To Trust or Not To Trust?

This morning I finished reading A Code of Jewish Ethics, Volume 2: Love Your Neighbor as Yourself by Rabbi Joseph Telushkin, which I had started two weeks ago. It took me some time to read this book, not because it is hard or boring – quite the opposite in fact – but because it is quite thought-provoking and challenged some aspects of my life and beliefs in a very powerful way.

I haven’t blogged about it yet, apart from announcing its release a few months ago but it has inspired my latest parshah posts.

After this, I felt I would need something light and had purchased Hold Tight by Harlan Coben. I picked it up as it dealt with a topic I have studied several times with my students, namely the dangers of Internet for teenagers.

I usually use extracts from Now You See Me by Rochelle Krich and thought another thriller would be a good addition to my lesson. Harlan’s novel is a bit far-fetched but one thing I find interesting here is that it questions parental responsibility as regards what kids do on the Internet.

To get a fair idea of Harlan Coben’s view on this issue you can read The Under Cover Parent, an article he wrote for the New York Times in march 2008.

If you have the time, read it and let me know what you think as a parent or an educator.

Garden of Beasts

by Jeffery Deaver

Ny mob hit man Paul Schuman is presented with the following deal: he will be sent to jail unless he accepts to asassinate one of Hitler’s most important ministers during the 1936 olympics. Since he doesn’t really have the choice he leaves for Berlin but, even before he can fulfill his mission, he becomes the prime suspect in a murder.

Paul Schuman is a killer with a conscience who only kills bad guys and oddly enough the German police officer who is after him is also different from the German policemen who have succombed to the Nazi fever. Oddly enough the two men are closer to each other than to their respective fellow citizens.

The title is a reference to Tiergarten, a large park in the centre of Berlin, but also to what Hitler’s Germany had become in 1936. This novel is a page turner and one I would recommend to people who love thrillers as well as to those who enjoy historical novels.

Nordic Thrillers

I love suspense novels, especially Nordic thrillers. Two of my favourite authors are Henning Mankell and Arnaldur Indridason. The first one is Swedish whereas the other one is Icelandic.

Both writers feature a late middle-aged police officer who is tired of life, divorced and frustrated with the system he works for. Yet we cannot help feeling admiration for the stubbornness, honesty and sensitivity both men display while investigating a case.

This was until I discovered Stieg Larsson. The man is symply a genius, in fact it would be more appropriate to write that he was a genius since he died four years ago of a heart attack, he was only 50.

At the beginning of the 21st century he started writing detective novels at night just for fun. Apparently he enjoyed it so much that he didn’t contact a publisher until he had two finished novels and a third one under way. When he died, Larsson left three unpublished thrillers which have all been published posthumously: the Millennium series.

The first novel in the series is Män som hatar kvinnor (published in English in January 2008 as The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo,), the second, Flickan som lekte med elden (The Girl Who Played With Fire), the last one is Luftslottet som sprängdes (Castles in The Sky). The novels received rave reviews when they were published, in Sweden and elsewhere.

The series is so much unlike other thrillers I have read that I have chosen to post the synopsis of the first novel which I found on the Amazon.co.uk website rather than attempt to summarize the storyline. Besides I didn’t want to disclose too much of the plot:

Forty years ago, Harriet Vanger disappeared off the secluded island owned and inhabited by the powerful Vanger family. There was no corpse, no witnesses, no evidence. But her uncle, Henrik, is convinced that she was murdered by someone in her own family – the deeply dysfunctional Vanger clan. Disgraced journalist Mikael Blomqvist is hired to investigate, but when he links Harriet’s disappearance to a string of gruesome murders from forty years ago, he needs a competent assistant – and he gets one: computer hacker Lisbeth Salander – a tattoed, truculent, angry girl who rides a motorbike like a Hell’s Angel and handles makeshift weapons with the skill born of remorseless rage. This unlikely pair form a fragile bond as they delve into the sinister past of this island-bound, tightly-knit family. But the Vangers are a secretive lot, and Mikael and Lisbeth are about to find out just how far they’re prepared to go to protect themselves – and each other.

The three novels constitute a trilogy with the same protagonists. This series is brilliant, erudite and exciting. Above all, it is a reflection on today’s modern society and the choices we make or allow politicians to make for us.