Paperback, 650 pages
Published by De Bezige Bij.
A young girl with a brother murdered years ago decides to find and punish his killer.
this took me so so long to get into but it really grew on me. middle-end was great but a lot of exposition at the beginning. beautiful prose though
When I went to the library I was looking for another book by [a:Donna Tartt|8719|Donna Tartt|https://d2arxad8u2l0g7.cloudfront.net/authors/1409871301p2/8719.jpg] that had been recommended, but it wasn't available, so I took this one out instead. It's a kind of cross between the Secret Seven and [b:The Client|5359|The Client|John Grisham|https://d2arxad8u2l0g7.cloudfront.net/books/1388632222s/5359.jpg|137715] by [a:John Grisham|721|John Grisham|https://d2arxad8u2l0g7.cloudfront.net/authors/1413390525p2/721.jpg] -- the former because it is about children trying to solve a crime, and the second because they find that tangling with criminals can be very scary indeed.
There is not much one can say about it without including spoilers, but I can say that it is very well written indeed, and I found it hard to put down. It has interesting and well-described characters, especially the protagonist Harriet, who sets out to solve the mystery of her brother's death, which occurred when she was a baby. Her main adult contact is with her grandmother and three great aunts, and Ira, …
When I went to the library I was looking for another book by [a:Donna Tartt|8719|Donna Tartt|https://d2arxad8u2l0g7.cloudfront.net/authors/1409871301p2/8719.jpg] that had been recommended, but it wasn't available, so I took this one out instead. It's a kind of cross between the Secret Seven and [b:The Client|5359|The Client|John Grisham|https://d2arxad8u2l0g7.cloudfront.net/books/1388632222s/5359.jpg|137715] by [a:John Grisham|721|John Grisham|https://d2arxad8u2l0g7.cloudfront.net/authors/1413390525p2/721.jpg] -- the former because it is about children trying to solve a crime, and the second because they find that tangling with criminals can be very scary indeed.
There is not much one can say about it without including spoilers, but I can say that it is very well written indeed, and I found it hard to put down. It has interesting and well-described characters, especially the protagonist Harriet, who sets out to solve the mystery of her brother's death, which occurred when she was a baby. Her main adult contact is with her grandmother and three great aunts, and Ira, the maid.
Also, having given up reading one American book, [b:Underworld|11761|Underworld|Don DeLillo|https://d2arxad8u2l0g7.cloudfront.net/books/1334304280s/11761.jpg|2968156], because it required a rather specialised knowledge of baseball and its place in North American culture, I was relieved that the first mention of baseball in this book came on page 331, and was only brief, in spite of the main characters being American school children of 11 and 12 years old in the summer.
One of the minor mysteries for me as a reader was trying to work out the period in which the story is set. It was published in 2002, but it is set in a period earlier than that -- there are no cellphones or even personal computers. One of the great-aunts was a student at the turn of the century, which would place it in the early 1960s, but other indications put it later than that -- the grandmother has 20-year-old car that was bought in the late 1950s. My best guess is that it is set in the period 1975-1978.
If you like crime stories, with rich descriptions and interesting characters, you might enjoy this one. I did.
