It's been a low-murder couple of weeks here. I started reading The Keeper of Lost Causes by Jussi Adler-Olsen, based on a rec from one of my customers. So far it hasn't made much of an impression, except that the prose is painfully “translated,” – that is, a little too generic and just slightly off-idiom. It's hard to tell how much of the problem is with the translation and how much is part of the original text. The introductory conversations establishing the character of Carl Mørk and the political situation of the police department are so straightforward and no-frills that the straightforwardness is entertaining in its own right, a strong but flavorless distillation of police-fiction clichés:

“. . .[T]his is a hell of a time for Carl Mørk to rejoin the team and monopolize four of our very best detectives. People are complaining about him, and who do you think they're complaining to?” He jabbed at his chest, as if he were the only one who had to listen to people's shit.

“He shows up hours late,” he went on. “Rides his staff hard, rummages around with the cases, and refuses to return phone calls. His office is utter chaos, and you won't believe this, but they called from the forensics lab to bitch about a phone conversation with him. The boys from forensics – can you believe it? It takes a lot to aggravate those guys. We need to do something about Carl, Marcus, regardless of what he's been through. . . He's not suited to working here; we're too dependent on each other. Carl was hopeless as a colleague from day one. Why did you ever bring him downtown from Bellahøj?”

Markus fixed his eyes on Bjørn. “He was and is an outstanding detective, Lars. That's why.”

I never can decide whether I'm on the outs with the “genius detective is also most annoying man in four counties” trope or if I love it, and I think the only true answer is “it depends.” On what? It just depends. This one could be really great, despite some awkwardness in the prose, or it could be so generic it's nonexistent, but it's too soon to tell.

Question for the better-informed: Are there genius detectives who are also the most annoying woman in four counties? Or any geographical range? There was creepy, cackling Mrs. Bradley in Speedy Death (and a bunch of other books I haven't read yet) – who else is difficult to work with, but the best at what they do?

In other news, I stopped by the library book sale and bought a stack of books – most of them for the store, but a few for me to read first. Some Ngaio Marsh and Josephine Tey, because I like to keep the shelves stocked with my old-school murder faves even if no one else is interested (there is one Ngaio Marsh fan who comes in occasionally; for all I know we're just buying and selling each others books in an endless loop) – also an earlyish P. D. James and a Ruth Rendell, and Plain Murder by C. S. Forester, author of the Hornblower books.