After Dial D for Deadman, I reluctantly left the world of Dan Deadman and returned to Earth. I landed in Siglufjörðurhe a quiet fishing village in Northern Iceland. Here I met Ari Thor Arason In Ragnar Jonasson’s Nightblind.
Nightblind – Rgnar Jonasson
Siglufjörðurhe is an isolated village only accessible via a small mountain tunnel. The small close-knit town is one where no one locks their doors. In Nightblind their world is rocked when a policeman is killed at a quiet house with a disturbing past.
The murdered officer was Ari Thór’s partner. Thor would have been on-duty the night of the murder but he had called out sick. Thor and the town’s former police chief are tasked with the job of unraveling the mystery. It’s complex mystery involving the compromised new mayor. Along the way the reader is also given glimpses of a psychiatric ward in Reykjavik where a patient writes about his confinement and the reason for it!
All in all, it was a good visit. I enjoyed both the plot and the characters. Nightblind is the second book in Jonasson’s Dark Iceland series.and you can bet I’ll be visiting Iceland again. First, to find out what happened prior to Nightblind in Snowblind and then after in Blackout! I can’t wait.
Noumenon – Marina J. Losteller
Following Nightblind, I traveled back to space with Marina J Lostetter’s Noumenon. More precisely I traveled wit a convoy to the anomalous star LQ Pyxidis and back. A book Kirkus reviews calls “A striking adventure story that could hold a galaxy in its scope’
Noumenon chronicles humanity’s first adventures beyond the solar system, The story is chronicles the aforementioned mission to visit LQ Pyxidis. The mission was the brainchild of Astrophysicist Reggie Straifer. Starifer thousands of others join a convoy of nine ships on a mission to reveal the origins of this anomalous star.
Since the mission would take centuries, it was decided that the travelers would not be frozen. Rather the mission would be composed of clones of Earth’s best scientists.
The story is told through a series of vignettes each featuring a different set of lead characters at various points along the journey. The only consistent character, and maybe the most interesting, is the ship’s A1 or ICC, short for Inter Convoy Computing.
I didn’t like these vignettes t first. It seemed, I would just be getting to know and like a character and boom they were gone! However, as the book progressed and I became aware of the length of the journey I saw the need for different characters.
The bottom line is that I thoroughly enjoyed the book and I am looking forward to reading the next book Noumenon Infinity. Here is a great review of Noumenon from BarnesandNoble.com.
Finally, I have caught you up on the six books that I read in November. In addition, I’ve told you about all the great places I have visited without leaving the comfort of my home!
Next up my first two December reads!!