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Reading this work after 1991 makes me realise again how relative everything is. Had I read this one after a bad book I might very well had given it 3 stars but after reading a very good book this one pales in comparison. As said somewhat well written, but the writing gets lost in so many details about the rooms, the apartments and personal lives that seem to have no relationship to the story and don't add anything the result being that it takes away much more than it adds.

J'avais deja lu un autre ouvrage du meme auteur qui m'avait impressione par sa qualite d'ecriture. Celui-ci est encore meilleur. L'auteur recherche toujours le meteriel de ses romans et monte des scenarios toujours riches en contenu.

Probably one of his first books, it's the first of the Hary Hole series, this books gives us a taste of what his writing looked at when Nesbo was starting.
It feels again like one of those paint by numbers paintings. The author seems to have taken a handbook on how to write a thriller and followed it, adding here and there a few insinghts. When he feels that the writing is too short, he inserts long passages that seem to be taken from books about Australia (the action is in that country), and when it's still too short for his tastte he inserts reminiscences about Hary's past that makes the reader wonder what is this doing here. Not a good book, the writing of a beginner. Not sure if that was the first work I had read by him I would have read more.

For the first 100 pages or so I thought this girl is off her rocker but then it gets more precise and turns out she was quite logical. Written in English as it was spoken during WWII which makes for a nice reading.

I'm not sure how and why I read this book to the end. As mentioned the first part of the book is long and boring, written a la Agatha Christie but without the logical reasoning with lots of statements such as "Oh my God, you must feel devastated!" and the like.

But the end somehow rescues the whole thing with a several very original plot twists. Not sure it was worth the long read for that though...

Not sure if it's the translation or the original writing, but it feels like something written by a teenager for other teens.

Good twist at the end.

Again a book in which French follows each thought thread in every possible direction and this writing method puts the reader right in the middle of that universe with all it's terror and anxiety.

Nothing really exceptional, keeps things rolling. A bit confused by all the characters who are there only for a few moments and pop back up chapters later.

I was impressed by all her past works I've read, the quality of the language, the tension buildup.

In this one the ravings of a bunch of teenage, rich teenage girls with sentences such as "it as like, ewww, I don't know". So you could say that the ambience is well recreated but it sure makes for a long a boring read. At about 25% I went to read other reviews who all said it didn't get better until the end so I have to admit I left it at that.

I was directed to this work by listening to an episode of France Culture's Chemins de la philosophie: L'universel, à l'épreuve du mal.

I won't go into the details but Kristeva was talking about the attitude contemporary society should adopt towards the conept of "evil", given the spreading of what has come to be called polulism. Freud, looking out from the basic economy (not money but the management of forces in the mind) of the libido and death drives gives us a very raw vision of society and it's attempt to organize and maintain a semblance of cohesion. I'm very surprised that a work that, to me, seems so rich in consequences and potential has not been looked into by others.

While waiting for inspiration as to what to read next...

No matter if you're a spy novel fan or not, reading Herron is worth it just for the language. He has a way to make English sing like a very high quality violin played by a master.