Sweet Freedom: Friday's "Forgotten" Books: the links to the reviews and more, 29 August 2025

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Lesa's Book Critiques: KEVIN’S CORNER ANNEX – PESTICIDE BY KIM HAYS

 Lesa's Book Critiques: KEVIN’S CORNER ANNEX – PESTICIDE BY KIM HAYS

Aubrey Nye Hamilton Reviews: Sons and Brothers by Kim Hays

Sons and Brothers (Seventh Street Books, 2023) is the second Linder and Donatelli mystery by Kim Hays, who uses her Swiss residency to good effect in this series set in Bern, Switzerland. Pesticide (Seventh Street Books, 2022) is her first book about Inspector Giuliana Linder and her younger colleague Investigator Renzo Donatelli of the Bern police. Now they are back, investigating a crime with tendrils that extend well into Switzerland’s and the victim’s past.

On a cold rainy night in November Emergency Services receives a call about a man drowning in the Äare River. Help arrived too late to save Johann Karl Gurtner, a 72-year-old cardiac surgeon who had been walking his dog. Indications of a struggle ruled out accidental drowning. Linder and Donatelli find a number of potential suspects in Gurtner’s background: Professional colleagues who resented his arrogance including a doctor who had been hired to fill Gurtner’s position upon his retirement, only Gurtner refused to retire. A wife and two sons Gurtner walked away from to marry a much younger woman. Members of a trade guild to which he belonged in accordance with long-standing family tradition.

Flashbacks explain Gurtner’s younger days and a long-standing Swiss practice that farmed out neglected or abandoned children to work in rural areas, something like the orphan trains in the United States. Sometimes they were treated well and often they were not. This depressing practice endured in Switzerland into the 1970s.

A complicated story that goes back for generations and reveals multiple crimes. The realistic detailed police investigation is front and center at all times, with the focus first on Linder’s research and interviews, then on Donatelli’s. A secondary thread deals with Linder’s harassment by an obnoxious prosecutor. As always Linder’s patient husband Ueli juggles his job and child care responsibilities while she works long hours. Hays thoughtfully included a guide to Swiss names but I still found some of the nickname and given name variations confusing. For fans of contemporary police procedurals and international crime fiction. 

 

·         Publisher: ‎Seventh Street Books (April 18, 2023)

·         Language: ‎English

·         Paperback: ‎362 pages

·         ISBN-10: ‎1645060586

·         ISBN-13: ‎978-1645060581

Amazon Associate Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/3HrQTX7

 

Aubrey Nye Hamilton ©2023

Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who works on Federal It projects by day and reads mysteries at night.

Aubrey Nye Hamilton Reviews: Pesticide by Kim Hays

Kim Hays holds U.S. and Swiss dual citizenship and lives in Bern, Switzerland. After a wildly diverse career she turned to writing crime fiction. Pesticide (Seventh Street Books, 2022) is her first book about Inspector Giuliana Linder and her younger colleague Investigator Renzo Donatelli of the Bern police. It was shortlisted for the 2020 Debut Dagger award by the Crime Writers' Association. The second book in the series is scheduled for release in April 2023.

Linder is assigned the difficult task of looking into the death of a member of the public, possibly at the hands of a police officer during a street celebration that turned into a riot. The officer in question reported hitting the young man but not hard enough to cause fatal damage. Her first job is to identify the victim. While he was carrying cash, his identity papers are missing. In the meantime Donatelli is pulled into investigating the clear murder of François Schwab, an elderly organic farmer outside Bern who was found in his barn drenched in the pesticide that he loathed. When their separate investigations reveal the two knew each other and that they had business dealings, Linder and her associates begin to believe the deaths are connected.

Linder’s husband Ueli is a journalist who keeps their home going in the face of her grueling work schedule and cares for their two children while fitting in his writing and research as he can. The understandable tensions this arrangement generates are clearly portrayed. Ueli has a dual role in the book, demonstrating the strain a police officer’s work exerts on home and family and carrying the secondary theme of the book, the issue of police brutality, which is examined from both sides. It is an ongoing source of concern within the Linder marriage.

Donatelli is unhappily married but adores his children. He makes no secret of his interest in the older Linder, who is committed to her marriage while finding Donatelli attractive. I am not a fan of crime fiction that is more romance than mystery but this push/pull is realistic and takes a back seat to the criminal search. Anyone who works with other people will recognize the potential for the situation.

This book is a very good procedural; I don’t understand why it has not received more attention, although Kirkus did give it a starred review. The plot is original, the setting is intriguing, and the characters are wonderful. Even the secondary characters are lifelike. The issue of police brutality is shown from both sides in a balanced and compassionate picture. The insight into the Swiss law enforcement system is fascinating. Highly recommended.

 

·         Publisher: ‎Seventh Street Books (April 19, 2022)

·         Language: ‎English

·         Paperback: ‎358 pages

·         ISBN-10: ‎1645060462

·         ISBN-13: ‎978-1645060468 

Amazon Associate Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/4muAocZ

Aubrey Nye Hamilton ©2023 

Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who works on Federal It projects by day and reads mysteries at night.