Michael Genelin

Siren of the Waters is the first book in a series featuring Jana Matinova, a police detective in Slovakia. The story opens with a car accident in which several women and one man are killed. The emergency rescue team call in the police, and Jana and her somewhat incompetent assistant, Seges, determine the crash was not an accident. The dead man has two passports in different names from two countries and it seems that the women were prostitutes. Her boss, Colonel Trokan, theorizes the victims were probably being transported across borders in an international sex trafficking ring. Before long, the body of an older woman is found in the river, murdered, and also implicated in the sex trade. The investigation takes Jana all over Europe, from Kiev to Strasbourg to a costume ball in Nice during Carnival.

Jana's past is explored in flashbacks and we can see how she was made to suffer politically by her marriage to a dissident. We know she is estranged from her only child, her daughter Katka, and the details of how this happened are also revealed through the flashbacks interspersed with the current investigation. This is very interesting and I think it is well done. This is the first book in the series and we need to know and understand Jana and what makes her tick.

The author does a great job describing the vivid locations of the investigation. Some of the characters are extremely real and well-rounded, including Jana and her boss, Colonel Trokan. Some of the others are not that believable. This is the author's debut novel and I feel confident that the next books in the series will expand more on the characters and their relationships to one another. I found the ending to be a bit abrupt but that won't stop me from reading the next book in this series, titled Dark Dreams.… (altro)

Having had the opportunity to read the fifth in this series a while ago I've been champing at the bit to go back to the start - SIREN OF THE WATERS. Sneaking this in amongst a lot of required reading recently was quite a treat, although now I'm wondering when I'll get a chance to read two, three and four now. Hopefully before a lot more of them come out.

This series debut starts out with a car crash that has killed seven people, most of whom are prostitutes from Eastern Europe. Quickly the investigation switches to one about human trafficking, and organised crime. Along the way the background of Matinova is built up - from a young woman in the Czechoslovakian police force, married to an actor, with a young daughter. The novel looks back in a fair amount of detail, woven into the current day story, to the time that her marriage disintegrated; her much loved husband became more erratic, ultimately going on the run as an enemy of the state; and the eventual estrangement of her only daughter.

The plot quite quickly becomes rather complicated with a lot of elements thrown at the reader so you'll need to pay attention. Whilst she finds and works with colleagues wherever she goes, always, at the middle of everything is the taciturn and complicated Matinova.

You really get a sense of what it must have been like to live in a Communist regime like the one in Czechoslovakia. The constant foreboding, the little steps required to put yourself out of favour with the regime, and the lengths that families had to go to in order to survive. Matinova's family story is particularly sad, and goes to explain a lot about her character style and motivation. Having said that, reading a book further on in the series first means she is less morose, more determined; less humourless and more introspective.

Once the complications of the plot start to reveal there's a decent balancing act maintained between that and the character development, with the focus being very much on Matinova, but providing some context for her friendship with her boss - Trokan. He's a great character, not just because he's supportive of her, but because he's a bit larger than life, and very good at working the system to have survived in the way that he does.

There's something very nice about having a series to look forward to, especially now with the opportunity, finally, to go back to the start. Am now really looking forward to filling in more of the gaps.

https://www.austcrimefiction.org/review/review-siren-waters-michael-genelin… (altro)