Status Updates From Fällan

I’m finding the financial side of this distracting. Even in 2015, Swiss banks had much better password security than this. Certainly not a single, unchanging password that you could copy and reuse. Agatha Christie used the same money laundering trick in ‘At The Bertram’s Hotel’ in 1965. It may still work but it stretches plausiblity for a woman who tracks money for a living to need to have this trick explained.

This would make good TV. You’d get to keep the plot, bring the scenery alive and rely on the actors to add depth to the characters that the novel gives only a seriface view of.

Most of this works in a I-don’t-have-to-listen-very-hard-to-keep-up way. The mild lust/romance pieces feel like a set of going-through-the-motions clichés with no individuality to them.

Still, I do want to find out how the plot works out.

The writing style is strangely arms-length, almost stage directions / notes to actors rather than the intimacy of conventional narrative and exposition in a crime novel

The story is carrying me on curiosity rather than emotional engagement.

The mix of Icelandic and British culture also helps to keep my interest.

The narrator does a good job but I’m still tempted to run the audiobook at a faster speed.

So far , so good. Holding my interest !