12/18/2023
On an icy night, Andi Eberhart is killed by a hit and run while biking home after curling practice. Andi's death soon is recognized for what her wife, Nishi, suspects: murder, deliberate and heartless. Hays’s detective duo Giuliana Linder and Renzo Donatelli of the Bern, Switzerland, police department (introduced in Pesticide) return in their third book, learning that Andi had been receiving horrifying letters for years and that Nisha's Tamil immigrant family oppose her lesbian relationship. Also on the suspect list: Andi's coworkers and clients, jealous curlers, and citizens who oppose same-sex marriage and found Andi's outspoken advocacy to be inflammatory. Further complicating matters is a mystery of life rather than death—the identity of the biological father of Andi and Nisha's daughter.
Swiss-American Hays paints a complex person in a complex world that has not been welcoming to Andi and the family of her choosing. Guiliana and Renzo remain compelling characters, too, fascinating and flawed people who love their work, love their families, but still feel a connection to each other that makes working together seamless and complicated all at once. Both experience the conflict of loving their partners and children while feeling drawn to the darkness of the work they do and the pull to another person who understands. The "will they or won't they" chemistry proves as potent as the central mystery itself, and although this entry stands on its own, procedural fans will likely be enticed enough to pick up the earlier books.
Outside of the "whodunnit," A Fondness for Truth feels fresh as it engages with societal conflicts that resonate: LGBTQ+ rights in love, acceptance, and legality; interracial and interfaith relationships; and relationship struggles when the spark of new is tamped down by everyday life and responsibilities. Hays offers insight into all of this and the feelings that this deeply human cast must manage. Hays’s empathetic, entertaining, smartly plotted mystery will keep readers guessing.
Takeaway: Stellar series procedural with compelling detectives and deep empathy.
Comparable Titles: Ann Cleeves, Deborah Crombie.
Production grades Cover: A Design and typography: A Illustrations: N/A Editing: A Marketing copy: A
A Fondness for Truth feels fresh as it engages with societal conflicts that resonate . . . Hays’s empathetic, entertaining, smartly plotted mystery will keep readers guessing . . . [in this] stellar series procedural with compelling detectives.
For aficionados of fine police detection and procedure, it doesn't get better than Kim Hays's LInder and Donatelli series. Puzzling mysteries, artful prose, and engaging characters abound in these Swiss-based treats for mystery fans of all tastes.
In this third entry in her much-lauded Polizei Bern series, Kim Hays offers readers an utterly compelling and elegantly written police procedural. The thread of evidence followed by Linder and Donatelli, the novel’s homicide detectives, is seamlessly woven into the fabric of family stories, both ordinary and extraordinary, which makes the plotline all the more meaningful. Add to this a glimpse of Switzerland . . . and you have the perfect elements for an absolutely riveting mystery.
If you thought Switzerland was all mountains, clocks, and bankers, Kim Hays will make you think again. In the venerable tradition of the police procedural, and in precise, evocative prose, A Fondness for Truth pulls back the scenery curtain to reveal the reality: people are complex, darkness is as universal as light, and crime is everywhere.
This is the best of the three very good books in the series so far. Though a reader new to the series might want to start with the first, Pesticide, it’s perfectly possible to start here and enjoy the experience. I love these books because the detectives aren’t geniuses or super-heroes. . . The plot is ingenious, the setting unusual, the characters multi-layered. Highly recommended. . .
2023-11-13
A suspected hate crime divides a town and embroils two investigators in Hays’ novel.
This Switzerland-set mystery novel, the third in the author’s Polizei Bern series, begins with the violent and tragic death of Andi Eberhart, 33, who’s struck by a car and killed while riding her bicycle home through the icy streets of Bern. The hit-and-run aspect of the death devastates her Sri Lankan partner, Nisha; she immediately suspects foul play, revealing to investigators that the couple and their newborn daughter, Saritha, had been terrorized by a relentless barrage of anonymous homophobic letters sent to their home. When the event is recategorized as a homicide, detective duo Giuliana Linder and Renzo Donatelli ramp up their investigation as a list of suspects begins to fall into place. Someone in Nisha’s Tamil family, stridently opposed to her queer lifestyle, could possibly be responsible—most notably her brother, Mathan, who’s been texting her with shaming messages. Various others might have wanted to cause Andi harm, too: Perhaps the murder could be connected to her job counseling soldiers, or retribution for her reporting racist, bullying guards at the courthouse where a client worked. As the details of Andi’s personal life, in addition to her forthright personality and outspoken temperament, become more lucid, Giuliana and Renzo’s job of ferreting out a killer grows more difficult amid an ever expanding group of suspects and plausible leads (“She always hated people who said one thing and meant another. Our girl always spoke her mind, didn’t she, dear?”). With the duo’s powers of deduction once again on impressive display, this third outing is a fine addition to the series, with Hays remaining consistently focused on current affairs, international cultures, and hot topics. The author puts LGBTQ+ parenting trends, hate crimes, and homophobia center stage in an investigation that brings heat to these issues and leads to a rousing resolution.
A brisk, smoothly written police procedural from an author engaged with contemporary social issues.
