![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Cass Neary, now wanted for questioning regarding the events of the previous book, is offered a nice sum of money to evaluate some photographs owned by a fashion photographer who's famous for a unique kind of lens flare. She can guess what sort of photos they are, tells him she won't do kiddie porn, and agrees to do it once she's assured it's not that. The photos are beautifully staged scenes of gruesome murders with the iconic lens flare. Cass thinks they're brilliant and says so, with no intention of looking any deeper into how he took them and why he was there.
However, a call from a long-lost lover and a few brutal murders send her to Iceland, which is both freezing and in the middle of a financial crisis. Everyone is depressed and cold, so it's perfect for Cass. But soon she gets involved in a complicated plot involving the murder photos, Icelandic folklore, Scandinavian death metal, and a cult.
The story really takes off at about the halfway or two-thirds point, when Cass is ditched in a blizzard and left for dead. In a moment which is both ingenious and darkly hilarious, ( Read more... )
I enjoy the deniable fantasy aspects of the series. This book had some slow-ish stretches in the middle but the mystery aspect worked better than in the first book, and the setting was very cool. The weird and morbid Scandinavian black metal scene was a very appropriate backdrop:
According to various sources, Euronymous took bits of Dead's skull and made them into necklaces for members of the black metal scene, including the band's drummer Hellhammer. Necrobutcher, the band's bassist, was so disgusted with Euronymous' actions that he left Mayhem. He was replaced by Burzum's Varg Vikernes, who murdered Euronymous two years later.
Dead, Dead, he was almost certainly not good in bed.
However, a call from a long-lost lover and a few brutal murders send her to Iceland, which is both freezing and in the middle of a financial crisis. Everyone is depressed and cold, so it's perfect for Cass. But soon she gets involved in a complicated plot involving the murder photos, Icelandic folklore, Scandinavian death metal, and a cult.
The story really takes off at about the halfway or two-thirds point, when Cass is ditched in a blizzard and left for dead. In a moment which is both ingenious and darkly hilarious, ( Read more... )
I enjoy the deniable fantasy aspects of the series. This book had some slow-ish stretches in the middle but the mystery aspect worked better than in the first book, and the setting was very cool. The weird and morbid Scandinavian black metal scene was a very appropriate backdrop:
According to various sources, Euronymous took bits of Dead's skull and made them into necklaces for members of the black metal scene, including the band's drummer Hellhammer. Necrobutcher, the band's bassist, was so disgusted with Euronymous' actions that he left Mayhem. He was replaced by Burzum's Varg Vikernes, who murdered Euronymous two years later.
Dead, Dead, he was almost certainly not good in bed.
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}