Customer Reviews

Fatlands: A Hannah Wolfe Crime Novel (Hannah Wolfe Crime Novels)

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I love this series. I am primarily a mystery reader, and this is a series for those of you who are looking for something new must try. Hannah Wolfe is tough yet feminine and real. This is a great series for those who enjoy a good mystery that is not too cosy or hard boiled. Hannah is sort of a free-lance detective in London, but she travels all over. She is human but never a pathetic victim. Unlike many mystery authors today, Dunant never lets the stories get too dark in order to seem real. This is the second in the series with the first being Birth Marks. I recommend this series for those who might also like Anna Lee from Liza Cody. Hannah matures with each new installment and I'm waiting for the fourth.

Private detective Hannah Wolfe is not too pleased with her newest job -- chaperoning rebellious teenager Mattie Shepherd around London for a day. Mattie was supposed to spend the day with her father, a scientist and workaholic who calls Hannah to babysit so he can finish up some work. Mattie resents her father for deserting her, and takes her feelings out on Hannah. Their day is already off to a bad start when Mattie is killed by a bomb that has been planted in her father's car. Who's the culprit? Animal rights activists, Mattie's boyfriend, or someone else entirely? It's up to Hannah to deal with her own feelings of guilt over Mattie's death and then to find Mattie's murderer. What at first seems to be a deceptively simple case turns out to be a much larger puzzle. Sarah Dunant's writing is crisp and clear. Her protagonist, Hannah Wolfe, is witty and liberal. Her definite attitude enlivens the story, making Fatlands a highly readable, and highly recommended, book.

You will want to read all three mysteries featuring Hannah Wolfe, a hip, intelligent young London private investigator. They are very well written and very up-to-date, not at all stodgey. In "Fatlands" Hannah is not happy about some demeaning jobs she gets through the detective agency, such as babysitting the wives of mideastern oil princes while they shop at Harrod's. When she has to escort a young girl named Mattie, the boring job becomes a big case leading Hannah to investigate strange happenings in the modern scientific hog raising industry. You won't be eating bacon or ham for a while after reading this mystery. Full of danger, romance, and a very original plot, this is a very exciting mystery, and you will just love Hannah Wolfe.

I bought this book, the second in the Hannah Wolfe series, because I thoroughly enjoyed Birth Marks. I think that this book was even better as Hannah is now maturing as a woman and a detective and I like her even better than I did in Birth Marks. This is a fast paced page turner as are all of Sarah Dunant's books, including her historical novels which I have also read. I highly recommend the Hannah Wolfe series to any reader who enjoys a compelling story with likeable characters. Hannah will make you laugh with her wise cracks and quirky sense of humor. In Fatlands, Dunant steps from behind the "writer's curtain" and addresses the reader directly. I have read other books where this technique has fallen flat but in the hands of a talented writer like Dunant, it worked.

Really liked this fast-moving, well-written, entertaining mystery. I have to say that I found it somewhat derivative -- the main character is very like Kinsey Millhone, the main character in Sue Grafton's wonderful series -- but a good job nonethless. It's the second one I've read in the Hannah Wolfe series -- which means, I think, that it's my second-to-last. If I'm not mistaken, Sarah Dunant wrote only three, before turning to more 'literary' efforts. Wish she had given us more.

Hannah Wolfe is an irreverent soul with a caring side that gets her into trouble as a simple assignment gets complicated.
It's amazing that the author is so good at creating many wonderful characters and so many different types of books. Read her Birth of Venus as well as Mapping the Edge.All of her main characters are gutsy women that are great fun to know.