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(23 reviews)
Author: S.J. Gazan
ISBN : 1623650666
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From Publishers Weekly
Starred 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 Søren 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.)
From Booklist
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. --Thomas Gaughan
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Books with free ebook downloads available Epub The Dinosaur Feather
- Hardcover: 448 pages
- Publisher: Quercus (November 5, 2013)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 1623650666
- ISBN-13: 978-1623650667
- Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.8 x 1.3 inches
- Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Epub The Dinosaur Feather
Sissel-Jo Gazan selected a very complicated project for her debut novel "The Dinosaur Feather." As a graduate degree holder in biology from the University of Copenhagen, she was well qualified to plunge into the daunting task and I admire her courage and ambition.
The main character in the book is Anna Bella Nor who, as the book opens, has recently submitted her doctoral dissertation to professor Lars Helland, her internal supervisor at the department of Cell Biology and Comparative Zoology at the university. In order to get her doctoral degree Anna will have to defend her thesis in front of a board of experts. Briefly, her thesis has to do with the relation between birds and dinosaurs.
But all hell breaks loose. Professor Helland dies in a very weird manner (was he murdered?) Police Superintendent Soren Marhauge (the world's most annoying detective) begins poking around into Anna's life, and Anna really doesn't have time for this; Anna's mother, Cecilie, becomes very possessive of Anna's three-year-old daughter Lily; Anna's good friend and co-worker Johannes shows photos of himself to Anna which show him dressed as a female vampire with heavy make-up and a leather skirt and net stockings in a club meeting of Goths but swears to her he's straight; Anna's neighbors tell her a mysterious man has come to her apartment several times and waited for her in the hallway but has gone away before Anna has come home, etc. Etc. Etc. Etc.
The book is hilariously funny at times and the writing is excellent. But the book is not perfect.
Superintendent Marhauge is given a big build-up but he never solves anything. He has an okay personality but is pretty much a wimp. One of my favorite lines in the book comes when Marhauge is interviewing a person of interest...
As a fan of Scandinavian crime fiction, I was interested to read The Dinosaur Feather, given the enthusiastic reviews from abroad. As someone who also has many clients in higher education, including science, I was intrigued as well by the scientific theme underlying the plot, which concerns two murders involving researchers at the University of Copenhagen.
But the book got off to a slow, measured start, and it never really picked up from there. While the writing was solid, there was way, way too much scientific detail, most of which was unnecessary to advance the story. There was also a great deal about the politics of academia. The author may have felt it lent authenticity, but there's only so much an average reader can absorb without his/her eyes glazing over. (And this coming from someone who does deal with science from a lay perspective for work.) I also didn't find the characters especially compelling. Anna was not very likable, and while Soren was somewhat more appealing, even with the multiple back stories, all seemed fairly two-dimensional. What this added up to was a highly academic, workmanlike book that probably will appeal more to scientists or science geeks looking for diversion than to a mainstream audience.
Anna Bella Nor is about to defend her master's thesis when Lars Helland, the head of her committee, whom she dislikes intensely, is found dead. The topic is paleozoology--specifically, the debate about whether birds are descended from dinosaurs, as the victim and most scientists believe, or evolved in parallel, as her supervisor's nemesis, Clive Freeman of the University of British Columbia, believes.
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