{"id":1352,"date":"2014-05-31T17:01:38","date_gmt":"2014-05-31T23:01:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/?p=1352"},"modified":"2014-05-31T17:01:38","modified_gmt":"2014-05-31T23:01:38","slug":"karen-dionne-the-killing-uncommon-denominator","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/karen-dionne-the-killing-uncommon-denominator\/","title":{"rendered":"Karen Dionne: The Killing: Uncommon Denominator"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"thekilling\"<\/a>Karen Dionne joins us to launch what is not really an adaptation of the AMC show \u201cThe Killing,\u201d but a prequel using the characters and setting familiar to any fan of the show. Reading the cover, it\u2019s interesting to see the progression: \u201cThe Killing\u201d began as a Danish show, \u201cForbrydelsen,\u201d was developed by Veena Sud for U.S. television, and is now a novel by Karen Dionne.\u00a0 At that point of removal I think the work becomes so far from the source that it\u2019s now Dionne\u2019s own.<\/p>\n

For those of you not fans of the show, it\u2019s a police show set in Seattle, featuring the uncompromising, workaholic, single mother Detective Sarah Linden; and the slightly less tightly wound Detective Steven Holder, back from working undercover.\u00a0 Dionne goes backward in time from the show.<\/p>\n

While the book reads and is very similar in feel to the TV show with the characters established as leads also the leads in the book, there\u2019s a bit more lightness in Dionne\u2019s take on things.\u00a0 I found that very welcome.\u00a0 The sun even shines in rainy, dreary Seattle in one scene, something that never happened on the show. \u00a0In this iteration Detective Sarah Linden and Detective Steven Holder haven\u2019t actually met.\u00a0 Holder is still undercover and Linden is still in a relationship with Rick (fans of the show know this is doomed).<\/p>\n

The TV series is very noir in that few of the actors in the unfolding drama can be trusted, except for the two cops at the center.\u00a0 And it\u2019s noir in feel \u2013 dark and damp with the central characters pretty unhappy, driven folks who are overcoming a great deal of childhood and emotional baggage.<\/p>\n

Dionne\u2019s smooth and meticulous storytelling style fit in beautifully within her parameters, and as I read, it took on a life of its own.\u00a0 Dionne\u2019s novel is a well put together police procedural and she fills in some of the backstory of both Linden and Holder.\u00a0 By the end of the book, you really can\u2019t wait for them to start working together.<\/p>\n

The story concerns a meth cooker whose trailer blows up and two brothers whose bodies are discovered miles apart, but killed within hours of one another.\u00a0 Linden puts the pieces together on her end, and Holder, undercover in a trailer park, close to every tweaker, cooker and dealer in Seattle, has an inside track on the dead cooker.\u00a0 Some of this is familiar to any fan of \u201cBreaking Bad,\u201d of course, but meth isn\u2019t a theme specific to that show.\u00a0 It\u2019s a national plague.<\/p>\n

As Linden and Holden delve into the pasts of the dead men they begin to discover unlikely connections.\u00a0 This brisk novel is a terrific read that sped right along; I was captivated by it and quickly stopped thinking about the TV show.\u00a0 I just focused on the story Dionne was telling.\u00a0 She supplies some good plot twists, red herrings and heartbreaking details essential to any good noir. This is a well done read.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Karen Dionne joins us to launch what is not really an adaptation of the AMC show \u201cThe Killing,\u201d but a prequel using the characters and setting familiar to any fan of the show. Reading the cover, it\u2019s interesting to see the progression: \u201cThe Killing\u201d began as a Danish show, \u201cForbrydelsen,\u201d was developed by Veena Sud … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[8],"class_list":["post-1352","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-police"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1352","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1352"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1352\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1354,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1352\/revisions\/1354"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}