Reading: Europe in Winter
Aug. 4th, 2018 02:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
white_hartThe third novel in Dave Hutchinson's Fractured Europe sequence pulls together threads from Europe in Autumn and Europe in Winter and weaves them together with the stories of other occupants of Hutchinson's fragmented near-future Europe who are drawn, willingly or unwillingly, into a complex game of spycraft and politics. Like the previous novels, Europe in Winter is structured as a series of vignettes which seem to be only loosely tied together by the often fleeting appearances of Rudi, the sort-of hero of Europe in Autumn, and his associates, but which gradually assemble into a continuation of the story of Rudi's investigation into the Coureurs des Bois, the shadowy organisation that has dominated his life for many years.
Like the earlier books, Europe in Winter is witty, pacy and very much aware of the spy genre it's riffing on, and I was pleased to note that the pattern of killing off female characters to advance the plots of the male characters I was disappointed by in Europe at Midnight wasn't repeated here (and, as in the previous books, the female characters are interested, rounded and feel as much like real people as the male characters do). I enjoyed it, though I felt that the year or so since reading Europe at Midnight put me at something of a disadvantage when it came to recognising characters who appeared in the earlier books and remembering details of their plots, and I'm not entirely sure my brain was always really up to the complex joining-the-dots required to follow Hutchinson's plotting.
Like the earlier books, Europe in Winter is witty, pacy and very much aware of the spy genre it's riffing on, and I was pleased to note that the pattern of killing off female characters to advance the plots of the male characters I was disappointed by in Europe at Midnight wasn't repeated here (and, as in the previous books, the female characters are interested, rounded and feel as much like real people as the male characters do). I enjoyed it, though I felt that the year or so since reading Europe at Midnight put me at something of a disadvantage when it came to recognising characters who appeared in the earlier books and remembering details of their plots, and I'm not entirely sure my brain was always really up to the complex joining-the-dots required to follow Hutchinson's plotting.
