John Baden has been dead for twelve years. So when someone purporting to be him walks out of an Estonian forest claiming to be John Baden opens up a dead case which sees Ben Westphall go back to Estonia and then back to Inverness to track the case.
The case becomes stranger and stranger and facts begin to appear as fiction - as it becomes very complicated with overlapping characters and events. Ben Westphall our detective is himself carries an overlay of sadness, loss and desolation. He seems slightly other worldish able to decipher feelings of loss and sadness in others and is able to read an atmosphere of most locations which seems out of place in a supposedly hard boiled detective, dealing with facts and figures.
The story is fantastic but intriguing. Not boring in the least but very complicated and at times I lost the thread of the story but I grasped it again soon enough.
I like the characterizations and the descriptiveness of the physical surroundings of both Estonia and Scotland.
Sent to me by Netgalley for an unbiased review, courtesy of Hodder & Stoughton.
It does sounds complicated but it also sounds like something that could really happen. You've piqued my interest.
ReplyDeleteThis sounds different and intriguing.
ReplyDeleteEstonia is an 7nusual setting for a novel, I like the sound of it. Thanks for sharing your thoughts
ReplyDeleteIt sounds complicated, but sometimes that's good. Ben Westphall sounds like a detective I might like.
ReplyDelete