I almost forgot, back in September, I read another book in the Joona Linna series by the couple duo, Lars Kepler. It has been a while since I read this series. While I enjoyed the previous one, The Nightmare, it was a bit tiring to go through. I remember the chapters to be a bit dense, and then the story took a political turn that lost me. It has been 7 years, and I don’t remember anything from the plot. Luckily, with this series, you don’t have to. So I continued on to The Fire Witness.
Title: The Fire Witness Author: Lars Kepler Series: Joona Linna #3 Publication year: 2011 Length: 15 hours 52 minutes Genre: Mystery, Thriller, Crime, Nordic Noir Pace: Medium Story focus: Plot & Character
A young girl is murdered in a youth home for wayward teenage girls. Her body is left as if she’s peacefully sleeping with her hands covering her face. Their caretaker was later also found brutally murdered, with all evidence pointing to another girl from the home to have committed both crimes. But now she’s on the run, and the police fear she might be dangerous.
The Fire Witness is the third book in the Joona Linna series, but it doesn’t really matter where you start reading these books. There is a subplot that runs throughout the entire series about Joona Linna’s life. This is usually present in these types of detective mysteries. Something happened in their life, in the past, and slowly comes back up again. Although this is usually a very small part of the book, it is somewhat explained every time it’s relevant. Obviously, if you are following the characters since the very first book, you appreciate these side stories more. Still, most of the time, they don’t matter for the actual plot of the book. In this case, the crime.
I actually don’t remember The Nightmare having short chapters, so when I opened The Fire Witness and saw 2 to 3-page chapters, I was very pleased. Although that was short-lived. I never thought I would say this, but I was tired of the short chapters. I know, I know, it sounds crazy to want longer chapters. The story felt like it was interrupted constantly and not in that cliffhanging way that makes you say, one more chapter. It was as if a conversation was left unfinished, as if you changed a channel in the middle of a movie.
And for a book with very short chapters, the story developed very slowly. Scratch that. There were big parts of the book where nothing happened. The mystery wasn’t developing. Joona Linna was going from one place to the next, either dealing with an investigation against him or making zero progress on the crime. And guess what! The biggest chunk of the mystery, which tells the whole story and how it all ties together, is only presented in the end. You spend half of the book learning nothing new. And this is a 500-page book. This takes commitment to read. It’s not a novella. And it’s far too many pages where nothing interesting happens, where the mystery seems stagnant.
In a way, the short chapters attempt to bring a rhythm to the story that doesn’t exist. How can you make a reader want to keep turning the pages when the mystery isn’t giving that? Cut the story. When it seems it might go somewhere, cut it. And this goes on and on and on. Even in the last 30 pages, I couldn’t wait for the damn book to be over. I was so done. So tired. I finished it because I wanted to know how all the characters were connected. At times, I even used some speed reading techniques to speed things up.
I really didn’t have a good time with this one. And I’m yet to understand what Nordic Noir is and if Lars Kepler deserves such a spotlight in the sub-genre. Their books are all quite big, and going from one that I think I enjoyed but felt dense and a bit confusing to one that felt long for the sake of being long, I’m not so sure if Nordic Noir is for me or if it’s Lars Kepler that isn’t for me.
I still have another book of this series on my shelf: The Sandman. I’ll read it, but for all intents and purposes, I am DNFing this series and won’t be interested in buying or reading any more books in this series. I really don’t care for Linna, and at some point, that is important. After all, he is the protagonist. And there are other detective characters that I’m much more interested in, like Erika Foster by Robert Bryndza. That should be my focus instead.
I came to this series to learn what Nordic Noir is. To see if it’s a sub-genre that I’ll enjoy. And I’m leaving the same way I came. I still don’t know. I’m not even sure what characterises the genre. But I know there are other books and authors also notorious in it, so I’ll divert my attention to those instead. And hopefully, one day, I’ll post here a guide to what Nordic Noir is. But Lars Kepler simply won’t be the one teaching me that.
