The Last Refuge

Boring!! The descriptions of the setting are quite wonderful and the writing is very literate, but as of chapter nine, there is only one actual character and all that is going on is a great deal of self flagellation, descriptions of personal angst, violent nightmares and general whining going on. So far there is no sign whatsoever of a plot, nor any development of the character or introduction of any other significant characters. At nine chapters in I'm done.

First person writing, but we are only slowly given access to his history before the start of the book.

Except minor details like the obviously British house on the cover, the book survives very well being read by someone with local knowledge of the Faroe Islands.

More important that the murder mystery, is the feminist sub-plot. (Which I will not spoil here.)

Hang on and enjoy the terrible ride of his dreams.

Interesting story centered in a place little known and very parochial. The characters are drown fairly well and the plot is intricate enough to keep your interest. Its a good read on the whole, and I plan to read other books by the same author. I did learn a little about a place I have never heard of before, the Faroe Islands. I'm not sure I want to visit, but the murder mystery in an odd location added to the my interest in the book

For the first time in MANY years I stopped reading a book. This was the slowest, overlong and tedious book I have picked up in a long time. I did not care about any of the characters at all. Do not bother, what a waste of time.

First time I read one of his books. One of the best I have read in years and I will be going to the Faroe Islands because of this book.
Nico

A very good read and gives a insight into the lives of people living in the Faroes, thoroughly enjoyed it.

The location and the descriptive writing about it , I would rate at 5 stars. John Callum travels to the Faroe Islands to start anew. He was from Scotland and is very troubled about his past. He has nightmares, sweats and emotionally a temper that seems it could flare up at anytime. Even though he is a stranger on the island, there are menacing hulks that stare and glare at him. The first half of the book seems to be about pressure building temper, anger and guilt to top it off. He sees red and black when his temper starts to build.

The second half of the book did pick up after a murder occurs. John was drunk when crime occurred and lost his memory. There are several suspects that could have done the crime. John is the main suspect as he was in an argument with the menacing hulk that was murdered. The book is very well written. However, I was somewhat disappointed with it. The plot and characters are why I gave it 3 stars even though it had a wonderful sense of place. I did not care for the characters and all this brooding and menacing staring didn't interest me.

I started to give this book 3 stars, but actually it's better than that. It's a rather funky story of this guy who keeps having nightmares and/or blackouts, may or may not have committed a crime so he runs off to the Faroe Islands. If he'd ever stop drinking he might stop having blackouts, but that doesn't seem to be in his DNA so he struggles along and then there's another murder on the island that he might be involved in or maybe not. As silly as this all sounds, the book did pull me along because the characters were interesting, and kept me reading until the end, the mark of a decent read.

loved the description of an area I'd never heard about before, along with an interesting story

I loved the setting. I have never been to the Faroe Islands so I looked at all the Google images of it and when he would talk about specific places, I would google map with satellite view. The author creates a powerful moody atmosphere in which the reader continues to be pulled along unaware of where it is all heading. A good thriller with some very tense plotting in places where you think you know what is about to happen but again, surprise. So read this book and enjoy the ride!