Out tomorrow: Cold Breath by Quentin Bates

He has done it again. Despite being busy translating Nordic crime stories and doing all the other stuff he’s doing, Quentin „Gráskeggur“ Bates brings us a new Officer Gunnhildur mystery: Cold Breath. And I’m very excited and happy that he found the time to write this book. I’ve been a fan of Gunna since I read the (somewhat clumsy) German translation of her first adventure, and I love reading the English originals. Still hoping that there will be more translations into German one day – Gunna (and Quentin!) deserve more readers, not only in the English-speaking world.

I’m delighted to be part of the blog tour for the release of Gunna’s latest adventure and would like to thank Emily at Brandhive for making this possible.

Again, Quentin wrote a story that seems to be straightforward but is full of surprises and unexpected developments. Gunna is chosen to protect a strange man who came to Iceland to hide from… well, this is where the adventure starts. Is he an innocent victim of crimes happening in his home country? Is he a criminal himself? What is he doing for a living, and why on earth did he come to Iceland? What’s the role of the politician who invited him to stay in her house?

Being stuck at a lonely place is kind of an Icelandic thing. The weather being unpredictable and road conditions constantly changing, it can happen easily that you’re stuck somewhere, either in the middle of nowhere or maybe in a tiny village or at some other place you didn’t want to be. In a way, Gunna is stuck, too. She needs to stay at a safe house together with the stranger and can’t leave and be with her family or do her usual detective thing of walking around and talking to people.

While Gunna is busy keeping secrets and trying to find out why the man is hiding (after all, she is a detective and she wants to know), information is leaking and the situation gets dangerous.

I won’t give away too much of the story – I want you to go and buy the book (you can get it online, of course, but if you can, please go and buy from your local book shop if you still have one) and get absorbed in the story just as I did.

Quentin is a master of weaving in current affairs and still managing to keep it all a work of fiction. You don’t need to read all the other Gunna stories to get into Cold Breath, and the book is perfect for the coming autumn days, but you can also read it on a warm sunny weekend like I did. And if you need a Christmas present for a book lover, Cold Breath should definitely be on your list.

There are more reviews to come. Please have a look at the other websites and blogs and if you like, leave a comment here.

 

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