The premise of this book would probably make for a good hour-long CSI like CBS procedural show. It probably could make for a good book, too. But this book isn't good. It's awful. I don't know where the blame lays for how awful this book is. Maybe it is the translators fault. Maybe the book reads better in Danish, or whatever language it was originally written in (I think it was in Danish, but it doesn't say anywhere in the book. It's actually a little difficult to even find who translated the book, and completely impossible using the book as the primary source of information to find out what the original title of the book was. From a bibliographic standpoint, and from the view of a poor cataloger who would take it on themselves to do original cataloging (as opposed to copy cataloging), this would be a nightmare, damn it Simon and Schuster think of the technical service librarians!). Maybe it is my fault. I'm usually quite ready to take the blame for anything. I'll admit that I'm not the intended audience for a book, say that there were problems with me that caused me not to get the intended enjoyment out of a book. But I don't think it's me here. But I have such a large guilt complex that in the back of my mind I'm still willing to take the blame. Maybe it's the cultural difference between Denmark and America. Maybe their police just are different from ours. Maybe this is how things really are, and I have a warped view of police procedurals from unrealistic TV shows and Hollywood movies. I'm not buying this either though. I think the book is just bad. Even if I put aside what might be translation problems, and differences in the way police may act in Denmark versus the way I think they act in America, the book is still fairly awful. The last possibility for why possibly the book isn't as terrible as I think it is, is that it's obviously not the first in the series. There are others with this character in it, and maybe there was some development in earlier books that would make certain things make more sense. Again I doubt it, and because Simon and Schuster decided to give near zero information about previous books and because I feel like I'm already spending too much time with this book by having actually read all three hundred and two pages and now typing these words, I don't feel like taxing myself with doing even the most rudimentary internet search to find out a)how many novels are in this series, and b) where this novel falls in the whole series.I do know (according to the sort of suspect copy material printed on the book) that the author is Denmarks most popular novelist. She won a vote to get that distinction, not once, but three times. What kind of vote is this? Who knows. Maybe it is Denmark's equivalent of being a USA Today bestselling author. Or maybe, European mega-popular authors are just as much hacks as their US counterparts. As I said, this book is bad. The story-line is kind of boring. It didn't need to be, but it was. The characters are also awful. They are erratic and one-dimensional. Their inexplicable erraticness is maybe supposed to be a stand-in for actual development and having any kind of psychological realism, but the characters are still pretty much all stereotypical character types. But even in the author's portrayal of these character types there is a total lack of development and the scenes that are supposed to show how a character generally are bizarre moments of the characters acting in vaguely sociopathic ways. For example, the main character I'm guessing is supposed to be a no-nonsense sort of woman. The tough female detective. How do we show this initially? By having her get aggravated that she has to interview a rape victim, and then get aggravated at the shock the victim (who just hours before had been left hog-tied naked with plastic restraints after being repeatedly raped) with not giving her answers in a quick enough manner. Pretty much anytime characters have a reaction to something the reaction is either the opposite of what a normal human being would have (or the reaction you'd imagine a character with the 'told' characteristics would have) or it's appropriate but so over the top that I started to wonder if the author has any actual interactions with real life people. And if she does why she doesn't think about those people when writing her characters. I should have gone with my first instincts and given up on this book after about page 15. I thought maybe it would get better, I thought maybe the characters were going to be shit, but at least it would be an interesting story. I thought, isn't the thing we've been sold lately is that the Scandinavians kick ass writing crime novels? Aren't they supposed to be better than ours? I thought this should be good, it's got lots of good blurbs, there should be something redeemable about it, right? Nope. I kept forcing myself to sit down and read it. I was waiting for the good part that didn't come. And instead of getting something good out of it, I was increasingly baffled at the characters, at the weird twists thrown into people's lives, the difficulty in following the simple chronology of what was happening (which I decided was due to poor structure and not to the increasing lack of attention I was giving the book), and the vaguely inept detecting skills on display here. But in fairness, if the detectives had done any work they probably would have cracked this case fairly quickly but in fairness to the detectives they did have the temporal mayhem of the book to contend with, and they were pretty much not going to be able to defeat the relativistic time/space problems of the book until the author had her hundred thousand words and was ready to let them solve the crime, in quite possibly the most contrived and unbelievable manner possible. I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone.
Already a firmly established author in her native Denmark with a million plus sales, ‘Blue Blood’ is Sara Blaedel’s debut crime thriller in the UK market. I have to say that I wasn’t completely blown away by it, but would quickly add that there is nothing inherently wrong with it either. Revolving around the investigation of a series of internet dating related rapes ‘Blue Blood’ introduces us to DI Louise Rick, a professional and focused police officer who is portrayed as exactly what she is, a good solid detective. With only a small dose of emotional baggage, that to me didn’t really add anything to the plot, Louise embarks on her search for a particularly sadistic rapist in a clear-sighted and methodical way, and as is usual in most crime thrillers ends up with her facing down the perpetrator with little thought to her own personal safety. I think as a character she probably lacks a certain personal intensity bordering on dull, and even in her relationship with her colleagues there does not seem to be much spark or interesting interaction between them. The only character that really illuminates Louise is her friend Camilla Lind, who for me lit up the book and added a bit of feistiness to the whole proceedings. With her role as a journalist and single mother, Camilla seemed a more vital and interesting character within the story and I enjoyed the interplay between her and the starchy Louise. The central premise of the plot, centred on the inherent dangers of internet dating, was a trifle pedestrian, but I would counterblance that by saying that due to my reading of an inordinate amount of crime, I have encountered very similar storylines before so it held no great surprises for me personally. However, the plot was solid enough in terms of the police procedural with enough twists to satisfy most. I would probably liken the book to Camilla Lackberg in terms of overall style and characterisation, but would hesitate to draw comparisons with the darker psychological writers of the Scandinavian crime genre which generally appeal to me more. Despite my reservations I would certainly read Blaedel again, having already acquired a copy of ‘Farewell To Freedom’, again featuring DI Louise Rick and Camilla Lind and focusing on the exploitative world of human trafficking, so will be interested to see how the character of Louise develops in this next book.
What do You think about Call Me Princess (2011)?
This is the first book I've finished without a weekend since I started my new job. And I think this book is at least suffering a little from being the book I read after cara black's book. nothing seems quite so bright after something that good. What this book does well: -incorporates s&m in a manner that makes sense in the real world-presents a police officer that seems like a normal person and is not an idiot about understanding what is happening in the real world, and has an average level of personal insight. what this book does moderately well: -twisting plots in a way that play to the emotional catharsis necessary for well written mystery. what is not done well: -either the translating or the writing is done poorly, it reads such that I am pretty sure the problem is in translation but without speaking danish I can't know. I would definitely consider reading another book by her.
—Jasmine
In this installment, Louise Rick is investigating a brutal rape. It turns out that Susanne met her attacker online on a dating site. And THEN it turns out that she's not the only victim. Unfortunately, there are a lot of internet dating sites. And obviously he didn't give her his real name. So how can Louise Rick find this guy before he chooses his next "date"?I absolutely loved Only One Life so I was beyond excited to learn that there was another book in the series. And I was even more happy when I was able to get it for review. I know that this type of story has been done to death (we ARE all aware of the danger of the internet by now, right?) but Sara Blaedel makes it seem completely unique. No small amount of praise for that goes to the character of Louise Rick. Police procedurals are also nothing new, but she isn't your generic police officer in your average mystery story. (Given that her best friend is a reporter, if she WERE the generic police officer, this would be The Women's Murder Club. Instead, Louise and Camilla are both fully realized characters, with lives that extend well past their jobs.)I'm glad that foreign mystery/suspense novels are so hot right now, because Sara Blaedel's books should be bestsellers and as ubiquitous as that Girl Who... trilogy is. (They already are in Denmark, where she's been dubbed The Queen of Crime.) This book was unsettling but also amazing. (I say "unsettling" because it's scary to think about just how prevalent the internet is and how much people share of themselves online; things they may not tell their actual IRL friends are routinely discussed on blogs and boards. And I know several people who met their significant others online, so obviously there are happy endings. But it's also not unheard of for people to have an experience closer to Susanne's. And this book is just brutal in terms of reminding you that internet people are strangers---you know what they want you to know.)Highly recommended.
—Kelly Hager
The hot list of crime writers right now includes many from Sweden, Finland, Norway, Iceland and Denmark. Here's another author from Denmark to add to your list.Call Me Princess marks Sara Blaedel's North American debut.Assistant Detective Louise Rick of the Copenhagen P.D. is called in on the case of Susanne Hansson - a woman who has been brutally sexually assaulted. As Rick delves into the case, she discovers that Susanne met her attacker through an online dating site. Susanne's not the only victim of this online Lothario. He know how to hide though - he's left virtually no clues.I enjoyed the character of Detective Rick and her interactions with her fellow officers. Blaedel has filled the department with an overbearing superior, a quiet family man partner and a publicity seeking chief. They were all comfortable if not original characters. The foray into Louise's personal life was a solid secondary story line. I did not like the best friend, newspaper reporter Camilla at all. She came across as a user of people. The interactions between her and Louse just never rang true as a best friend situation.Blaedel has peppered her story with lots of red herrings. Many of the male characters seemed they could be the perpetrator at one time or another - the ending provided a good twist. All in all, a solid police procedural utilizing current events as a effective plot device. It was an easy read - one that I was happy to pick up. For me, enjoyable but not outstanding.Blaedel has an interesting background. She founded the first publishing house dedicated to crime fiction in Denmark. She was then inspired to write her own detective novels which have landed on the Danish bestseller lists. She has been voted the most popular novelist in Denmark in 2007, 2010 and 2011.
—Luanne Ollivier
