Sorry, the original Paddington must have been a reprint in 1972 (obviously, now I think about it!). Nice that some more appealing suggestions have emerged, JIM Stewart is worth a read for one.

I've now read it and withdraw my earlier reservations. I think it is an excellent novel, very moving and exciting, as well as absorbing and harrowing.

Oh, what a pity. I do understand only too well how hard it is to quarry time to read/write for a hobby, and it is difficult when that becomes a perceived internal burden. I love reading your thoughtful reviews and hope you may feel like returning to it one day, but in the meantime, all the very best to you. I'll miss you (but will probably touch base now and again on twitter!). All the very best. (And very nice post, by the way.) And good luck in stemming the tide of books - I attempted to retire late last year and asked publishers to stop sending them unless I specifically asked for one, but they still continue to appear.

I agree the distinctions are artificial, I suppose I mean that it does not seem to be "popular" fiction but more "artistic" fiction -- the terminology is hard to get right (and is subjective also) but it is important in a review somwhow to convey the level/type of book, as you do here, esepcially as so much crime fiction written today seems to be aimed at 12 year olds.

Fascinating review. I looked into this book when it was first published but was a bit put off by what seemed to be harrowing/violent scenes. I definitely got the impression it is a literary work rather than "crime fiction", as you write.

Great question! I lost touch with the films as my daughters are now far too old to want to go to the cinema with me, but we did recently catch up with film 7 part 1 on the TV recently and I was impressed, very involved. I never thought the films a patch on the books but this one was quite good. They really are marvellous books and I hope to read them straight through one day - I have read some in bits via reading aloud to young children, and others in a rush to get to the end to find out what happens... I think in London they are planning a few "straight through" screenings of all the films, after 7 part 2 comes out.

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Excellent review, picking up on the main undercurrents of the book. (The crime plot was a bit obvious, it was everything else about the book that made it so great, I think). This is probably my best crime read of the year so far (though Frozen Moment by Camilla Ceder is close, and Michael Connelly is just unvaryingly wonderfully enjoyable). I read a lot of crime fiction and think that Mercy is, and the series could be, "a little bit special". There is other good Danish crime, of course, eg Miss Smilla's feeling for Snow, various by Lief Davidson (his The Serbian Dane is very exciting), The Exception by Christian Jungerson....and a new one called Dinosaur Feather which I'm about to read.

Good luck to the Linked In owners and all of that, but I never found it a useful site and cancelled my membership after a few years because of all the spam connection requests and the lack of any functionality by which the user could block these (plus unresponsive feedback channel from LinkedIn itself). I did get "reference" requests from ex-colleagues I could only dimly recall, but never anything useful. But still, they've done v well and one only wonders what will happen with fb et al.

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Good to know, Debra, and as I suspected! I have moved off Typepad now and onto Wordpress, which I vastly prefer, so could not even begin to emulate your feat!

Amazing! I've read a few. Is this list manually compiled or does it come off your database at the touch of a button?!

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Just to say thanks again for the book - I've read it now and enjoyed it a lot, though I agree with your point that these novels have become somewhat more "easy reads" latterly, compared with the first few.

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