Перо динозавра

Søren Marhauge #1

by Sissel-Jo Gazan

Анна, дипломница биологического факультета, ждет не дождется, когда она наконец через две недели защитит магистерскую диссертацию, освободится и у нее появится время и для маленькой дочки и для друзей. Ее научные интересы связаны со спором о происхождении птиц, вокруг которого кипят такие страсти, что когда научного руководителя Анны находят мертвым с ее дипломом в руках, она начинает опасаться за свою безопасность. Однако правда страшнее и проще, и Анне предстоит разгадать немало тайн и узнать ошеломляющие вещи о себе, своих близких и друзьях.

Genres: Mystery, Fiction, Crime, Danish, Thriller, Mystery Thriller, Denmark

608 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2008

About the author

Biologist and author. Currently living in Berlin.
In 2008 she published her 4th novel Dinosaurens fjer.

Reviews

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having received much praise when it was released in 2013, I was pleased to explore Sissel-Jo Gazan’s debut novel, balancing that Scandinavian noir mystery with a strong science component to keep the reader guessing throughout. The origins of birds is apparently a hotly-debated topic in that ivory tower known as paleo-ornithology. Could it be possible that birds were once dinosaurs? Even more controversially, could dinosaurs actually have had feathers? A great deal of it comes down to evolution and a strong understanding of physiology and osteology, at least that is the argument embedded within Gazan’s novel. Graduate student Anna Bella Nor is only a few weeks away from defending her thesis on the topic of avian evolution and has been able to add her own spin to the academic discussion. Her advisor, Lars Helland, is a strong proponent of the feathered dinosaur and encourages Nor to add some definitive proof in her work. After Helland is found dead in his office, his severed tongue sitting on his shirtfront, questions surface as to what might have happened, particularly as Nor’s bloodstained thesis rests on his lap. Could this have been a severe seizure or was there something more sinister at play? Police Superintendent Søren Marhauge is assigned to investigate, discovering some interesting stories emerging from the Biology Department at Copenhagen University. Upon closer inspection, Dr. Helland appears to have been purposefully infected with a rare parasite long before his death, something that only an expert might be able to obtain. While she is somewhat troubled by the death, Anna Bella sees the clock ticking on her degree and pushes to have a thesis defence, even with the pall of the recent murder overshadowing the university. When her friend and fellow graduate is found murdered, Anna Bella cannot help but wonder if there is something tied to her in this string of murders. With Dr. Helland’s greatest academic nemesis in Denmark for a conference, some wonder if he could be behind these murders, in an attempt to wipe-out the feathered dinosaur theory. Meanwhile both Anna Bella and Superintendent Marhauge have personal struggles they are battling, which may cloud the investigation and distract them from finding the killer. A highly complex crime thriller, Gazan weaves a story and layers it with much character development. Not for those looking to breeze through a novel or play a quick whodunit!

Gazan is to be applauded for developing such a deep piece of work in her first published novel. I can see where the accolades have come, as there are genuinely areas that pull on the darkest of Scandinavian crime thrillers and a much more fleshed-out set of characters. It is worth beginning with the characters that find themselves filling the narrative, for Gazan spends so much time honing their every aspect. While I love a good backstory for my protagonists, I think Gazan may have gone a little too far, using some of the opening chapters to build massive clay statues to present Anna Bella Nor and Søren Marhauge, down to each wrinkle on their respective foreheads. During the opening chapters I had a serious debate as to whether I ought to continue with the novel, hoping for crime but all I got was family drama and angst, with little mention of dinosaurs or murders. However, it was as though Gazan needed to show off her characters in their ‘other lives’ before pushing them onto centre stage and allowing the criminal elements to seep into the narrative. From there, the slow and methodical mystery covers the novel, like a dense fog, and the reader becomes stuck in the middle, though the progress is still much less animated than what might be expected in ‘North American/British’ thrillers. The reader receives breadcrumbs, but must also wrestle with the backstories that become front and centre. While I am no expert of Scandinavian thrillers, I have read a number and even this one seemed slow to advance. The plot is sound and well-documented, if slow to flourish. The reader is left to wonder who and why throughout, given numerous suspects based on different angles one might approach. Dr. Helland was certainly not the most liked person in the world, but were those who disliked him that sinister as to kill him with parasites? Finally, I would be remiss if I did not discuss the extensive use of science within the novel. Gazan’s background in biology shines through and she does not hold back, either with the area of discussion (disagreement) or the technical language. The narration is riddled with highly academic portions, surely to fuel a debate for those readers who can understand the topic at hand. While I did not find myself drowning in technical terms or academic tennis, it is surely not for the reader seeking to skim the surface of a number of topics, as there is significant scientific flavour to the story. I can see many people shying away already. That said, it is well presented and challenges the mind and brain synapses.

Kudos, Madam Gazan for a wonderfully crafted novel that pushed me to attempt a better understanding of science and the art of the Scandinavian dark crime thriller. I may have to return to see what else you have planned for Søren Marhauge in the near future.

Like/hate the review? An ever-growing collection of others appears at:
http://pecheyponderings.wordpress.com/

[Manny · Rating 2 out of 5]

Family
Childhood memories
Best friends
Relationships
Infidelity
In Danish
With dinosaurs

Secrets
Death
Same-sex longings
Memories
Obsession
In Danish
With dinosaurs

Heartbreak
Domestic violence
Child abuse
Sex
Academic politics
In Danish
With dinosaurs

Police investigations
Biology
Funding
Popper
Kuhn
In Danish
With dinosaurs

Insincerity
Separation
Poverty
Fear
Breakdown
In Danish
With dinosaurs

Love
Confessions
Feelings
Tears
In Danish
Bring back the dinosaurs!

The Big Reveal
And I mean big
Fifty pages of it
In Danish
Extra dinosaurs

[Prince · Rating 1 out of 5]

There are too many things I dislike about this book.

1. Pointless back stories - In the first few pages, we have a fairly interesting murder take place. Then follows 200 pages of back stories. Characters are introduced quickly followed by a tonne of history, all of which have nothing to do with the central mystery. And all this delivered in the rich prose found in a phone directory.

2. Everyone is angry - Yes EVERYONE. Our lead character Anna Bella Nor is an angry young woman who yells at everyone she comes across. The detective investigating the murder has a complicated history (explained in a dry 50 pages) that renders him angry all the time. He too shouts at everyone he meets. So do the other detectives, and the other professors. And everyone else.

3. The Dinosaur Feather - At the center of the novel is a scientific argument on whether birds evolved from dinosaurs or whether they merely had a common ancestor. Arguments for and against this appear through out with all the elegance of furniture catalog and as the hapless reader would find out at the end, it has really no relation to the central story

4. Larsson Syndrome - The book suffers from a heavy does of it in that minute details of what character does, thinks, eats etc. is laid out in excruciating detail all for no real reason. While it would have been excusable if the book had an interesting premise (like in the Millennium trilogy), that - sadly - is not the case here.

There really are too many more terrible reasons (an unsympathetic heroine, a totally useless detective, the terribly bland prose), but I'm tired to go on. Suffice to say that of the few Nordic thrillers I've laid my hands on, this is by far the worst.

Give this one a pass. Really.

[Richard Derus · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rating: 3.75* of five

The Publisher Says: How could one man inspire such hatred?

Professor Lars Helland is found at his desk with his tongue lying in his lap. A violent fit has caused him to bite through it in his death throes. A sad but simple end. Until the autopsy results come through.

The true cause of his death - the slow, systematic and terrible destruction of a man - leaves the police at a loss. And when a second member of Helland's department disappears, their attention turns to a postgraduate student named Anna. She's a single mother, angry with the world, desperate to finish her degree. Would she really jeopardise everything by killing her supervisor?

As the police investigate the most brutal and calculated case they've ever known, Anna must fight her own demons, prove her innocence and avoid becoming the killer's next victim.

The Dinosaur Feather is the most fascinating, complex and unusual Scandinavian crime novel since Smilla's Sense of Snow.

My Review: The Doubleday UK meme, a book a day for July 2014, is the goad I'm using to get through my snit-based unwritten reviews. Today's prompt is the twenty-fifth, a book that's a guilty pleasure.

Scandicrime has, apart from Jussi Adler-Olson, eluded me. I'm not hooked, I'm not repelled, I'm simply bemused by the warbles and hoots of addicted rapture. I gave up on Arnaldur's books because grim, I disliked that rape victim trilogy deeply, I can't read books starring a person named Harry Hole. I simply can't. So me and the Scandis, we're not besties.

I do, however, really really like this book. It's got a background--and ONLY a background, no sciencey stuff need slow you down--of one of the most fascinating paleontological issues around, that is the dinosaurian origins of birds. It features a detective with angst. (Hoo BOY does he have angst.) The suspect is a single mom in search of a degree to build a good life for herself and her baby. And as a bonus the victim badly needed killing, and was dispatched in a way that still fills all the nooks and crannies of my soul with schadenfreude.

So why call this almost-four-star read a guilty pleasure? Because it's relentlessly downbeat. Yes, the crime is solved, but honestly I wish it hadn't been. The dick who died? Yeah, well, pity about that, please pass the jelly. The secrets that erupt into unforgettable daylight? Better for everyone if they'd just stayed secret and life had percolated along with shiny surfaces and unpocked skin.

And I thoroughly, completely reveled in the nastiness. Shame on me! #sorrynotsorry

[Beatriz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Me gustó mucho, aunque me cuesta explicar por qué. De hecho, se me haría más fácil argumentar los fallos que le encontré y que, lamentablemente, están relacionados con la promoción que se hace de la novela y que genera falsas expectativas: Mejor Novela Negra Danesa de la Década… no es sólo un trepidante thriller científico repleto de intriga psicológica, sino también una apasionante historia de amor.

Pero no, definitivamente eso no es lo que vamos a encontrar. A pesar de que inicia con la intriga asociada a la muerte en extrañas circunstancias de uno de sus personajes (de cuya resolución no voy a decir nada que pueda ser acusado de spoiler, jeje), sólo sirve de excusa para presentar a los demás personajes que, en definitiva, son el fuerte de una novela sobre la naturaleza humana, sobre todos aquellos aspectos y sentimientos que se ocultan y que poco a poco dañan la capacidad de entablar relaciones sanas. El primer lugar se lo lleva sin duda Anna, la protagonista, un personaje tan complejo como pocas veces he encontrado en la literatura:

Le había sucedido tantas veces en la vida… La trataban injustamente y, cuando reaccionaba, su reacción era lo único visible, mientras que la injusticia de la que había sido objeto pasaba a un segundo plano. Como con Troels y Karen. De repente, la culpa de que hubiesen dejado de ser amigos la tenía ella. También era suya la culpa de que el padre de Lily ya no viviera con ellas. «No hay quien aguante estar con alguien que se comporta así», eso le había dicho Thomas. Como si lo que la había llevado a comportarse así se hubiese volatilizado.

El entorno científico le da el toque justo, no se hace pesado en las explicaciones y son muy interesantes las referencias a la difícil labor de la investigación científica y el mundo editorial de este tipo de publicaciones. Respecto de “la apasionante historia de amor”, la esperé durante toda la novela, pero sólo nos entrega el reconocimiento consciente (por parte de él) e inconsciente (por parte de ella) de algo que está naciendo. Sin embargo, tuvo un toque increíblemente emotivo. Por lo mismo, me muero de ganas de leer la continuación: La golondrina negra.

Bueno, pero a lo que quiero llegar es que a pesar de los altos y bajos, es una lectura que realmente disfruté mucho, todos los personajes me llegaron al alma (de una u otra forma) y no veía la hora de tener ratos libres para continuar con sus historias.

[Rick Urban · Rating 1 out of 5]

"The Dinosaur Feather"'s first chapter is something of a synecdoche. It is a long, rambling account of our main character, Anna Bella Nor, who seems to be an archaeologist in the 1870s who is uncovering the remains of Archaeopteryx, an ancient bird, while on a dig in Southern Germany. The chapter even begins with the heading "Solnhofen, Southern Germany, April 1877". It depicts in fine detail how Anna has been there for months, covered in dust, having philosophical arguments with the head of the expedition over the new theory of evolution. Then, on the 3rd page or so, we learn that this is a dream, and that Anna is really a graduate student at a Danish university in the year 2007.

What makes this chapter a synecdoche is that it is a part that represents the book as a whole, in that it is disingenuous, confusing, dull, rambling and irrelevant, descriptors that make up the novel as a whole. Additionally, the first chapter promises a level of whimsy and/or wit that makes no appearance throughout the rest of the novel...in fact, author S.J. Gazan doesn't even revisit the conceit of the lucid dream, or ANY dream, of the main character for the rest of the novel. It's as if the chapter were some cast off of a first draft that inadvertently got re-incorporated into the book by a lazy editor. Well with this book, the lazy editor is working in tandem with a lazy translator, and, sadly, a lazy author.

This is a shockingly incoherent book, not on a sentence by sentence basis (although there are plenty of examples of mis-translation, as when the lead detective on the case parks "behind Anna's block"), but conceptually, and plotwise. It is the mark of a bad writer, especially one who is writing a purported "mystery", to drop the main action of the story before it even begins in order to begin the embroidery of said character's backstory. In this case, that backstory is followed by that of two other characters, so that the first quarter of the book ends up being background material on three of the most boring characters ever created in mystery fiction.

And in the case of all three of these characters, and a few others besides, their characterizations are depressingly similar: narcissistic, immature adults who, for all their erudition and purported accomplishments, have shockingly little in the way of what is presently called "emotional intelligence". Additionally, Anna, the graduate student, and Soren, the detective, are depicted as exceptionally intelligent, when in fact nothing they say or do supports that portrayal. Most hilariously, the detective is described like this: "He possessed an extraordinary eye for the true nature of things, and many of the most spectacular conclusions reached in Department A had been achieved by Soren." It is surprising, then, to learn that Soren does not solve either of the murders that form the basis of the book's mystery; in fact, he basically contributes nothing to the resolution of the novel, and it is another example of this author's ineptitude that she devotes a quarter to a third of the book to character who is worthless to the story.

In fact, the most egregious mistake Gazan makes is to overstay her welcome with turgid and maundering passages about the past of characters we are dared to like, while giving short shrift to the central mysteries that appear to animate her tale. And it is both a colossal cheat, and bad faith, to introduce the murderer some 60 pages before the end of the book (full disclosure: the murderer's name is mentioned exactly 3 times before page 366 of the book...but in passing, so that it is as if the character did not exist at all). The other murderer, while mentioned earlier, is similarly of no consequence to the story until s/he arrives on the scene as the literary equivalent of a deus ex machina, so wreathed in coincidence as to be laughable. But by this point, the reader is so bored and disaffected that the killers might as well be space aliens, so little does this story represent the behavior of real, intelligent life forms.

Finally, Gazan hugely overestimates the interest of the average reader in the arcane disputes of academia surrounding the evolution of birds from dinosaurs. It is the framework on which this story is draped, and yet the disagreement as to whether birds are directly descended from dinosaurs, outside of the disciplines for which this argument provides a steady stream of funding and employment, is of fleeting interest or importance. In fact, a hearty cry of "Who gives a shit?" is the more likely response on the part of readers after seemingly endless pages are devoted to rehashing this argument over and over.

In the dream that starts this book, the antagonist of Anna, when confronted with the theory of evolution, exclaims that it meant that "everything, life and nature, was entirely random and unplanned. The whole business is insane!" This apt description could serve just as well to describe the misfire that is "The Dinosaur Feather".

One final note: Danish crime novel fans supposedly voted this book "Danish Crime Novel of the Decade", though I can find no corroborating evidence of this other than the publisher's touting of it in the synopsis. Either there aren't very many crime novels coming out of Denmark, or there are a lot of disgruntled Danish crime writers out there right about now...

[Alger Smythe-Hopkins · Rating 1 out of 5]

Apparently being named Danish Crime Novel of the Decade is like being the Checkers Champion of the Oklahoma Panhandle; a distinction of no distinction.

While the book is a terrible disappointment from every angle, the book is readable, and there is a mystery plot that is actually two, but the selling of this book as a mystery is false. The selling of this book as a science thriller is false. The selling of this book as a crime novel is false. The academic subplot is a distraction. The author's understanding of science and how science is conducted is laughable. The author's bizarre imagining of academia is simply wrong. For example, no modern institution of any credibility would hire the children of their professors. No first tier multidisciplinary scientific journal, let alone three journals, would accept dozens of articles that are essentially a yelling match between two authors supporting the overwhelming majority opinion and one cranky holdout. Anna's dissertation topic is so basic, so laughably amateur, that it would not even get her an a as an undergraduate thesis let alone a PhD from a leading science institution. And WTF is up with the University of Copenhagen? Do they only hire the certifiably, murderously insane? The conclusion of the ostensible "mystery" that opens the novel is pulled completely out of thin air and betrays all the rules of good writing. The first person characters are awful people loaded with existential crises that all stem from childhood trauma, and the supporting characters are either too good to be true or tortured souls on par with the lead characters and equally prone to random, senseless, violence (emotional or otherwise). At least 3/4s of the book has nothing to do with what is supposed to be the mystery at the center of the novel, and is instead people confessing personal failings and pain that are both dull and unnecessary to the plot. The selling of this book as anything other than a third rate tortured melodrama is misdirection. Also, if you don't identify Johannes' murderer at the moment Johannes is murdered, you weren't paying attention #Chekhov's Gun.
And on top of all this, the translator seems to have plugged the entire novel into an online program and pressed a button. The word choices are awkward, the language stilted, and there is a strong tendency to repeating phrases.

Because this was the Danish Crime Novel of the Decade I was able to hold onto hope that the book would turn around with a smart conclusion right up to the very point where it was impossible to rescue; this is a book that takes your lowest expectations and kicks them right in the crotch. The final five chapters, the dénouement, essentially paste a sunshiny false ending to everyone's problems. This is achieved through TWO contrived endings to the (up to that point neglected) murder investigations and pages of therapeutic confessionals and one thunderously unnecessary confrontation. I mean, what the hell was the point of Anna's meeting with Freeman?.

Unbelievable family melodrama wrapped around characters too fragile to exist in this world, hidden behind an undeveloped non-mystery.

[Cheryl · Rating 1 out of 5]

You ever have that moment where you are really excited to read a book that you put aside all the others (yes, I did say others as I usually have about 3 to 4 books open at the same time) you are currently reading? Well that is what I did when this book arrived. I quickly realized that sometimes a book may sound good and the cover is cool but that does not make the book good.

I got to about chapter three and than realized that this book and I were not going to become good friends. The storyline got bogged down with too many details. Also, none of the characters drew me in. I can tell this right away when I read a book if I am going to like it or not. In fact, I would open this book randomly to a different page, read some and then jump ahead to another random page again and read. It made reading this book better this way and I never felt like I missed anything. However don't ask me about anything about this book as it is very uninteresting to me. One of those books that you can quickly forget it. This had nothing to do with the fact that it was translated either. I just had to point this out as sometimes the language barrier when it comes to translated books can read clunky and stiff. Ok, on to the next book.

[Bettie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Bettie's Books

[Ms.pegasus · Rating 3 out of 5]

This claustrophobic mystery takes place in Copenhagen. The present-day scenes (2007) are confined to the insular world of academe, where researchers can labor in the same building for decades but have acquaintance only with colleagues in the same field. Anna Bella Nor is a post-graduate student under pressure to complete and defend her doctoral dissertation, a proof that birds are descended from dinosaurs and not from an archaic pre-dinosaur ancestor as Canadian bird paleontologist Clive Freeman argues.

Anna Bella can only be described as pathologically insecure. When one of her advisors, Dr. Lars Helland, seems indifferent to her thesis and all but ignores her, she is infuriated. Only the level-headed objectivity of her office mate and fellow post-graduate Johannes Trøjborg keep the decibel level of her rants down. Then, two weeks before her scheduled defense, Helland suffers a fatal seizure. The scene is not pretty. Helland's seizure was so violent that he bit off his own tongue. Detective Søren Marhauge investigates, and his initial conclusion of a macabre death by natural causes changes when the autopsy report comes in.

At Helland's death, his ferrety protegé Dr. Erik Tybjerg suddenly goes off the grid. Anna Bella is nearly hysterical. Tybjerg was her main advisor, and she was relying on him to conduct the defense proceedings. Her tirades grate on everyone including the reader. After all, a colleague is dead, and the rumors are flying.

However, the author seems to put Helland's death on the back burner as well. She interrupts the investigative narrative with long interludes detailing the backstories of Anna Bella, Clive Freeman, and Detective Søren Marhauge. Troubled secondary characters are added to a mix that includes both mental and physical child abuse, repressed memories, guilt-ridden secrets, and sexual aberration. Despite being set in Denmark, this is a Bergmanesque stew of angst.

The author herds these tormented people together without reference to a broader social context. Outside of the hermetic confines of the book Gazan's straight-forward explanations of so many psychological meltdowns loses conviction. Anna Bella's mother suffers from post-partum depression which triggers a fragile family dynamic that is the cause of Anna Bella's insecurity. Clive Freeman's father is a viciously competitive tyrant and now Clive's self-esteem is tied to his own ability to domineer and control others. Søren' repressed memory of his parents' death cripples his ability to deal with his current grief over the death of his grandparents and clandestine illegitimate infant daughter. Søren at first appears to endorse the author's simplistic constructs: “ 'When you solve a mystery...you should never accept the first and most obvious explanation....Sometimes that's the way it is, but not always. When you knit backward you don't guess.'” (p.42) Toward the end of his investigation, Søren receives an epiphany. He discovers his own unexamined assumptions about transgenders, transvestites, bisexuals and homosexuals are flawed. Knitting backward is not always so easy. Moreover there will always be gaps in the factual chain uncovered. Søren contemplates this shift as he reinterprets his own life: “ 'Sometimes you've got no idea how your life ended up the way it did, there's only the end product, E, and the starting point, A, and the rest is unknown. The path between the two points is lost....That's how I operate....I need to be able to retrace my steps and understand what happened. I want life to be like that!....But sometimes it isn't, is it?'” (p.303)

The topic of Anna Bella's thesis is puzzling. She completes it in 2007. By that time the book discloses Sinosauropteryx had been discovered in China and a feathered T-rex fossil had been unearthed. It has already been established that birds are descended from dinosaurs, despite Freeman's vociferous objections. Johannes comes to Anna Bella's aid with a brilliant analysis that, to me, explains the book's odd structure. Science is assumed to be a steady process of hypothesizing, testing, refining and discarding. Johannes introduces the concepts of subjectivity and paradigm shifts examined by Thomas Kuhn and Lorraine Daston. The argument maintains that any description involves the process of creating an archetype: “ 'Kuhn demonstrated that a scientist's choices are influenced by the personality and biography of that scientist, and that ultimately subjectivity determines what the scientist chooses.'” (p.152) Johannes urges Anna Bella to shift her focus from testability to the consistency of Freeman's arguments. In an instant, Anna Bella's thesis becomes an examination of how Freeman's arguments remain viable in the face of mounting evidence against his theory. [To be honest, the only inconsistency I understood in her final argument was the one arguing feathers were too complex to have evolved more than once but that certain equally complex bone constructions could have evolved more than once. (p.423) Her argument about the role of media in perpetuating scientific fallacies is more obvious since it relies on material already developed in the book].

This explains the author's odd decision to open the book with Anna Bella's dream, which skims the surface of disconnected realities: Discovering Archeopteryx, challenging an authority figure (von Molson), and the ongoing and vehement opposition to Darwin's theory as late as 1870. The dream acts as a prequel to the issues to be explored in the book.

Although this is not a totally successful book, it is ambitious, struggling to exceed the confines of the traditional mystery genre.

NOTES:
The books is translated from the Danish by the well-regarded translator Charlotte Barslund. The book was critically acclaimed in Denmark. It would be interesting to learn what Danish critics said about the book.

Website about the dinosaur/bird argument: www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/diapsids/avians...

interesting discussion of the social dimensions of science by Adam Gopnik, "Spooked,
what do we learn about science from a controversy in physics," NEW YORKER, Nov. 30, 2015, p. 84-86.

[Rubi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Siempre he tenido debilidad por los autores de los países nórdicos; por lo que, mi apreciación lleva sesgo.
Me gusto la historia, me gusta conectar con los personajes y que éstos despierten emociones en mi; la mayor parte del tiempo odie a la protagonista por su egocentrismo. En ocasiones, sentía que se le pasaba la mano con los aportes científicos, pero al final la disfrute enormemente.
I always had a weakness for the authors of the Nordic countries; so, my appreciation is biased.
I like the story, I like to connect with the characters and that they arouse emotions in me; most of the time I hate the protagonist for her egocentrism. At times, I felt that she was giving hers hand with the scientific contributions, but in the end I enjoyed it enormously.

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

January is often a very good reading month for some reason. That alone doesn't make a lot of sense - it's normally hot enough to melt the tin on the roof, which isn't conducive to concentration. Making THE DINOSAUR FEATHER look like a rather risky choice. At 535 pages it was way too big for any struggle with concentration, and after starting the book and finding myself deep in discussions on paleo-ornithology and not a lot of "crime action", I was feeling somewhat sceptical to say the least. Add to that a central character who is just a little inclined to be whingy, very prickly, with more than a hefty dose of self-entitlement and I really did question my sanity for starting this book off at this time of the year.

But there can be something appealing about the idea of a character being somewhat unpleasant, as long as there is a very realistic feel to the portrayal. Leaving aside a slight personal tendency to sympathise with prickly, Anna Bella Nor is extremely realistic. Complicated, with a messy personal life, she's completely focused on the completion of her degree to the detriment of many of her personal relationships. Not that her relationship with her divorced parents ever seems to have been plain sailing. Her dislike and antagonism for her supervisor - Professor Lars Helland - isn't hidden, even when his sudden and very odd death becomes the subject of a police investigation. In contrast to Anna, her colleague Johannes is considerably more placid, accepting and caring. He's got a lot more reasons for life to disappoint than Anna, yet he's always able to see the good side in the people around them. Superintendent Soren Marhauge is also a man with a complicated personal life, full of regret and loss, yet he is also more like Johannes in outlook, if not lifestyle - he also finds himself dangerously fascinated by Anna Bella.

Looking at that summary it would be very easy to assume that this is yet another book in which the women are volatile and complicated and the men all tolerant and straightforward. Goodness knows I've been dragged down that path a bit recently. Whilst there is a lot of that classification going on, this author has managed to create a level of reality to these people that doesn't exaggerate the roles or overplay that comparison. Anna Bella is a tricky woman to deal with (as is her mother), but there are also kind, controlled women around them, and not everything in Anna Bella is bad, or wrong, or off kilter. The men may seem controlled, kind and wise, but they are all hiding secrets and behaviour which is less than perfect. It's those aspects of the characters that keeps them from feeling like roles have been assigned for the purposes of creating a reaction, and more like people who could very well be the reader, or people the reader knows.

Be warned though, it takes quite a while for the "crime" to happen in this book, possibly because there are all these complicated and rather fraught personal backgrounds and relationships. There's a lot of stuff that's not directly related to the crime itself going on, and whilst some of that did get a little repetitive at points, and there was just a slight inclination to tell, rather than show; mostly the plot, the story and all it's elements filled the 535 pages pretty successfully. Having said that, you're going to have to find the world of the evolution of birds and their relationship to dinosaurs interesting because at some points in the book you'll be pulled well into the discussion. Not, I'd hasten to say, in an overly scientific or learned manner, all of the information was quite readable, and personally I found it quite fascinating. Perhaps because it was compelling it didn't always feel like too much of a distraction or deviation from the crime itself.

The cause and resolution of the crime, getting back to the point of crime fiction after all, was nicely constructed, and despite one of the most bizarre methods of killing I've come across in a long while, perfectly feasible in the world in which it was placed. As a pure puzzle solver there were clues along the way for the reader to work with, and whilst it does take a while to get to the point where the resolution of the crime starts to be drawn out, I doubt it will come as a massive surprise to most. What probably appealed to this reader most of all about THE DINOSAUR FEATHER was the journey, and the unusual setting and environment in which the story is conducted. Regardless of what made the book work, it was a real surprise to find that this book was the one that's kept my perfect strike rate of at least one favourite book of the year coming in the first month of the year.

[Neyly · Rating 1 out of 5]

My reading time could have been better spent.

1. I don't like the main character Anna Bella Nor. Her anger issues, sneering, and constant stomping away become old quickly. In other books with an unlikeable main character, the reader is supposed to feel dislike; here I sense a certain expectation to sympathize with - to like - the unlikeable Anna Bella and I just don't.

2. I don't like the secondary characters. The reader spends way too much time reliving everyone's bad childhood and it (mostly) has so little to do with the mystery. There's backstory and then there's TMI.

3. No one - and I mean no one - tells the truth: lies, lies, and more lies. You'd expect this somewhat in a murder mystery but everyone lies in the backstories also.

4. The translation leaves much to be desired: sometimes it's stilted, sometimes awkward, and sometimes just off.

Examples:
page 140 - storm in a teacup (Hmm ... tempest in a teapot)

page 179 - Lily hoovered the contents of the bowl (How about: Lily cleaned her plate.)

page 426 - The coffin was pure white. It should have been wearing a Hawaiian shirt. (I can only guess: The coffin should have been covered with flowers.)

5. As for the mystery itself: The two murders are not connected. Helland's murder happens at the hand of someone who has not made an appearance in the book at all. Johannes' murder comes by way of one of Anna Bella's childhood friends (coincidence) who appears in the book in time to conveniently murder Johannes (unconnected in any way to Anna Bella). And then instead of disappearing into the night and - hello - getting away with the crime, he gets in touch with Anna Bella to rekindle the friendship. The minute he arrives on the scene you know he's the guy, so the author hoovers suspense out of the scenes that follow.

So this book was voted Danish Crime Novel of the Decade? I can only assume something - a lot of somethings - got lost in the translation.

[AGinNoCal · Rating 2 out of 5]

I give up on Scandinavian mysteries. What could have been an interesting story, with some fun science, got lost in insufferable, meandering minutiae; unpleasant, unbelievable characters; and a total lack of editing.

Seriously it was if you and your friend walked past a yellow street sign and your friend later that day regaled a group of co-workers with the following: "We walked past a yellow street sign, painted but not installed by John Baumberg, who had painted yellow signs for many years after dropping out of art school, which he had chosen to attend only to upset his parents, Mary and Bill, a couple who fought regularly but always made up after sharing thick cut oatmeal, with blueberries, lavender honey, and a small amount of warm, not hot, whole milk. John did not install the signs he painted because of an accident he witnessed when a car, a 1982 blue Volvo, driven by Lars, an alcoholic transvestite who was abused as a child by his older brother Rick, sideswiped a bench next to a bus stop in outer Durgenflomstadt, on an overcast afternoon, with the sky pockmarked by grey clouds dragged not pushed across the sky. Rick also had been to art school, but he had not dropped out. Nevertheless, Rick did not pursue a career in painting. ..."

It was a yellow sign. It was not even an interesting one. Let it go.

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Dinosaur Feather is a very different book from the norm. It is compared to the Millennium Trilogy but the similarities are few and far between.

The basic plot is the same as any whodunnit- in this case a scientist is killed horribly. It's seen from the perspective of three characters- Anna Bella, a student studying towards her thesis, Soren, the detective in charge of the case and Adam Freeman, an American scientist who is the murdered scientist's big rival.

The book isn't about the murders, not really. It's about three people whose everyday life is affected by the traumas of their past. As the novel progresses we learn what happened to Anna, Soren and Adam as secrets are unveiled and they begin to discover why they are the way they are. The characters are great and very believable, if difficult to empathise with at times.

There's also a fair bit of science stuff about whether or not birds actually are modern day scientists. Some might argue that it feels out of place but it was the reason I picked the book up in the first place. It was interesting science and fitted in perfectly well with the story.

It's a very different story and quite dark even for a murder mystery. If bits of this don't effect you emotionally than you have no heart. An interesting début unlike anything else I've ever read.

[Roger · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Nordic crime fiction is a thing, ya'll!"--Me. Wow did I love The Dinosaur Feather. This book has won a ton of awards including Danish crime novel of the decade, and it deserved every one of them. The action takes place in Denmark (I will resist the obvious pun) and despite the typographical gaffes in my edition, this book gets five stars, and takes that rare leap few books ever do onto my "favorites" shelf. Anna Bella Nor is a difficult person-her doctoral dissertation is coming up when her academic adviser is murdered in an incredibly sinister fashion. She is a single mother under an incredible amount of pressure. You may not like Anna Bella at first-by the end of the book you will love her. Her problems intensify as the book progresses, and we are treated to a lot of background information about her and other characters that may appear extraneous-it isn't. S J Gazan knits everything together in one beautiful package and I promise it is not what you think. I really enjoyed the academic argument/controversy that is one of the sub-plots of this book-it is what Anna Bella's doctoral dissertation concerns: are birds evolved dinosaurs or descended from the same common ancestor as dinosaurs? For those of us who saw the end of Jurassic Park the answer is a foregone conclusion-but there is a lot of juicy background about the scientific method, and Popper and Kuhn, which just adds to the fascination. What a fantastic read.

[Nick Davies · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting mixture, plenty that I liked about this, several aspects that weren't to my taste.. overall an enjoyable read despite being slightly inconsistent in places and a slog because of being longer than it maybe should've been.

The story follows an investigation into the suspicious death of a university professor, focussing in particular on the detective investigating the crime and on a young female post-grad student being supervised by the dead professor. I thought the plot was intricate and clever, the scientific content very interesting and able to give the novel a little extra to elevate it above 'run of the mill' Nordic crime drama, and for a 500+ page book it was a pretty decently paced read in general.

I just found too much of it a bit weird. There was over a hundred pages at the start in which very little actually happened, too much introduction to the key characters in the format of biographical information, reams of historical information that only really became important in the second half of the book - it felt a little clunky how disjointed these parts were from the later dénouement. In addition to this, there was quite a lot of 'telling' and not as much 'showing' - it all got a bit Scooby Doo in the end. Perhaps I would've felt a bit more positive about the book had I liked the sorta-heroine more.. but she came over like her priorities were a little warped so I wasn't completely behind her.

[Kristina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Virkelig velskrevet og underholdende. Persongalleriet er troværdigt, og plottet flyder godt frem. Dog går det lidt for stærkt til sidst, som om forfatteren ved pludselig indskydelse skulle binde en sløjfe på historien og komme videre.
Sidste kapitel virkede skørt. Havde Anna Bella lært noget om sig selv og forsøgt at ændre sig? Igen var sløjfen vigtigere end personudviklingen, og det var en skam.

[E · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bit too long, a bit too scientifically technical (especially in the early chapters where that detracts from setting up the plot), sometimes reading like a conference lecture.

The protagonist/anti-hero, PhD hopeful Anna Bella, is spiky and unreliable, self-absorbed and hard to like (as a mother, daughter, and friend), even though Gazan goes off the deep end a couple of times providing back stories designed to create sympathy/understanding for both her and Superintendent Søren.

While the setting is purportedly Copenhagen and we do get descriptions of, say, the university buildings, they feel generic and the book could have been set in any other large campus town. Other opportunities for developing Danish local color are meager or ignored. What a shame.

But kudos for a very original plot and murder method, gross as it is.

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

I sat down to read this book wanting to love it. I liked it. But what could have been a completely absorbing debut fell just wide of the mark. [This book is partially hidden because although it does not contain actual spoilers, it does contain some details you might want to come to fresh]

The premise is fascinating. Anna Bella Nor is a postgraduate student struggling to juggle the pressures of her impending PhD viva and caring for her young daughter, Lily, only to find these compounded when her supervisor is murdered and herself a suspect. The University of Copenhagen's Biology department is likewise a great setting for a thriller, with oddball academics, underfunded projects and cut-throat internal politics providing a potentially explosive combination.

The narration is shared between three characters: Anna, Superintendent Søren Marhauge – the brilliant detective with a troubled past assigned to the case, and Clive Freeman – the murdered professor's academic nemesis. Anna's thesis, a scientific review on the evidence for and against the theory that dinosaurs have evolved from birds, puts her in direct competition with the increasingly unhinged Freeman, who holds fast to the increasingly discredited theory that dinosaurs evolved separately.

The novel is really more interested in the backstories of these 3 characters than in the resolution of the murder. This makes for a more gradual unravelling of the plot, and adds an extra dimension to your by-numbers whodunnit as you delve deeper and deeper into the stories that brought each of the characters to this point. You learn a lot about scientific method and review process, as well as dinosaurs, understandably given Gazan's background in university biology.

There are some brilliant moments in the novel:

Søren was Denmark's youngest police superintendent, he could identify a murderer from the mere twitching of a single, out-of-place eyebrow hair, he could knit backwards, and everyone he had ever loved had died and left him behind.

But there are also some terrifically stilted ones:

Anna knew perfectly well she hadn't bumped into the World's Most Irritating Detective in the supermarket by accident. [...] She hated him! Since he had entered her life, less than a week ago, everything had started to unravel. How dare he buy a loaf of bread for Maggie, how dare he carry her daughter? She wanted him to leave her alone and she didn't want to hear what he had come to say. [...] Tears started rolling down her cheeks. The steamy mashed potatoes were in a bowl in the sink, and suddenly she slumped forward as if she had been stabbed.

This kind of frustrated outrage is characteristic of Anna's tone, and while pop-psychologists might be able to explain it through some of her subsequent discoveries (I won't spoil them here), I found a lot of her reactions were pretty unbelievable, and rang kind of hollow. Maybe this is partly down to issues of translation, but I get the sense it runs deeper than that.

This is not to say I didn't enjoy the novel. The science is well done, the characters interesting, and the narrative propels you forward making this ultimately very entertaining. But that propulsion is brought about by promises that the book seems about to deliver, and then shies away from. For example, the novel opens with a dream sequence about the discovery of the first feathered dinosaur fossil. It sums up Anna's ambition, it gives us a bit of background to what is at stake in this academic debate, but it's the last time we ever see into somebody's subconscious, and as we get dragged into the petty squabbles of a university department and the characters' apparently unsurmountable past traumas, we totally lose sight of it.

Likewise, Freeman had the potential to be a phenomenal character, bringing out as he does the uncomfortable truth that the academic's single-mindedness is often closer to mania. But this, and his fraught relationship with Jack, is never quite brought to the fore. We are supposed to believe that Anna must, must defend her thesis at all costs, rather than postponing it another month in light of a series of horrific murders (I have done my time as an academic, and can tell you that another month is never, never an unwelcome prospect – grizzly murders or no).

I wanted to start SecondShelfDown's reviews with The Dinosaur Feather because it contains a lot that I love about good commercial fiction: it puts a unique spin on a time-honoured genre, and doesn't shy away from the science either (incidentally, in this it reminds me a bit of The End of Mr. Y – I'll do a piece on Scarlett Thomas in due course as she's a very interesting hit and miss writer). It was well-packaged, well-conceived, and in parts, well-written. And that's why it was so infuriating when it didn't deliver. But it was – as I hope all the books on my second shelf will be – worth reading.

[Pete · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a retired Earth Science teacher and fossil collector during college, I was intrigued by the title of this book!
The author weaves a crime thriller and mystery around very interesting science as well as developing extensive individual storylines for a number of the main characters. The author shares the story of the main character Anna Bella in such a way that this reader didn’t realize that she was crime solver until the end of the novel!
Good book!!!

[Kam-Hung Soh · Rating 2 out of 5]

There's three narrative threads, Anna Bors a student preparing to defend her Ph.D thesis, Philip Freeman a Canadian professor of a disputed theory of bird evolution and Soren Marhauge the detective investigating a murder which should link all the threads. Annoyingly, after investing time in reading all three, only one thread really matters and the others fizzle out.

[Howard Cincotta · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Danish literary establishment did first-time novelist S. J. Gazan no favors with its high praise for The Dinosaur Feather, and if this is the country’s best crime novel of the last decade – as the blurbs claim – then Danish literature is in serious trouble.

Which is sad because the book is a respectable first-time effort with an intriguing plot premise that Gazan does not yet have the skills to deliver. A Scandinavian mystery featuring a beleaguered single-mother graduate student, strange colleagues and a burdened police detective, set amid the paleontological complexities of the dinosaur-bird connection, sounds delicious. But Gazan can only intermittently make the story come alive.

The prose is frequently leaden and cliché-ridden; many of the biographical backstory passages read like Wikipedia entries. Gazan describes her characters’ emotions in generic terms – “speechless” or “angry” – rather than depicting them with action or physical description. (Whether some of the problems fall on the translation, I can’t say.)

Too often, characters speak in expository lumps that suffocate the scene. I enjoy a good lecture on the nature of feathers and dinosaurs as much as the next person, but exactly why a Ph.D. student requires a lecture in the philosophy of science and the nature of paradigm shifts escapes me.

Gazan has difficulty modulating personal interactions, so that her protagonist, Anna Bella, who must resolve the gruesome death of her detested mentor along with secrets from her personal life, is constantly raging at everyone around her: recalcitrant toddler daughter, academic colleagues, and the sorrowful detective, Soren Marhauge. No Nordic silences or reticence here.

We encounter a loudly advertised villain – Canadian professor Clive Freeman – who has an unhealthy attachment to a young boy, treats his wife with indifference, and most damning of all, denies that dinosaurs and birds are related. Yet Freeman comes across as more hapless than threatening, and that failure causes any real or thematic linkages of murder and dinosaur-bird mysteries to collapse.

There are some sweet scenes with Anna Bella, her daughter Lily, and detective Soren – once everyone stops yelling. And the hidden history of Anna Bella’s colleague, Johannes Trojborg, finally gives the story some much needed darkness, along with a dash of perverted or exotic sex, depending on your taste. But while Gazan may be a marginally better prose writer than Stieg Larsson (Girl with the Dragon Tattoo), she is unable to create a character of genuine depth and complexity to match the magnificent Lisbeth Salander.

I hope Gazan tackles the combination of esoteric science and murder in the future. But first, she might consider reading one of the masters of such dark arts. Not one of the many fine Nordic mystery writers (Henning Mankell, et. al.) with whom she presumably is well familiar with, but someone far away in the American Southwest: Tony Hillerman and his series set in the Navajo Nation.

[Victoria · Rating 5 out of 5]

After something of a dry-spell with finding Scandinavian mysteries that live up to their reputation, I nearly passed this one up. Though its premise initially intrigued, my recent strikeouts with the subgenre and with translated fiction in general gave me pause. But after hearing a rather mixed bag of reviews, I decided that I would just have to try it out for myself...

And though the first chapter is far from intriguing (the dream landscape is frankly alienating and sets the stage for an entirely different sort of novel), as the story progresses and the myriad of cast of characters with their own meticulous introductions and backstories, I find myself quite happy to have taken the gamble. The book becomes more and more engaging with each page. The science feels well researched (though I imagine that I am not the only reader who spent a few chapters reading in front of a Google Image search to help bring these feather dinosaurs to life). I think I read Jurassic Park shortly after the film’s release but this seems like a more academic and believable thriller involving dinosaurs. And it is has one of the most unique and disgusting murder weapons that I have ever encountered in fiction. The weapon is beyond diabolical, and yet the careful set-up makes this an almost Clue-style whodunit. It’s a shocking (and at times disgustingly) fresh novel.

The plot meanders along unpredictable paths while simultaneously tackling personal mysteries in the lives of the characters. Each one of these characters feels fully developed and real. Their problems run the course of anger management, lies and secrets. This is a strong novel and flawlessly translated as well. It’s a great read and I look forward to more from this author (and hopefully this same translator as well). It’s an inventive mystery with balanced research and fascinating characters - and while the ending is completely satisfying, I admit that I just wasn’t ready to say goodbye to any of these characters!

[Toby · Rating 2 out of 5]

Never judge a book by its cover they say. The cover shouted, "If you liked The Killing, you will like this book". How wrong the publishers were. Cheap publicity stunt that. The book is a discourse on biology of birds coupled with detailed personal histories of a smorgasbord of very different characters, in the backdrop of a couple of murders. A thriller, in the strict sense, it is not. I had to skim through the pages having content which would interest only the most hardcore of biologists and parasitologists. On the positive side, the book did contain profound insights into the personal lives of varied characters and made one wonder about the people one tends to meet in life and the reasons for their behaviour. This novel spends most of its time detailing the past histories and personal lives of the main characters, rather than developing the plot. The suspense, if one can call it that, never really builds up. If one pays attention to the dialogues in the middle pages of the book, one can already guess whodunnit. I cannot recommend the book, unless you are fascinated by biology principles.

Ps. The Killing (Forbrydelsen) is an outstanding Danish crime TV series which won global acclaim. So much so, the USA spun off an American version (as they are wont to do)

[Grace · Rating 5 out of 5]

I guess technically this is a murder mystery, since two people die mysteriously of unnatural causes. Except that once you have all the information, the who, the why, and the how become quite clear very quickly - which is to say that the mystery is not the most important part of the book. It is a story about parents and children, loss, obsession, fear - and yet manages to be uplifting in the end because it is also a story about redemption and second chances. And there are dinosaurs, woohoo! This was not like anything I'd ever read. The sections on evolution and the theory and structure of scientific arguments are a necessary part of the plot and flow seamlessly in the narration, but those are certainly not topics I'd expect to find in a Scandinavian thriller. The novel is made up of a fascinating "ensemble cast," and Gazan's book reveals that we really are more alike than we are different. Every character had a strong, believable back story, but I never felt overwhelmed or lost in the amount of information she gives.

[Seonaid · Rating 4 out of 5]

As much an exploration into the long term effects of childhood events as a murder mystery, The Dinosaur Feather revolves around the horrific murder of a respected Danish scientist and the ripples this causes across the international world of paleo-biology. The novel is not without flaws, and towards the end one might wonder why Soren, the detective, even bothers, but I found the back stories to Anna Bella, Soren and Clive Freeman, the murder victim's arch rival, compelling and the subtle interplay between past and present, fascinating.

The idea that we are all shaped by our pasts, and the importance of understanding and accepting them, is beautifully symbolised by the contrasting analyses of the discovery of the feathered dinosaurs and their value to our understanding of evolution. A powerful debut novel, and I look forward to reading more from this author. Recommended.

[Jennifer Whybrow · Rating 1 out of 5]

Lost in Translation or Poor Research?

If you are going to set a book partly in Canada at least get the geography right. Clive could not live on Vancouver Island close to the University of British Columbia campus (p. 61) and he could not cycle there (p. 184). The only way to get to UBC from the Island is by ferry or air to Vancouver on the mainland. I live on the Island and have a M.A.(1969) from UBC. I'm really annoyed with this sloppiness.

[Trine · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bogen ville alt, alt for meget. Det var ALT for mange baggrundsfortællinger, og de fik ikke hver især nok plads. Men alligevel fyldte det meget, og hovedhistorien forsvandt lidt i baggrunden... Syntes hellere ikke *jeg* fik følelsen af at være med til at "løse" mysteriet...
Men jeg er ikke i tvivl om at Sissel-Jo Gazan SKRIVER godt, hun vil, desværre, bare alt for meget med tanke på hvad sidetal hun arbejder med.

[Rasmus Paulsen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was very impressed by this book. In particular, I liked the characters. The setting at the institute for Biology, KU is fun (since I know it). The mix of scientific discussions and murder mysteries worked very well. Even though it is exagerated, I can still recognise the fight for funding and the internal university politics.