Frank S. (colonelstech) reviewed on 6/2/2013 + 38 more book reviews

Helpful Score: 2

Who Done It?, June 2, 2013
By Colonel Frank Stech
This mystery was a runner-up for the Scandinavian Glass Key Prize while competing against "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo." If you read them both, you can see the judges made the right choice.
The bad news: If "The Girl" is too long and too wordy, "The Boy" is far too spare and too visual. Kaaberbøl and Friis write pretty good chapters, but they never really transition them well, and we see their characters on the run, moving too fast and too unpredictably, across too many scenes and settings, to ever feel we know what might be going on, or why. Unlike the Hitchcock films of elegantly random mystery and violence, we don't have any individuals on whom to focus, just shadowy characters always in motion. Not only are the good guys hard to identify, or identify with, the bad guys are way too easy to spot, both coming and going. Until the very end, we have almost no idea what is really going on, even though almost every sub-plot turn is easily predictable. I felt like the three-year-old boy in the suitcase; whatever this is that is going on, it isn't going to be good. Kaaberbøl and Friis have written a frustrating, weak, unfinished novel.
The good news: It won't take a Hitchcock to make this a fine film thriller. The visual action, the two-dimensional characters, the jumpy scene and setting changes, will readily translate this Nordic Noir tale onto the screen. In a book we need to know something about and care a bit for the people and places, and we need a real plot, not just motion and color. On the screen we just need to watch and we fit it all together in our imaginations, the McGuffin driving the plot can be any old thing, as log as it keeps moving. Kaaberbøl and Friis have written a great screenplay.

Back to all reviews by this member
Back to all reviews of this book
Back to Book Reviews
Back to Book Details