Reading summary, December 2018

I had another very good reading month in December. I enjoyed all the books I read, although some were more challenging than others. I finished up the year with 112 books, many more than I expected to read.

Classic Fiction in December

A Christmas Carol (1843) by Charles Dickens

This was a wonderful read. Not only is the book a pleasant and humorous read, while giving us a beautiful story of redemption and finding new happiness, it also shows us today what life was like in the 1800's. See more on the book here.

Crime Fiction in December

Saturday the Rabbi Went Hungry (1966) by Harry Kemelman

This is #2 in the Rabbi Small series and a re-read for me. I read the early books in the series back in the 1970s and 80s, and I remember liking them a lot. Today, the attitudes and behaviors in the book are surprising to me, but this is a good picture of those times. And a great way to learn more about the Jewish religion and laws. I will be reading more of them.

Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow (1992) by Peter Høeg

A very young boy that Smilla has befriended is dead as the result of a fall off a building. The death is almost immediately declared to be accidental, but Smilla disagrees and pushes for an investigation. This was also a re-read and I appreciated it even more the second time. For my summary and thoughts, check here.

At Ease with the Dead (1990) by Walter Satterthwait

Joshua Croft is a Santa Fe private investigator working for the Mondragón Agency, owned by Rita Mondragón. He is hired by a Navajo man to find and return the remains of a Navajo leader who died 100 years earlier. He heads to El Paso, Texas, where the investigation stirs up a lot of trouble. This is the second in a series of five books. I love the books for the combination of a serious mystery with humor and local history.

Salamander (1994) by J. Robert Janes

This is #4 in the St-Cyr & Kohler series. Set in the days leading up to Christmas 1942, in Occupied France. For more on this book, see this post.

Corridors of Death (1981) by Ruth Dudley Edwards

This is the first book in a series of 12 books about Robert Amiss, a low level member of the British civil service. In this book, his boss, a devious and despicable man, is killed during a meeting of many government officials and businessmen.  Amiss offers to help the police inspector in charge of the murder case with some background on how the civil service works and provide his insider knowledge. The mystery is secondary to the humor and the picture of the civil service and government at the time. Another very good read.

A Time to Kill (1989) by John Grisham

I have watched the film based on this book several times, but I resisted reading the book for many years due to the length and the subject matter. This is a story of revenge, about a black man who kills two white men to avenge the rape of his ten-year-old daughter, and is tried for that crime in a small town in Mississippi. It is not an easy read, but I was very impressed with the book, especially since it was Grisham's first novel.

Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow: Peter Hoeg

This book begins with a funeral. A very young boy that Smilla has befriended is dead as the result of a fall off a building. The death is almost immediately declared to be accidental, but Smilla disagrees. She files a complaint, and an investigator comes out, but the investigator is not convinced. Smilla will not give up, she is determined to find out who would kill Isaac and why.

The story takes place mostly in Denmark. The last third takes place on a ship, the Kronos, on an expedition to an island off Greenland. Smilla was originally from Greenland, although her father was Danish. I learned a lot about the relationship between Greenland and Denmark. And the cold, cruel weather in both of those countries.

As you can see from the cover, the story takes place around Christmas and New Year's Day. Smilla is not fond of holidays, but her father tries to get her to celebrate with him. They have a difficult history and relationship.

This was a reread (after about 25 years so I remembered nothing about the book), and I think I loved this story more the second time.

The writing is just beautiful. It pulls you in. It took me longer than usual to read this book and that was partly because I wanted to extend the experience.

The story is written in present tense, and usually I find that distracting. However, I have found that I notice it much less when the story is also told from the first person point of view, and that works well here.

Smilla is like a pink Energizer Bunny. She refuses to be stopped and she never runs down. Or, as her friend the mechanic puts it...

"Smilla," he whispers, "when I was a child I had a tank you could wind up – with caterpillar treads. If you put something down in front of it, it would climb straight over it because it had such low gears. If the object was perpendicular the tank would turn around and crawl along the edge until it found some other way over. You couldn't stop it. You're like that tank, Smilla."

Smilla is also very intelligent with a scientific background. She is a strong female protagonist, with a mind of her own. I found her to be a very attractive character, and that was a major factor in my enjoyment of the book.

Some people don't care for the ending, and I don't want to tell too much about it. I really wasn't bothered by any aspect of the ending because I knew the story could never end the way I wanted it to.

The original language of this book was Danish, and it has been translated into English in two different versions, one published in the US (with the title Smilla's Sense of Snow), one published in the UK. There are disagreements about which translation is best. I read the US version the first time, the UK version the second time. This was not intentional, I did not know about the two translations until after I purchased my copy. I found more information at A Crime is Afoot, and here, if you are interested.

I have only given a brief overview and there is much more that could be said about this book. If you would like more detail, see Margot's Spotlight at Confessions of a Mystery Novelist...

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Publisher:   Vintage Classics, 2015 (orig. pub. 1992)
Length:       410 pages
Format:      Paperback
Setting:      Denmark, Greenland
Genre:       Mystery
Translation:   Translated from Danish by F. David
Source:      I purchased this book.