ICE MOON [Hardcover]

Jan Costin Wagner (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover
• Publisher: Unknown (2006)
• ASIN: B0028Q4OW4
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars "He had tried to imagine that fear was the beginning of redemption.", May 11, 2007

By 

Luan Gaines "luansos" (Dana Point, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Ice Moon (Hardcover)

Shattered by grief, Detective Kimmo Joentaa is barely able to navigate the days following his wife's death from cancer, throwing himself into his work and a baffling case, a seemingly random murder: "It dawned on him that her murder, the death of another human being, had breathed life into himself." As the body count of inexplicable murders rises by the day, the detective is increasingly convinced that this is the work of one man, a serial killer compulsively acting out his demons. The murderer leaves no clues behind for the police to use in building a case, so innocuous as to be unnoticed by anyone as he enters and exits the murder scenes. Meanwhile, Joentaa's coworkers, especially his boss, are pressured to solve the crime wave that s frightening the citizens of Finland.

Wrapped in the painful reality of his harrowing grief, Joentaa intuitively recognizes the killer, a least feels a sort of empathy, sensing a lonely, alienated individual. Torn between interviewing the various people connected with the victims, their friends and spouses, the detective discovers that when he finally opens up to a relative stranger about his recent loss, he is also able to focus more clearly on the murders, eventually recognizing the man who has walked, invincible, through the lives of his victims. It is shocking to Joentaa that he has met the murderer and failed to recognize him at once.

The Finnish landscape and a clear, if, detached, writing style gives this crime novel an interesting patina, a removal from the emotions of the moment, as both Joentaa and the murderer retreat into more bearable territory. But, like the cool, distant moon that follows the killer's actions, this icy remove evaporates as reality demands recognition. Although I enjoyed the distance in the writing and the attention to emotional detail, the lack of passion that permeates the book also served to alienate me from the characters to some degree. A great fan of the work of Karen Fossum, I found Wagner's approach similar, but I failed to make a connection, other that my original interest in the beautiful rendering of the detective's personal loss at the beginning of the novel. Whether esoteric or merely passionless, I cannot tell. Luan Gaines/2007.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ice Moon, June 19, 2008

By 

Linda Kushnir (New Orleans, LA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Ice Moon (Hardcover)

I agree with the comments made by the previous reviewer, but I must say that that was precisely what made me enjoy this book so much. In addition, it did not read at all like a translation. I found it very visual, very gripping. It's not a thriller; it's not very complicated; but it's very readable, almost poetic in its descriptions. I do hope that Wagner's mysteries continue to come out in English.