Death Sentence [Paperback]

The idea behind this novel intrigued me at the outset - a writer of gruesome crime novels becomes embroiled in a cat and mouse game when someone starts carrying out his murders in real life, and killing people he knows.

Boy, was I disappointed.

The story started off in quite a promising way, with two strands of narrative, the first dealing with Frank's discovery that the copycat murders are taking place, and the second recounting his past and the experiences that have led him to this point. But almost straight away I found the style of writing to be quite flat, with everything being recounted in a very `matter of fact' way, which made it difficult to really engage with the story - I am not sure if this was the intended style or whether it had anything to do with the translation.

My biggest problem though was the gore factor. The descriptions of violent death and their aftermath was extremely difficult for this reader to cope with. I'm a big fan of crime fiction, and don't object to the depiction of violence within this context, but in this story I found it almost impossible to get through. I had to skim read the final section of the book because I just found it too distressing.

Based on this reading experience I am afraid that I wouldn't rush to read another book by this author.

This book was given to me from Transworld Books.

This is an incredibly hard book to review and I have been sat at my computer wondering what I want to say and how I can truly convey what I am thinking right now.

You know the phrase 'It does exactly what it says on the Tin (Blurb)'? Well this book doesn't. By that I don't mean that it doesn't have a serial killer. It does. I don't mean that there aren't some truly grisly tails of murder, torture and death. There are. What I mean is that the story layout and it's main stance on this type of genre is totally different to what I expected and I am still unsure whether or not I liked it. I would say however that I devoured the book in a rate like I had never experienced a crime book before. I found that I was totally involved in all the emotions that Frank felt and all the experiences and problems that he put himself in. I felt hatred and repulsion for the man and then at other times I kind of empathised with him, and for that I would like to applaud Birkegaard. Unlike other people I found the book to be fast passed with short chapters. This like other books I have read lately, including another Transworld Book; Crippen, they had two narratives. One where you saw the life of Frank; From the beginning of his love of reading and writing, to falling in love, being a dad, to finding the demons that fame, fortune and power can bring and how those demons can change you and bring the life that you once had down. I found this storyline good, the characters were well executed and all rather memorable.
The other part of this was the storyline that you expected after reading the blurb. Frank who now lives alone gets a telephone call to say that a murder has been committed and that it looks like something out of one one his books. Frank goes to investigate and soon becomes aware that the murder is closer to home than what he first thought. This then starts what becomes a race against time for Frank to find the killer... This part of the book let it down for me. I had read other reviews that said that this book was incredibly gory and just too much. I hadn't found this to be true until the last 20 pages. I have read a lot of crime novels and those pages will forever be etched in my mind. Maybe I have a high tolerance to scenes that were described in the book but it didn't put me off at all. What did put me off was the way I felt the author rushed through the later part of the book. I felt that many loose ends were not dealt with and that the last 50 pages were just wrote to finish the book quickly. The ending was an utter disappointment and I wish so much I could explain why I thought this way but because of the risk of a spoiler I cannot say more, but it was a major let down. I can understand why the ending was the way it was but for me as a crime reader I read crime for a reason, and the ending was an utter anti climax! I would love to hear from other people who have read this book and see what they thought.

This is why my review is quite a strange one and part of me still doesn't know what to give the book star wise, as I utterly love some elements but despised others.

Would I read another book by the author? Yes, yes I think I would.

Do I think that he is the cream of the crop when it comes to Scandinavian authors? No, I do not understand why some reviews have said that he is like Larsson (The Girl with the dragon tattoo) There are no similarities between the two. If he is is to be compared by any other author from Scandinavia I would say that it would be more like a Camilla Lackberg. I haven't got round to reading my Jo Nesbo book to compare that yet.

Superb! Probably the best crime novel I have read.

Frank Fons writes crime novels. To his horror one of his gruesome deaths is copied for real. Even worse, he had loosely based the character of the victim on a real person, and it is that person who is killed.

The killer finds a way to communicate with Frank, and to tell him who will be murdered next, again a character from one of Frank' novels, again based on a real person.

Why is this happening? How can he stop it happening again?

Frank needs to turn detective in the hopes he can avoid another death.

A well-crafted novel - difficult to put down. I shall have to get myself a copy of his earlier novel The Library of Shadows.