects. Liz Trenchard is senior registrar in…

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The Vault

By Sonja van der Westhuizen

6 February, 2020

Written by Mark Dawson — Set only a few months before the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, The Vault is a standalone spy thriller with all the standard, but essential elements of the sub-genre – MI6, double agents and covert operations with plenty…

Crime Fiction Lover

About author

Cold Malice by Quentin Bates

The Summer of Kim Novak by Håkan Nesser

Sword by Bogdan Teodorescu

The Waiting Rooms by Eve Smith

The Mist by Ragnar Jonasson

Wild Dog by Serge Joncour

Little Disasters by Sarah Vaughan

The Vault

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