All the Devils are Here - Louise Penny

 A great mystery- detective novel by Penny.  Set in Paris for a change.  Incredibly twisted plot that is full of surprises.  The focus is on the misdeeds and cover ups of large corporate powers, and also on the corrupts relationships between government, media and these large corporate powers.  

A Knife to the Heart - Barbara Nadel

 Another Inspector Ikmen novel.  Like John Rebus, he is aging.  His wife has passed away.  He is retired and feeling lost.  As usual the characterizations are good and it is nice to revisit some parts of Istanbul.

A Song for Dark Times - Ian Rankin

 Latest Rankin novel.  John Rebus has now been retired for a while and is aging noticeably - he actually moves out of his apartment because of difficulties with the stairs.  He is looking like an old man.  The focus this time is on the shady world of financing big development projects and also on the shocking land ownership situation in Scotland where a few people, more and more of them rich foreigners, own vast amounts of the country - I think the statistic is around 90%, but I could be a bit high there.  A leftover from the closing in of the commons and the expulsion of tenant farmers by noble land owners and clan chieftains in the late 18th and early 19th century.

A good read, but maybe not quite as good as many of the previous.  I wonder how much life is left in Rebus as a character...

The Night Manager - John LeCarre

 Another great book.  This time the focus is the international trade in illegal weapons and its links to the narco-mafia of Central and South America and also to the big banks of Europe and the U. S.

Nothing is True and Everything is Possible - Peter Pomerantsev

  A very interesting book about how the modern Russian mafia state works, and how Russia has changed since the fall of the Soviet Union and the rise of Putin.  What makes this book interesting is who's stories the author tells.  This is not an analytical book, a theoretical book, nor a look at well-known key figures.  The author tells the stories of regular, everyday people that he meets in the course of his ten years of working for Russian media. (His difference as a reporter is that he actually grew up in London but kept up his Russian with his dissident parents who had moved there.)
   Some salient points:
   The historical progression goes something like this:  The fall of the Soviet Union leads to the rise of two groups; mega-entrepreneurs who quickly become very rich, and a well-organized criminal mafia with roots in the Gulag system.  This leads to chaos.  The rise of Putin follows, and he uses the KGB structure to rein in/destroy/subsume the independent criminal mafia.  Putin uses his new KGB mafia alliance to destroy or rein in the mega-entrepreneur class.  Slowly the mega-entrepreneurs transfer their wealth to London and leave the country.  Huge amounts of money are extorted, profitable business are taken over, whole areas of the economy are taken over, and the resulting spoils are distributed amongst Putin's underlings.  Slowly the mega-entrepreneurs transfer their wealth to London and leave the country.  The government/mafia inserts itself into most of the economy.
    It becomes clear in the book that Putin controls all levers of power in the country - government, military, criminal organizations, media, the courts, the economy.  It would seem the only crack in the structure is when Putin is no longer, but the result will probably resemble a civil war amongst various underlings to capture the top position - which won't help the country at all; in fact, make everything worse.

   Like China, it would be very interesting to study this phenomenon of countries where revolutionaries have tried to destroy the organically rooted culture and replace it with an entirely new imposed ideologically based culture.  These types of radical breaks do something strange to the society.  It would be interesting to look at this from a sociological point of view.  I wonder if there are parallels to be made with various personal psychological issues and pathologies...

Murder on the Orient Express - Agatha Christie

Clever enough but not my favourite - a bit too intellectual and bloodless in structure and style.  Not enough grit.

Let It Bleed - Ian Rankin

An earlier John Rebus novel, I think.  Well-written, but Rebus is not quite as sympathetic a character as he becomes later.  Focus on corruption in high places and links between big organized crime and government figures.

Deadline - Barbara Nadel

Another Ikmen mystery.  Exciting, well-written - her style keeps improving.  Takes place in the Pera Palace hotel with a plot line loosely based on Agatha Christie drawing room mysteries.

ZeroZeroZero - Roberto Saviano

A book by a well-known Italian writer who focuses on the mafia.  This book looks at the cartels in Central and South America, and explores the links between the Italian mafia and these cartels.  Above all, it is a catalogue of the incredible brutality of the cartels' method of operation.
It also explores specifically the world of cocaine, and the obscene profits that the cartels accumulate from this trade.  Saviano also looks at how some of the biggest European, British and American banks are involved in laundering this money for the cartels.  He basically maintains that, especially after the 2009 crash, this cocaine money was what was keeping much of the banking system afloat by providing easy liquidity. 
I couldn't finish it - too repetitive, too depressing.  A great example of how big crime, economic elites and big government all work together.

In a House of Lies - Ian Rankin

Latest Rankin book.  Very good!  All kinds of stories woven together and crossing each other.   The denouement remains a mystery right until the end.  Rebus is even funnier and more ironic as he ages and speaks from retirement.  No real central issue or theme that I can see - except perhaps the perennial "bureaucratic process is no match for raw intelligence".

Land of the Blind - Barbara Nadel

Another crime/detective story by Nadel set in Istanbul.  An enjoyable read, as always.  Like a short visit to Istanbul.  Not the most sophisticated fiction, but still enjoyable.  And she certainly knows her Istanbul geography and history, as she uses it in her stories.

Kingdom of the Blind - Louise Penny

A sequel to most recent Gamache book about drug smuggling across the Quebec border.  This is an excellent book, moving between the peculiar peace of Three Pines and the underworld of Montreal's drug scene.  I think it is her best book so far. 

L'Empire des loups - Jean-Christophe Grangé

Un écrivain de 'thriller' bien connu en France.  Une lecture très emballante, qui te tient au moment, mais  à la longue, cela devient évident que c'est surtout la violence extrême qui retient l'attention.  L'histoire en elle-même est pleine de trous, de coincidences improbables.  A l'examen, elle ne se tient pas debout. 

Un mese con Montalbano

Collezione divertente di più di 30 racconti da Camilleri.   Vale la pena di leggerli.  Si può vedere chiaramente il carattere simpatico e sagace di Montalbano di fronte all'umanità.  Alcuni dei racconti si può vedere come filmi nella seria di Montalbano del RAI.

La Première enquête de Maigret - George Simenon

Premier livre de Simenon et de Maigret.  Belle évocation des divers milieux de Paris du début du 20e siècle.  Un auteur qui élabore non seulement un mystère, mais qui aussi met en vue le monde social et le système de classes en opération à cette époque.
À en lire plus.

Glass Houses - Louise Penny

Her latest novel.  She seems to just keep getting better.  Topical foci this time:  police corruption (again) and drug smuggling.

The Return of the Dancing Master - Henning Mankell

Reads like an earlier novel, a not quite crystallized version of his style and characters, but still interesting.  The focal issue in this novel is latent fascism and nazism in modern Swedish society.  During WW2,  there was a strong nazi/fascist movement in Sweden, and quite a few Swedes joined the Nazis to fight in the war.  (Like Finland, part of the motivation was also fear of being swallowed up by Russia.)

Faceless Killers - Henning Mankell

A good mystery with a surprise ending.  Explores the issue of immigrants in Sweden and some of the right-wing groups opposing immigration.

An Event in Autumn - Henning Mankell

A short Wallander mystery.  One of the last I think.  Good, but for me, not one of his best.

The Black Book - Ian Rankin

A very early Rebus novel, but already with all the main characters and Rebus ticks.