When Poetry Turns Deadly…

As a poet wedded to social media (although my drugs of choice are blogging and Twitter rather than Facebook), I could not resist the premise of this crime novel Blinde Vögel (Blind Birds) by Ursula Poznanski, which I picked up at the airport in Hamburg.

[From the blurb (my translation)]

Status: Murdered. Two dead bodies at a camping site in Salzburg. She was strangled, he was shot. There was no obvious connection between the two while they were alive. Or are appearances deceptive? Salzburg detectives Beatrice Kaspary and Florin Wenninger find a surprising common bond: both were members of an internet-based poetry forum. As harmless as could be. Beatrice follows her gut feeling and infiltrates the group, pretending to be a lover of poetry. Shortly afterwards, there is a third death… 

Author picture from die-criminale.de

I have to admit that Salzburg is one of my favourite cities and I am always susceptible to Austrian authors. Poznanski is also a YA and children’s author, and she has a very easy, chatty writing style.

This is a solid and fun police procedural, with two sympathetic and mutually supportive detectives. Beatrice is divorced and struggling to juggle family responsibilities, her resentful ex-husband and work. Florin is more than a little attracted to her but unwilling to declare himself. But their personal stories do not intrude at all on the investigation, which keeps you guessing pretty much all the way through. The author plays fair and puts quite a few cards on the table. It’s not all quick action or graphic violence, but much more of a puzzle to solve, which I really appreciated. And a lot of Facebook chat and gossipy reactions to wade through, which some readers may find dull (I personally saw it as satirical, with the readiness to click on ‘Like’ at a drop of a hat).

You also get to familiarise yourself with some of the great poems of German literature (this is not a poetry writing but a poetry appreciation forum). The title comes from a poem by Rilke.

So yes, airport reading, but with plenty of panache, verve and charm. I want to read more by this author and wonder what people will make of her in English. Her first book featuring Beatrice and Florin has been translated as ‘Five’ (under the author name Ursula P. Archer) and is about murder in the geo-caching milieu. I haven’t read it yet, but that sounds like a rather unusual premise too.

I don’t want to give too much of the plot of Blind Birds away, but there is a link to the war in the former Yugoslavia and, coincidentally, I just read another book on this subject at the same time Girl at War, so it was an interesting opportunity to compare how the war is discussed in Austria (where everyone was very familiar with it and there were many refugees moving in) vs. the US, where it seemed relatively remote and an uncomfortable truth.

Reading in the Merry Month of May

It’s been a changeable old month weather-wise, this May, and that has been reflected in my choice of books. I’ve read 12 books, and only 4 of those were by male writers (and two of those were for review). I finally managed to tackle 4 from my Netgalley pile (sinking under the greed there…), 5 from my bookshelves (although two of those may have been VERY recent purchases), plus one random purchase while being stuck at the airport. 7 of the books above may be classified as crime, one was spoken word poetry and there was no non-fiction this month.

Gotta love the cloudy days of May… Lake Geneva from Vevey.

 

Julie Schumacher: Dear Committee Members

Louise Penny: How the Light Gets In – dare I count this as the first of my TBR20?

Helen Fitzgerald: Bloody Women

Clare Mackintosh: I Let You Go

Daniel Quiros: Eté rouge – this one counts for my Global Reading Challenge – Central and South America

Kristien Hemmerechts: The Woman Who Fed the Dogs

Quentin Bates: Summerchill – reviewed on CFL website; you can read my interview with the author here

Ragnar Jonasson: Snowblind – reviewed on CFL website; I’ve also had the pleasure of interviewing Ragnar here 

Megan Beech: When I Grow Up I Want to Be Mary Beard (poetry)

Ursula Poznanski: Blinde Vögel – a Facebook poetry group turns deadly in Salzburg – how could I resist?

Hadrien Laroche: Orphans – philosophical fable – I thereby declare this #TBR1

Sara Novic: Girl at War – survivor of the war in Croatia returns ten years later to her home country – #TBR2

These last four were all memorable in quite different ways, so I want to write more thorough reviews of them soon, so watch this space.

Siglufjordur, location for Snowblind. Picture taken by the author, Ragnar Jonasson (thanks to Twitter).

Crime fiction pick of the month is going to be a tie between Snowblind and How the Light Gets In. But I also have my eye on this Austrian writer Poznanski now and hope she gets translated more into English (she also writes YA and children’s fiction and is known as Ursula P. Archer in the English-speaking world).

Finally, how has writing fared this month? Some rough handwritten drafting has taken place, but it’s been another tough month, with business trips, lots of holidays and parental visits. Must do better next month (famous last words?)… The good news is that poetry has started to flow again after a long period of feeling stuck.