Review of Vidar Sundstøl's The Land of Dreams

The Land of Dreams by Vidar Sundstøl

Over time, I have enjoyed reading authors who slip with ease into a different nationality and convince me to the core that they are native born. Donna Leon always comes to mind when I think of this skill. She is American by birth, but she demonstrates that she has a Venetian heart in her Commissario Guido Brunetti mysteries. Eliot Pattison is an American lawyer and author who has me totally convinced he is Chinese when he writes about investigator Shan Tao Yun, who began his fictional life imprisoned in a Himalayan labor camp after he displeased his superiors. I can't overlook Marylander Martha Grimes, who speaks with a distinctly British accent in her 22-book Superintendent Richard Jury of Scotland Yard series.

So I was exhilarated to come across The Land of Dreams, by Vidar Sundstøl (University of Minnesota, 2013). This is the first installment of his spine-chilling Minnesota Trilogy, and it is the flip side of what I was talking about. It is a book written by a Norwegian, telling an American tale with a Norwegian twist.

This is an account that begins on an ordinary summer day in the life of Lance Hansen, a U.S. Forest Service cop who patrols the area known as the arrowhead of Minnesota; the area located in the northeastern part of Minnesota on the north shore of Lake Superior, and it's so called because of its pointed shape.

Lance is better known to the locals as a historian and a genealogist with a great fount of knowledge about the origins and backgrounds of the local citizenry, who are predominantly Norwegian. Lance himself is of mixed ancestry, both Norwegian and French Canadian. He is a divorced man in his early 40s, who lives a solitary life. He sees his son, Jimmy, on alternate weekends and drives around with a picture of him taped on his steering wheel.

Baraga's Cross

There has been a report of a tent pitched illegally by Baraga's Cross on the shore of Lake Superior, and when Lance first gets there he comes across a lone white sneaker––and then a man covered in blood, whom Lance thinks is dead.

The man is actually in shock and when he speaks it comes out as gibberish, but Lance recognizes a Norwegian word–love. The man leads him to another man who had been bludgeoned to death. They are both nude.

Because this is federal land, the FBI agent, Bob Lecuyer, is in charge of the case. Eirik Nyland, a detective from the Norwegian police, also joins the team––bringing with him some Aquavit and lutefisk, which he has been assured is what everyone will expect as a gift from Norway.

This team approach is a good thing, because there has not been a murder in the area in recorded history. But Lance knows of the last man who disappeared in this same area about a hundred years ago. His name was Swamper Caribou, a well-respected medicine man of the time.

He was Ojibwe (known generally to the Europeans as Chippewa), and from what Lance has been able to piece together of the history, he is certain that Caribou was murdered, most likely by one of the small Norwegian community that existed at the time. But the secret of just what happened to Swamper Caribou has never been revealed.

Sundstøl spins a tale of Norwegian noir meeting Minnesota makeup––and by that I mean those qualities of Lance's that keep him evaluating all the threads tying his family, his community and his past and future together. He tries to balance what he knows with what he can tell.

There are some portions of this book that are somewhat historical and some that are entertaining travelogue, because the author incorporates real local eateries, bars, and activities such as a July Fourth celebration.

St. Urho

I loved being distracted by little historical vignettes, such as the one about a small town named Finland ensconced deep in the forest, which is inhabited by Finns, naturally. The first Finns who came to this beautiful area of the Baptism River Valley, uninhabited up until then, settled in. These early immigrants then sent home glowing reports to lure their friends and families to the north shore of Lake Superior. It was a fact that these letters contained not a single word of truth. The reality was that the land wasn't good for anything but growing potatoes, and even then there was no way to get the crops to market except piece by piece up and down steep slopes to Lake Superior.

Despite this, the Finnish community persists to this day and their main claim to fame is St. Urho's Day. Every year on March 16, the day before some minor saint is celebrated for driving snakes out of Ireland, St. Urho is celebrated for driving the grasshoppers out of Finland by saying "Grasshoppers, grasshoppers go to hell." According to Eirik Nyland, the people in Finland have never heard of St. Urho.

Some other parts of the book make us travel to some deeply troubled parts of the human heart and we may have to wait for our spirits to be lifted until the second part of the trilogy, The Dead, is translated by Tiina Nunnally. She does a wonderful job with The Land of Dreams.

While you are waiting, I recommend another taste of Minnesota which is just the opposite of noir, more like happy time. Take a side trip to Lake Wobegon (from the Indian "I waited all day for you in the rain"), Garrison Keillor's hometown, where the women are strong, all the men are good looking and the children are above average. Or slip down to St. Paul, where Keillor opened a bookstore in 2006 called Common Good Books and browse a bit there.

Keillor wrote this sonnet for the bookstore opening:

A bookstore is for people who love books and need
To touch them, open them, browse for a while,

And find some common good – that's why we read.

Readers and writers are two sides of the same gold coin.

You write and I read and in that moment I find

A union more perfect than any club I could join:

The simple intimacy of being one mind.

Here in a book-filled room on a busy street,
Strangers—living and dead—are hoping to meet.

skål

The Ides of March

The Ides of March are upon us, to misquote the Bard, William Shakespeare. It was the time when one of the most famous murders of all time took place in Rome. On March 15 in 44 BC, Julius Caesar was stabbed to death at a meeting of the Senate. The Romans did not number days of a month in order from the first through the last day. Rather, they counted back from three fixed points of the month: the Nones (5th or 7th, depending on the length of the month), the Ides (13th or 15th), and the Kalends (1st) of the following month. The Ides occurred near the midpoint of the month, and in March it is the 15th.

Brutus, Cassius and others, urged on by as many as 60 conspirators, committed the dastardly deed.  Their motive was disillusionment over the path Rome was taking. Although Brutus was Caesar's close friend, he felt that Caesar had become a tyrant who was a danger to the Republic.

Disillusionment has been the driving force behind many a fictional hero as well. In The Eye of Jade, by Diane Wei Liang, we are introduced to Mei Wang, a PI in Beijing.

Private detectives are banned in China, but Mei Wang, who once had a stable job in the Ministry of Public Security, thought that there was a need for the services she could provide. In Beijing there are many small crimes that the police will not involve themselves with, and in the new millennium, divorce is becoming more commonplace; factors that allowed Mei to find independence as a businesswoman. All she had to do was market herself as an Information Consultant.

One of Mei Wang's earliest memories is of her life in a labor camp with her father, an intellectual and idealist condemned to hard labor for the rest of his life. One day, her mother came and took her away. She would never see her father again.

She lived a hardscrabble life with her mother, Ling Bai, who struggled to put food on the table for Mei and her younger sister, Lu. Later, Mei Wang went to university, after which she got a job––and an apartment that went with it––at the Ministry of Public Security, a higher echelon of the police department akin to Scotland Yard.

She became disillusioned with her work at the MPS and left there, although her family was aghast at her decision to leave the security of a government job and all the perks that went with it. Her mother felt she was throwing away her future; what mattered in China was not money, but power.

One day, a Mr. Chen Jitian made an appointment to see her. She knew him better as Uncle Chen, a great friend of her mother's. He told a story that began in the winter of 1968, when the Red Guard was terrorizing the country. These roving bands of "patriots" invaded homes and stores. They even ransacked museums, destroying relics and burning everything by building great bonfires and feeding them with all the artwork, documents and records.

Jade Seal

Now, in the present, some of these artifacts are surfacing. It appears that someone had stolen some things before everything was destroyed. Most notably, an ancient ceremonial bowl was found to have been sold to an antique dealer. Uncle Chen is looking for a jade seal he thinks was taken from a museum at the same time as the bowl and asks Mei to find it for him. When Mei finds the person who sold the bowl, she finds a dead body. Now the game is afoot, and Mei backtracks through recent history to find the connections that will lead her to the stolen artifacts––as well as to a new understanding of her own past.

Mei is enterprising and energetic as she pursues the jade seal's journey through the years, but she is conflicted about what she also discovers about her own past life. It takes an illness in a loved one for her to try to reconnect some of the fractured pictures of what really happened to her family.

This is an interesting book that is the start of a series, and I recommend it to all who like stories with a backdrop of history and a fascinating locale.

Donna Leon's Friends in High Places begins on a Saturday at this time of year. While lolling on his sofa and reading about ancient Persia, Guido Brunetti, a Commissario of the Venice police, gets a visit from a bureaucrat in charge of finding and recording changes made to historical buildings. The Brunetti apartment appears not to exist, according to the paperwork, and this is just the first conundrum to be solved in this ninth mystery of the excellent series by Leon.

A few months later, Brunetti receives a call from the same man, Franco Rossi. He is asking for help, but before he can make his problem known he is found dead in such as way to suggest an accident. Brunetti knows better.

A side story is the problem with the drug scene that is now appearing, and involves Brunetti's boss's son. Brunetti knows that this boy should be punished and wants to conduct a proper investigation, but he is aware that he would be signing his death warrant if he proceeds.

Brunetti asks himself and his wife to speculate on how they have both changed since they were young college students, when they were liberal and wanted to change the world. Now they are both increasingly disillusioned about how they adapt to the way things are and always have been in Venice.

This book is worth reading because of the strong writing of the highest order, and the way the lives of Brunetti, his wife and children are a part of the plot itself. All of us have to compromise to live in this world, and to do the next right thing is the challenge. Brunetti does this well.

Disillusion is not a stranger behind the Iron Curtain, and it walks hand in hand with Arkady Renko in Red Square, by Martin Cruz Smith.

Red Square is set in Russia in the year 1991. It is a sequel to Gorky Park and Polar Star and features Investigator Arkady Renko at the time of the collapse of the Soviet Union.

As the social and economic structures of the Soviet Union break down, Arkady Renko has been reinstated as an Investigator in the police force. He is trying to clear up a nest of illicit traders when his chief informant dies in a horrific fireball. At the late informer's flat, his fax machine keeps asking the apparently meaningless question, "Where is Red Square?"

The question does not pertain to a location, but to a painting by Kazimir Malevich, which has resurfaced on the black market after being lost since World War II.

Smith has created a remarkable character in his redoubtable Russian policeman Arkady Renko, the rejected son of a famous Russian military officer who became a brutal wartime hero of the Communist Party. Renko is a brilliant investigator with a skeptical and independent point of view. Having earlier sacrificed himself for his dissident lover, Irina Asanova, suffering imprisonment and exile for helping her escape, he returns to Moscow on the brink of political and social dissolution. It appears that corrupt officials and black marketers run the country, while organized crime has replaced the Party as the controlling force in Russian society.

Smith brings all of these elements together in this story, which covers two weeks in August 1991, a time leading up to the attempted coup of August 21, in which right-wing elements intended to wrest control from reformist President Mikhail Gorbachev. There is an informative backstory describing the history of the Chechens and their relationship with Russia. The suicide of Renko's father brings a personal note to the chronicle.

The trail of Renko's murder investigation leads both to the Russian mafia and to criminal connections in Munich. Renko has been listening to Radio Liberty on a borrowed radio and has heard Irina's voice. When circumstances seem to fit, he gets himself to Munich and finds Irina. Renko finds that his perceived duty to his homeland conflicts with his personal desires; that by solving the case (which has now cost the life of a fellow investigator), he may again lose Irina.

Although the plot of this detective novel is complex and carefully constructed, Smith's primary interest is in the character development of his subtle protagonist. Renko is a tormented hero, a man of conscience. Revenge for the death of his informant and for other deaths sits quietly on his mind as well. Smith's portrayal of Renko's navigation through a collapsing world is compelling and draws one into the empty stores of Moscow, the endless lines, and into the lives of the suffering Muscovites.

The biggest mystery to me is why this painting––of which there are apparently two versions––is worth five million dollars. Who can say what it is supposedly valued at today?

All those years ago, it is said that Caesar was handed a warning note as he entered the Senate that day but did not read it. After he entered the hall, Senators holding daggers surrounded Caesar. Casca struck the first blow, hitting Caesar in the neck and drawing blood. The other Senators all joined in, stabbing him repeatedly about the head. Brutus struck a low blow and wounded Caesar in the groin, and Caesar is said to have remarked in Greek, "You, too, my child?" For some reason, today the quote is delivered in Latin as "Et tu, Brute?"

In the end, no purpose was served and the Republic collapsed in civil war and the era of the Roman Empire began. Disillusionment indeed.

Note: I have reviewed or will post reviews of some of these books on Amazon, Goodreads and other sites under my user names there.

Let's Have a Nice Cup of Murder

2009 Ig Nobel winner: a brassiere converts to two face masks

I'm sure you've heard of the Nobel Prizes, but have you heard of the Ig Nobel Prizes? If not, you really must check them out. They are designed to honor "achievements that first make people laugh, and then make them think." In 1999, the British Standards Institution won the Ig Nobel Prize in Literature for its six-page specification (BS-6008––I did not make up that "BS") of the proper way to make a cup of tea. Yesterday, I followed my own admittedly less specific tea-making instructions to make a cuppa. (Pour boiling water into a cup holding a tea bag, let steep for however many minutes it takes to forget the tea while washing the dog, doing the laundry, and shopping at the grocery store.) Then I sat down with my cold cup of tea to write not six-page descriptions, but thumbnail synopses of some books I've read and enjoyed:

Ted Allbeury, Rules of the Game. This is a traditional British espionage novel, set during the Cold War. The KGB is studying mind reading and, needless to say, the Americans and the British want to kidnap the Soviets' psychic, Ursula Jaeger.  Interesting plot and good characterization; written by a former British intelligence officer.

Milton T. Burton, The Rogues' Game. A man and a blonde set off in a Lincoln Continental convertible in 1947, bound for a West Texas town where a high-stakes poker game has been played in the Weilbach Hotel every weekend for half a century. They find much more than a card game. Very well-crafted noir with nice glints of humor by a man who knows Texas.

Martin Clark, The Legal Limit. The author, a Virginia circuit-court judge, tells the riveting tale of two brothers who covered up a murder, only to have it explode 20 years later. Great characterization in this legal thriller.

Eric Dezenhall, Money Wanders. A New Jersey mafia don can't get a casino license, so he hires public relations rep Jonah Eastman to clean up his image. Clever and cringe-inducing.

Susan Isaacs, Long Time No See. Beautiful Courtney Logan drives to the store and disappears, only to pop up as a corpse when the family swimming pool is uncovered months later. Judith Singer, amateur sleuth of Compromising Positions (which should be read first), champs at the bit to investigate. The mystery isn't compelling, but who reads Susan Isaacs for the mystery? Funny, irreverent.

Bill James, Pay Days. How does one do a thumbnail of a crazy Harpur and Iles plot? Neither British criminals Shale and Ember nor cops Harpur, Iles, and Lane know whether they can trust DCI Richard Nivette. You can't be sure who is in cahoots with whom in this darkly humorous gem.

Ross King, Ex-Libris. If you liked Iain Pears's Instance of the Fingerpost, try this book on for size. In 1660s England, Lady Marchamont asks bookseller Isaac Inchbold to find the only existing copy of the Labyrinthus Mundi, lost when Pontifex Hall was occupied by Cromwell’s soldiers. Excellent literary thriller.

Donna Leon, Blood from a Stone. Commissario Guido Brunetti investigates the murder of an African street vendor in Venice, Italy. This is a fine series set in one of the world's most complex cities, and this book deals with issues involving immigration, corruption and injustice.

John D. MacDonald, The Deep Blue Good-by. I'm re-reading the Travis McGee books for our series reading challenge. Most of the books in this series have similar plots. This is the first one. McGee lives on the Busted Flush, a houseboat in the Fort Lauderdale, Florida, harbor. He is a "salvage expert," meaning he looks for lost things upon request and gets a cut when he finds them. Along the way, he talks about life and gets the girl. Oh, and what was lost is always found. A classic series.

Kate Ross, Cut to the Quick. It's 1820s London, and dandy Julian Kestrel is slated to be best man at a wedding when he finds the dead body of a woman in his bed. First book in the four-book series. Perfectly atmospheric historical mystery, well plotted.

It's just about time to put the kettle back on. I have a book I'm looking forward to reading, Andrew Nugent's The Four Courts Murder, sitting on the table by a comfortable chair. It's supposed to be witty and charming (how could it be otherwise––it's Irish). Apparently, Justice Sidney Piggott of Dublin's center of law, the Four Courts, is "designer-made for being throttled." I certainly hope he is.

Note: After reading 20 pages of Burton's The Rogues' Game, I quickly looked to see what else he'd written. There are two other books published, The Sweet and the Dead and Nights of the Red Moon; The Devil's Odds will be published next month. I was very sorry to learn that this talented writer died last month.