Status
Available
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Collection
Publication
Blanvalet (2010), 667 pages
Description
Fiction. Mystery. HTML: With more than fifteen million copies of her novels sold in Europe, Charlotte Link makes her chillingly psychological American debut, now in English for the first time A suspenseful, atmospheric new psychological crime novel from Germany's most successful living female author An old farm, a deserted landscape, a dark secret from times past with fatal consequences for the present. In the tranquil northern seaside town of Scarborough, a student is found cruelly murdered. For months, the investigators are in the dark, until they are faced with a copy-cat crime. The investigation continues as they struggle to establish a connection between the two victims. Ambitious detective Valerie Almond clings to the all too obvious: a rift within the family of the second victim. But there is far more to the case than first appears, and Valerie is led toward a dark secret inextricably linked to the evacuation of children to Scarborough during World War II. Horrified at her last-minute discovery, Valerie realizes that she may be too late to save the next victim..… (more)
Media reviews
Charlotte Link, a best-selling author in her native Germany but previously unknown to American readers, has the eerie insight peculiar to writers of psychological suspense. While most of us look at our neighbors and see ordinary people living humdrum lives, they see something dark and menacing
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beneath the surface. ....Every well-built psychological suspense narrative involves a thorough, methodical dissection of characters we’ve been led to believe we already know. It’s a delicate skill, and authors like Ruth Rendell have made it into something of an art form. In this translation by Stefan Tobler, Link demonstrates the same subtle touch, keeping the reader’s eye trained on Fiona and.... Show Less
User reviews
LibraryThing member picardyrose
The villain came as an unlikely surprise, but the real crime was astonishing and unbearable.
LibraryThing member Mercury57
Within her native Germany Charlotte Link has built a strong reputation as a writer of psychological crime fiction. A concerted effort to break into the English-speaking market got underway in 2012 with the translation of The Other Child, a novel in which the errors of one generation have
The setting is the remote, dilapidated Beckett's farm outside the seaside town of Scarborough in Yorkshire. It's inhabited by the lonely, spinsterish Gwen and her taciturn father Chad. Gwen it seems is about to find happiness, though quite why a dishy language teacher wants to marry this ungainly woman with a penchant for shapeless garments, is beyond the understanding of everyone who knows her. Fiona Swales, an old family friend with a particularly sharp tongue, thinks she knows the answer: the bridegroom is really just after the farm. Shortly after she disrupts the engagement party with her accusation, Fiona is found battered to death at the foot of a cliff.
Enter Valerie Almond, an ambitious detective keen to prove she deserves promotion. Her hopes of finding a quick resolution are thwarted because there's more to this crime than at first appears. To solve the crime, Almond has to delve into the past and uncover a secret that's been hidden for more than half a century.
The back story, and the nature of the secret, is revealed in a series of emails written by Fiona to Chad. As an eleven year old during World War 1, Fiona was evacuated from London to the Beckett's farm. Tagging along with her is ‘the other child’, a traumatised orphan whose existence is overlooked by the authorities. But Chad's mother takes him under her wing. loving him and protecting him as if he were her own. Years later something happens to the boy for which Fiona now wants to atone. The two strands of the story are told in alternating episodes although the supposed connections between them don't become apparent until close to the end.
The ending is only one of the issues I had with this book.
While the setting was very credible and the atmosphere of 1940s London was evocative, the characters were so wooden it was hard to summon up enthusiasm or interest for any of them. Far from deserving promotion, Ms Link's woman detective was so inept only immediate demotion to the ranks would seem appropriate. The identity of the murderer was so ridiculously easy to spot that Morse and Rebus would have had the culprit in the clink and be on their third round at the bar before Ms Almond had even formed her first question.
If The Other Child didn't well as a crime novel, it was equally as problematic as a story about emotional scars and feelings of guilt and remorse, of loss and regret. We never enjoyed any access to the inner thoughts of the murderer so the motivation they gave for their crime lacked impact. And while Fiona's feelings of guilt about the past were evident, the fact that these were revealed in emails to a person who already knew her story, was yet another example of how many aspects of this book were so implausible it was hard to take the novel seriously.
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repercussions that reverberate through later generations.The setting is the remote, dilapidated Beckett's farm outside the seaside town of Scarborough in Yorkshire. It's inhabited by the lonely, spinsterish Gwen and her taciturn father Chad. Gwen it seems is about to find happiness, though quite why a dishy language teacher wants to marry this ungainly woman with a penchant for shapeless garments, is beyond the understanding of everyone who knows her. Fiona Swales, an old family friend with a particularly sharp tongue, thinks she knows the answer: the bridegroom is really just after the farm. Shortly after she disrupts the engagement party with her accusation, Fiona is found battered to death at the foot of a cliff.
Enter Valerie Almond, an ambitious detective keen to prove she deserves promotion. Her hopes of finding a quick resolution are thwarted because there's more to this crime than at first appears. To solve the crime, Almond has to delve into the past and uncover a secret that's been hidden for more than half a century.
The back story, and the nature of the secret, is revealed in a series of emails written by Fiona to Chad. As an eleven year old during World War 1, Fiona was evacuated from London to the Beckett's farm. Tagging along with her is ‘the other child’, a traumatised orphan whose existence is overlooked by the authorities. But Chad's mother takes him under her wing. loving him and protecting him as if he were her own. Years later something happens to the boy for which Fiona now wants to atone. The two strands of the story are told in alternating episodes although the supposed connections between them don't become apparent until close to the end.
The ending is only one of the issues I had with this book.
While the setting was very credible and the atmosphere of 1940s London was evocative, the characters were so wooden it was hard to summon up enthusiasm or interest for any of them. Far from deserving promotion, Ms Link's woman detective was so inept only immediate demotion to the ranks would seem appropriate. The identity of the murderer was so ridiculously easy to spot that Morse and Rebus would have had the culprit in the clink and be on their third round at the bar before Ms Almond had even formed her first question.
If The Other Child didn't well as a crime novel, it was equally as problematic as a story about emotional scars and feelings of guilt and remorse, of loss and regret. We never enjoyed any access to the inner thoughts of the murderer so the motivation they gave for their crime lacked impact. And while Fiona's feelings of guilt about the past were evident, the fact that these were revealed in emails to a person who already knew her story, was yet another example of how many aspects of this book were so implausible it was hard to take the novel seriously.
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LibraryThing member Bruyere_C
Annoyingly flat characters, clichés, very poor editing
LibraryThing member smik
THE OTHER CHILD is written in 3 time frames.
Chronologically they are
the evacuation of children from London to Yorkshire in 1940 because of the bombing, and the subsequent six or so years;
an event described in the first chapter, taking place in 1970;
the murder of a 17 year old babysitter on her way
There is quite a cast of characters, too many I thought, loosely connected to a farm and a a school. In the style of modern British crime fiction the reader could reasonably expect the threads extending from the time frames to converge somehow. And they do, in a fashion but some of them don't.
The synopsis (above) makes you think this is going to be a police procedural with the detective playing a central role, but that isn't how this novel works. The police appear to have few resources at their disposal and to be always playing catch-up. The author plays around with p.o.v. putting the reader in the position of knowing almost more than any other person.
In my research I discovered that although writing in German, Charlotte Link has set many of her novels, a number of them saga-like, in Yorkshire or other British locations. As far as I can tell, THE OTHER CHILD, is her first venture into crime fiction, and from a crime-fiction lover's point of view, it is in need of a lot of editing and honing. For my taste there was altogether too much descriptive detail, but then I thought that maybe it illustrates the differences between what I expect and what a German reader expects. Towards the end I found myself skimming, trying to get to the resolution of the murder mystery.
However the final solution really comes out of left field and there are few hints in the earlier text apart from the worryings of one of the other characters.
I think perhaps I should have enjoyed THE OTHER CHILD more than I did. It combines historical with crime fiction and usually I enjoy that. The first chapter worried me, as I thought it would have significance, but it was a long time coming. The overall length of the book was vexing too.
Chronologically they are
the evacuation of children from London to Yorkshire in 1940 because of the bombing, and the subsequent six or so years;
an event described in the first chapter, taking place in 1970;
the murder of a 17 year old babysitter on her way
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home in the early hours in mid 2008.There is quite a cast of characters, too many I thought, loosely connected to a farm and a a school. In the style of modern British crime fiction the reader could reasonably expect the threads extending from the time frames to converge somehow. And they do, in a fashion but some of them don't.
The synopsis (above) makes you think this is going to be a police procedural with the detective playing a central role, but that isn't how this novel works. The police appear to have few resources at their disposal and to be always playing catch-up. The author plays around with p.o.v. putting the reader in the position of knowing almost more than any other person.
In my research I discovered that although writing in German, Charlotte Link has set many of her novels, a number of them saga-like, in Yorkshire or other British locations. As far as I can tell, THE OTHER CHILD, is her first venture into crime fiction, and from a crime-fiction lover's point of view, it is in need of a lot of editing and honing. For my taste there was altogether too much descriptive detail, but then I thought that maybe it illustrates the differences between what I expect and what a German reader expects. Towards the end I found myself skimming, trying to get to the resolution of the murder mystery.
However the final solution really comes out of left field and there are few hints in the earlier text apart from the worryings of one of the other characters.
I think perhaps I should have enjoyed THE OTHER CHILD more than I did. It combines historical with crime fiction and usually I enjoy that. The first chapter worried me, as I thought it would have significance, but it was a long time coming. The overall length of the book was vexing too.
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LibraryThing member arethusarose
This got a fine review in the New York Times, but proved to be unsatisfying to me, and it's the plot and character development that don't work. The plot is tied to a set of unlikely character decisions that had to be made as they work for the plot to continue. It's one of those 'character makes bad
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choices that don't really fit the situation' plots - so common in tv shows and movies - in order for the author to go on about the emotional wreckage she makes for her characters. I kept spotting the unlikely choices and being irritated by them; I ended skipping through the book to see how Link worked things without having to spend a lot of time reading. Show Less
Awards
Publishers Weekly's Best Books of the Year (Mystery/Thriller — 2013)
Language
Physical description
667 p.; 4.96 inches
ISBN
3442376327 / 9783442376322