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Haine (2008)

by Anne Holt(Favorite Author)

3.48 of 5 Votes: 1

ISBN

2268069982 (ISBN13: 9782268069982)

languge

English

genre

Fiction

publisher

Serpent à plumes

series

Vik & Stubø

review 1: Didn't enjoy this one. It's 500 pages (or that's what my Kindle says, anyway) and it just doesn't have 500 pages worth of content, nor anywhere close to it. Huge sections drag on with little happening. I almost gave up on it several times, and now that I've finished it I feel like I completed a real chore, which is not I want to feel after reading a novel. My favourite novelist is still Agatha Christie, and all of a sudden I appreciate the economy of her writing. Beyond this book's tiresome length are other problems, such as characters that I never came to care about. Somehow even with all the pages, the book's bad guys are barely fleshed out at all! The other big problem is that the book was too much like some kind of heavy-handed secular sermon. The author is a homosexu... moreal, which is her business, but her lecturing all of us about the beauty of gay rights, and the ugliness of homophobia, came across as self-serving and sanctimonious. It's not that I disagree with her point of view, it's just that being hammered with it in this way was not entertaining. Less would have been more. It's a Christmas themed book, if you want to read it then, but I recommend you find something better.
review 2: Johanne Vik is possibly the most pathetic annoying protagonist ever.This book is slightly disturbing in the subject matter. Hate crimes against gays and lesbians.Kristiane Johanne's daughter we see her at the start of the book in her nightgown singing in the snow. Then a tram comes towards her,a nd she's quickly pulled away. Johanne sees this and slaps the man, for his efforts. it is things like this that make Johanne Vik utterly repugnant. and vile, she cares little for other people's thoughts or issues, and only thinks of her own. She bottles them up, and refuses to let them out, feeling she can deal with them. she can't she isn't good enough. It starts with body pulled out of the water, after someone else falls in. The person is found to have been dead a few days. Then a female bishop is murdered. The husband says he doesn't know why she was out alone, at night. The son doesn't really believe him. Nor does Adam Stubo.Johanne is working on her next thesis, coincidently it's on hate crimes. She's working on the why these people hate, and the reasoning behind their actions. Then a friend of hers comes over from the USA and she works for a group who combat hate crimes and the groups.She tells Johanne about a particular one called the 25's (they don't exist, but the others named in the books do). They take their name from certain verses in the bible and koran. Adam while at the husband of bishop, accidentally sees a photo of a woman in a separate bedroom. He feels she has something to do with the bishop. However next time he's there it's gone. The son notices too, and asks. He gets a non committal answer.Marcus, one of the side characters is starting to have quandary's and lack of sleep. We don't get to see his problems till towards the end.A small town lazy lawyer and his secretary find a will, it relates to one of the murder victims. the husband of the secretary is shown it,and he spots the problem with it.meanwhile Johanne, thanks to her friend, has worked out the what all the victims have in common. They were either gay or lesbian. But, this doesn't seem right to the police or Johanne, as the bishop has no history of being lesbian. Then the son finds the photo, and after a lot of faffing around Adam gets the photo. Then the pieces fall into place, and the climax comes fairly quickly. With no real twists.Holt is a fairly good author, she suffers from the inability to twist the story line, and her biggest issue is her female characters are mostly one-dimensional and arrogant. Hanne Wilhelmensal is the same. Johanne Vik though has zero likeability qualities. less

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