Debby H

I really liked this story. I found myself wanting to read it every spare minute I had. This is actually quite rare for me because I bore easily. I think if an author, through their writing, can cause the reader to experience strong emotions, said author must be quite good. There was a particular character in "Minding Ben" that I swear to you, I just wanted to strangle she irked me so desperately. Enough said.

This book was absolutely awesome! It is British crime fiction but not hard to read at all. Just a handful of words that are different. (they call a car trunk a "boot") Such well developed and likable characters, especially the mail character. He is a psychology professor with Parkinson's Disease. He deals with this somewhat but it is never the main focus in the story. Details are "spot on". You will laugh, hold your breath, smile and bite your nails (if you are so inclined). Don't miss this one. It's that one out of 10 novel that you hope for every time you open a new book!

Wow. This was not one of Ms. Gerritsen's better novels. I rarely quit before the end of a book but I only went 100 pages with this one. I have too many worthwhile books to start. She must be busy with the new series on television (which I absolutely love!) and threw this together to be done with it. It was repetitious and full of filler. I felt constantly that things were added or really stretched to add the pages up. Big disappointment. I hope this isn't an effort she plans to repeat.

I found this book to be fairly typical of Scandinavian crime fiction (Mankell, Wahloo, Sjowall). I did enjoy aspects of the book that addressed various issues of illegal drug usage in prisons. Character development wasn't enough to cause any real emotional attachment. Given a choice of only one word, I would choose "confusion". Sometimes I just felt like I "missed" something. The details needed to be tightened up or maybe it is an editing issue. All in all, I have to say I can't figure out the basis for the major award this won in Sweden.