A Nordic Noir Thriller By Jean-Louis Adorsen
‘An Angel Named Gabriel’ by Jean-Louis Adorsen is a nordic-noir thriller with a reluctant hero and some dark, disgusting villains. Set in a familiar feeling small town on the coast of Norway, Gabriel Dahl is a wildlife photographer heading to a documentary shoot who, on a whim whilst passing, decides to go looking for a girl he met once on a childhood holiday. Very soon, he finds himself caught up in a seedy criminal underworld on a mission to rescue the girl that he fell in love with all those years ago.
The plot rattles along quickly and the pacing of the novel is excellent. The rate at which Gabriel finds himself in deeper and deeper is well-judged, with some good use of backstory and description where appropriate. There is genuine jeopardy throughout and the story keeps you guessing as to how Gabriel will rescue his long lost childhood love Annette. Gabriel is a likeable everyman character who uses the limited tools at his disposal to find ingenious solutions to the problems that he encounters. The villains of the story are truly reprehensible and pretty much any despicable crime you can imagine, they have been involved. This does mean that the lead antagonist feels a little caricature-ish at times – a psychopath with no qualms and a damaged childhood who has no humanity at all.
There are some writing choices that feel as though they could have benefited from a little further revision, including the handling of characters’ responses to the rape and abuse that occurs to them, a few small continuity errors, and some of the dialogue which feels a bit unnatural and forced. I commend the author for translating the book into English themselves, and in general this has been done excellently – quite an impressive undertaking – but it does, inevitably, lead to some issues relating to the use of idioms and slang. Having said this, the story will keep you on the edge of your seat and wanting to know more – it was a quick read for me for this reason.
Recommended for fans of books like Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, this story will transport you into a dark underworld that will intrigue and disgust, but keep you turning those pages for more.
‘An Angel Named Gabriel’ is available for purchase at: https://amzn.to/3SOhqjH
(Review By Robin Stevens)
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