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Block 46

Roy and Castells, Book 1

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Block 46

Written by: Johana Gustawsson
Narrated by: Patricia Rodriguez, Mark Meadows
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About this listen

An award-winning debut French noir thriller, first in the Roy & Castells series. A true-crime writer and a profiler join forces in the hunt for a serial killer.

Evil remembers....

Falkenberg, Sweden. The mutilated body of talented young jewellery designer, Linnea Blix, is found in a snow-swept marina. Hampstead Heath, London. The body of a young boy is discovered with similar wounds to Linnea's. Buchenwald Concentration Camp, 1944. In the midst of the hell of the Holocaust, Erich Hebner will do anything to see himself as a human again. Are the two murders the work of a serial killer, and how are they connected to shocking events at Buchenwald?

Emily Roy, a profiler on loan to Scotland Yard from the Canadian Royal Mounted Police, joins up with Linnea's friend, French true-crime writer Alexis Castells, to investigate the puzzling case. They travel between Sweden and London and then deep into the past as a startling and terrifying connection comes to light. Plumbing the darkness and the horrific evidence of the nature of evil, Block 46 is a multilayered, sweeping and evocative thriller that heralds a stunning new voice in French noir.

©2017 Johanna Gustawsson (P)2017 Audible, Ltd Amateur Sleuth Crime Crime Fiction Crime Thrillers Fiction Hard-Boiled Historical International Mystery & Crime Murder Mystery Noir Police Procedural Psychological Suspense Thriller & Suspense Women Sleuths Women's Fiction Detective England Thriller Exciting Scary
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I feel like I should give this a 4, because I've given much worse books a three, but I can't bring myself to, for much the same reason (I've given much better books a 4). This was solidly ok. The concept was great, the way the mystery was plotted was great, but the characters (the police, in particular) were one-dimensional, and they didn't actually DO much. The villains fared better, but not much. The protagonists, ugh. Emily's entire thing is that she has no social skills and is blunt/rude, but it seems like it's because she's supposed to be neurodivergent? (Which I'm not 100% ok with. How did being blunt and shockingly rude become shorthand for neurodivergence?) But then she can flip a switch and be the exact opposite when talking to a victim in an official capacity, so, I mean, maybe I'm reading too much into it and she was neurotypical but just ignorant? Who knows! The only other info we get is that she lost a baby in infancy, and that she has a flat chest. I'm not even joking. She was insufferable.
Then Alexis, is defined by her over-invested mother who calls all the time, and then her romance with one of the locals on the periphery of the case. And oh my gosh, the "love scenes" are cringey. And they added exactly nothing to the plot. I guess it was supposed to be character development, but there was no character to develop. We do learn, as she lusts after the new guy, that her previous partner died and she's still grieving, so... I don't know.
The scenes set in the past were compelling and often explicitly horrifying. Two thumbs up. But the scenes set in the present just didn't gell, and the writing drove me crazy. This is partly because I listened to the book.
The narrator had a voice that I did not care for, but for the most part, she did a professional job. Except the accents. Or lack there of. It was so weird and discordant. She had a Midwestern American accent. The book was translated into British English. It was weird. And then you had characters who were North American using British words and phrases, which is a HUGE pet peeve of mine. I find it so jarring. I found the writing in general a bit too romantic-suspense-y, but then with the lazy translation... yeah, not my thing.
Overall, it was a pretty good book with an excellent concept, I just wasn't a fan of its style.

not for me

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