A woman trying to catch a serial killer before she may be the next victim. Caught into the net of a macho society, taking away her right to be herself as a woman, as a professional. Tony Mott´s Deadly Autumn Harvest translated from Romanian by Marina Sofia and published by Corylus Books is set in the Transylvanian city of Brașov, in Romania.
As many other Eastern European countries, Romania´s potential of crime writing was unfortunately overlooked but Corylus Books is doing an extraordinary pioneering work of putting the country on the literary map of the genre.
Deadly Autumn Harvest - part of series featuring the seasons - features as its main character forensic pathologist Gigi Alexa who may have a terrible taste in men, but she is keen to learn from her mistakes and even use her bad human experiences to advance the police proceedings.
The search for discovering the culprit(s) is precise, mathematically like, with Gigi trying not only to create the pattern that can help guessing the killer´s mindset and next intentions, but also the dense network of human relations and connections that are useful in understanding such behavior. The whole novel looked to be as a forensic investigation, only that instead of corpses, it is proceeding to deciphering the darkness spots of the human mind and behavior, starting with those of the people Gigi herself is dealing with, including her current boyfriend Radu.
I personally read the book in one sitting, unable to leave anything for the next day. In addition to being an excellent crime novel, the book also offers insights into the contemporary Romania, particularly the social attitude towards women, particularly their struggle against and countering the patriarchy.
I hope to catch up with the rest of the series soon, and I would definitely save Tony Mott (the pen name of Antoneta Gals) for my further explorations of crime novels in Eastern Europe, particularly Romania.
Rating: 5 stars
Disclaimer: Book offered as part of the book tour but the opinions are, as usual, my own
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