Review by Booklist Review
University of Copenhagen Professor Lars Helland has built an international reputation with his research on the evolution of birds from dinosaurs. When he is found dead in his office, an autopsy shows that he has been murdered in an ingenious, hideous way. One of the people most affected by his death is Anna Bella Nor, who must defend her thesis in two weeks. Helland was her thesis advisor, and the tightly wound single parent is furious at Helland's lack of interest in her work. When Soren Marhauge, a brilliant police detective who is also spectacularly emotionally conflicted, begins to investigate, he finds many potential suspects, including Anna, a Canadian scientific rival, and members of Helland's department. Promising first-novelist Gazan, a graduate of the University of Copenhagen, offers vivid sketches of academic politics, scientific rivalries, and avian evolution. She also offers lengthy backstories on Anna, Soren, and Helland's Canadian rival, which provide depth and texture but interfere with the narrative flow. The Dinosaur Feather was selected by Danish crime-fiction fans as the Danish Crime Novel of the Decade.--Gaughan, Thomas Copyright 2010 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
With a dissertation defense looming, an adversarial adviser, not to mention a needy toddler, University of Copenhagen biology grad student and single mom Anna Bella Nor seems perpetually one sippy cup away from exploding-and that's before a coworker's bizarre death puts her whole department under the microscope, in Gazan's brainy thriller. Beneath the veneer of collegiality, police superintendent Soren Marhauge swiftly discovers, lies a Darwinian struggle for professional survival-as well as a cesspool of passions that are anything but academic. As the brash Anna dabbles in some increasingly dangerous sleuthing of her own, Gazan-herself a University of Copenhagen biology grad-orchestrates the suspenseful action and overlapping lives of her complex characters with deceptive ease. Just as impressively, she manages to integrate Anna's superficially arcane research on whether birds descended from dinosaurs with the novel's moving exploration of such broader themes as parenthood, love, and the potentially poisonous results of living with lies. Agent: Karin Lindgren, Salomonsson Agency (Sweden). (Nov.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Doing favors can get you killed at this realistic unveiling of academia set in the University of Copenhagen. When biology postgraduate Anna Bella Nor's academic advisor is killed, it isn't his death that concerns her so much as the evidence of her PhD thesis in his lap. Soon after police superintendent Soren Marhauge is assigned to investigate, another murder occurs-and this time the victim is Anna's fellow student. The book's strength lies in Gazan's knack for unraveling the behaviors of academics, the intricacies surrounding whose research gets funding, and the favors some academics will do for a shot at prestige. The mystery ends with a twist in which some careers are destroyed and others are made. However, most crime fiction readers prefer plots that cut to the chase. Gazan's book contains several dense, extraneous segments, such as passages of detailed paleontological information that at times make the book feel like science writing disguised as crime fiction, irrelevant background information about characters, and a confusing opening dream sequence. A rigorous edit might have changed things, as the story itself is interesting. VERDICT Those who enjoy crime writers such as Alex Brett, Stephen Legault ("Blackwater" series), or Kerstin Ekman will enjoy this thriller, which was named the Danish Crime Novel of the Decade. This title may also appeal to readers with an interest in science.-Frances Thorsen, Chronicles of Crime Bookshop, Victoria, BC (c) Copyright 2013. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
This Danish debut manages to combine white-hot academic debates, well-nigh universal family dysfunction and murder most foul. It's always an anxious time when your dissertation defense draws near, especially if you're the single mother of a 3-year-old whose adviser has always been distant and unsupportive. But all those traumas pale for University of Copenhagen graduate student Anna Bella Nor when her unloved supervisor, professor Lars Helland, is found dead in his office, his freshly severed tongue sitting on his chest. How did Helland die, and why has his tongue been removed? Superintendent Sren Marhauge, whom Anna dubs the World's Most Irritating Detective, ought to be the person answering those questions, but he's sorely distracted by the loss of all those he loved the most and, more recently, by his sins against his ex-lover Vibe. Despite his preoccupation, Sren soon finds someone with a perfect motive for murder, if indeed Helland was murdered: professor Clive Freeman, whose long-running argument with Helland over the question of whether birds are modern dinosaurs (Helland) or the descendants of a common ancestor (Freeman) had long since turned both antagonists into zealots. But Freeman, whose rivalry with Helland has poisoned his friendship with his cherished student Jack Jarvis, was thousands of miles away in Vancouver when Helland died. A second suspicious death deepens the mystery and makes it seem ever more unlikely that all the strands will ever be tied together. Gazan's approach to the genre--everyone serves as his or her own detective searching for the solution to his or her own mystery--is more Fyodor Dostoevsky than Agatha Christie. The results are uneven, and the ending is inevitably anticlimactic, but the journey there is a revelation.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Review by Booklist Review
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Review by Library Journal Review
Review by Kirkus Book Review
