Unavailable
Unavailable
Unavailable
Ebook238 pages3 hours
Black Ice
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
3.5/5
()
Currently unavailable
Currently unavailable
About this ebook
An amateur investigation into Erika's watery death buys our anti-hero a ticket for a vertiginous ride.
Unavailable
Read more from Hans Werner Kettenbach
Black Ice Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Stronger Sex Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to Black Ice
Related ebooks
Heather Van Helsing Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsПриключения Шерлока Холмса: Человек с рассеченной губой = The Man with the Twisted Lip Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWorld's Best Short Stories-Vol 1: Volume 1 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSelected Stories of Anton Chekhov Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Science Fiction Archive #2 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNewsdeath Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Malefactor Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Adventure of the Engineer's Thumb Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Man with the Twisted Lip Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Bag of Diamonds Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Yellow Typhoon Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsStories of a Western Town Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDutchman and the Devil: The Lost Story Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Jevington System Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Man Lies Dreaming Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Torrents of Spring Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings7 best short stories by Zona Gale Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBeyond the Vanishing Point Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsUnnecessary Men/Book One Of/Doubtful Intelligence Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Unabridged Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWith These Hands: With linked Table of Contents Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Insidious Dr. Fu Manchu Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGhostly Shadows: Sherlock Holmes Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRide the Man Down Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Once a Jailbird: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sherlock Holmes Shape of Justice: Sherlock Holmes Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Demon Cross Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOne Is A Lonely Number Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPaid in Spades Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Frightened Man Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Psychological Fiction For You
The Last Flight: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The House Is on Fire Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Misery Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Housemaid Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Life of Pi: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Poisonwood Bible: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Candy House: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Certain Hunger Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5We Have Always Lived in the Castle Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5My Dark Vanessa: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Grapes of Wrath Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5You: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Elegance of the Hedgehog Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Notes on an Execution: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The End Of Alice Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Persuasion Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Life She Was Given: A Moving and Emotional Saga of Family and Resilient Women Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Good Daughter: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The St. Ambrose School for Girls Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Head Full of Ghosts: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Wuthering Heights Complete Text with Extras Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Our Town: A Play in Three Acts Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Bean Trees: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Piano Teacher: A Novel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Crime and Punishment Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Prodigal Summer: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Yellow Wallpaper Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Clown Brigade Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sour Candy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Cement Garden Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Black Ice
Rating: 3.458333441666667 out of 5 stars
3.5/5
24 ratings3 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/53.5 rounded up to 4.
A bit dated but really enjoyable. - Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5BLACK ICE is the first of German author Hans Werner Kettenbach's novels to be translated into English, and it's taken me from it's original publication date of 2005 to read it. Which is good in one way as there appears to have been more books since then. Which are now on my immediate buy list and I know that is probably going to sound very strange, as this isn't a particularly straightforward book.Scholten, the long-time employee of Erica Wallman, isn't a pleasant man. He's probably one of the most unpleasant characters I've encountered in crime fiction for quite a while. And the book is told from his perspective so a lot of time is spent in the head of an unpleasant person. Whilst his redeeming feature seems to be that he is the only person who doesn't believe that Erica's death was accidental and he is prepared to do what it takes to prove that, his overall demeanour makes you wonder if anybody would ever care what he thought. But other people's opinions don't really matter to Scholten and he's absolutely obsessed with solving how Erica's husband killed his wife. It's quite a puzzle too as it appears that she has simply slipped into the lake near her holiday villa - her husband nowhere nearby, the victim totally on her own at the time. Yet Scholten painstakingly builds up a picture in his mind, and finds the pieces that he believes show that there was nothing accidental about the fall at all.The tone that the book uses is very much set by Scholten's own voice. Grumpy, self-opinionated, self-obsessed, unhappily married to a disapproving wife, dour and surly, the book proceeds in a low-key, dour styling as a result. Having said that, there are some funny moments, as is there fragility and profound touches of melancholy. These are people for whom life, as they made it, hasn't lived up to expectations. But there's a single-minded purposefulness to everything that Scholten does that's claustrophobic, so personal to Scholten that the reader is left in a very uncomfortable position. There's no clear "hero" to barrack for. Just this unpleasant man who, aside from how much you dislike him, may, over and above everything else, just may have a point.And then this man, this "hero", the one person that believes totally in justice for Erica Wallman gets distracted from the path of exposing the truth and ties himself up in a knot of catastrophic proportions. And the reader is left. Unable to decide whether a seriously unpleasant man has got exactly what he deserved. Or a woman's fate has been unjustly served because her hero turns out to be no hero at all. Either way - it's an extremely clever ending, full of meaning and immensely satisfying. But a warning, it's not neatly tied up in a bow and delivered up on a plate. Thankfully.
- Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5I read this because it's a German mystery and the title is intriguing. It started off well enough, but to be honest, as I read on, I didn't like it at all. It's not a standard mystery, the detective isn't a detective at all. He's a man who has been having affairs and discovers the the boss' wife (I believe) died. He can't believe she killed herself and so he takes it unto himself to find out what really happened. It's a good premise, but I didn't like the characters or the writing (which could have been the translation, but I'm not sure). I would not read this again, or try anything else by Kettenbach.