New crime fiction
新犯罪小说
Murky work
黑暗杰作
Apr 3rd 2008
From The Economist print edition

Translation march

Atmosphere is everything in crime fiction, as four new books make clear
氛围是犯罪小说的一切，下面四部新书证明了这点


IN ITS vivid portrayal of the violence and degradation of the Palestinian enclave of Gaza, Matt Rees's second book, “The Saladin Murders”, is outstanding. His hero, Omar Yussef, a Bethlehem schoolteacher, is a recovering alcoholic in his fifties, physically frail but possessed of a steely moral core. At the start of the book he is sent to Gaza on an apparently straightforward school inspection. When a fellow teacher is arrested as a CIA spy by the sinister Palestinian security forces, Yussef ignores advice to leave.
马特·里斯的第二部小说无疑是杰出的，在这本<萨拉丁谋杀>中，他生动的描述了巴勒斯坦被占领地加沙地区的暴力与堕落。书的主人公奥马尔·约瑟夫是个在伯利恒工作的五十多岁的教师，刚刚戒掉酒瘾，身体十分虚弱，但意志确如钢铁一般。故事一开始，他被派往加沙一个看起来正直的学校去视察。当他的同事被险恶的巴勒斯坦安全部队当作中情局间谍逮捕起来的时候，他拒绝了离开的劝告。

He is quickly drawn into a deadly game where disputes are settled by gun battles and car bombs. Brutal, corrupt warlords torture and murder at will, while the khamsin, the hot, dusty desert wind, blows hard, turning the sky yellow and filling the air with choking sand. The Israelis barely feature in this dark, gripping and often moving book. Gaza, it seems, is a hell in large part of the Palestinians' own making.
很快，他被拖入了一个充满枪战和汽车炸弹阻挠的死亡游戏中。经受着残忍腐败的军阀的折磨与拷打，威胁与谋杀。炙热，污浊的沙漠之风猛烈的吹着，黄沙漫天，空气中弥漫着窒息的沙尘。这个充满着黑暗与感动的故事十分吸引人，却鲜有提及以色列。加沙，是巴勒斯坦自己制造的人间地狱。

In “A Vengeful Longing” the air in St Petersburg in the 1860s is also hard to breathe. Not because of sand, but because the lack of a proper sewage system means that human waste is stored in open barrels, even in the height of summer. The thickening stench hangs over the city, a metaphor for the wider decay in Russian society where aristocrats dance the night away and the poor starve in mouldy rooms.
<复仇的渴望>，讲述了19世纪60年代的圣彼得堡弥漫着令人窒息的空气。并不是因为沙尘，是因为缺乏完善的污水处理系统，人们产生的排泄物盛在敞开的桶里，即使在最严酷的夏日也是如此。浓厚的恶臭笼罩着城市，这是对腐朽的俄国社会的隐喻。夜晚贵族们载歌载舞，穷人却在发霉的屋子里忍受饥饿。

Porfiry Petrovich, who first appeared in Feodor Dostoevsky's “Crime and Punishment”, and his assistant Pavel Virginsky are dispatched to find out why a doctor's wife and handicapped son are murdered by poisoned chocolates, and a womanising army officer is shot dead in his rooms while his French paramour slumbers peacefully in his bed. Investigator Petrovich is a very engaging hero, eagle-eyed, with a sharp laconic wit, endless patience for his geeky sidekick and a soothing manner, especially when faced with beautiful, flirtatious women. Full marks to the author for bringing Petrovich back to life in this ambitious work that is a real pleasure to read.

卜菲力·彼得罗维奇，最早出现在陀思妥耶夫斯基的<罪与罚>中，他的助手Pavel Virginsky 被派遣去调查一个医生妻子及其残疾儿子的谋杀案，他们都吃了被下过毒的巧克力。还有一个贪恋美色的军官，被枪杀在自己的房间里，而他的法国情妇却在安然的睡在身旁。调查者彼得罗维奇是个很有魅力的男主角，目光敏锐，才思敏捷，对他那令人厌恶的搭档有无限的耐心，而且风度翩翩，尤其在面对美丽迷人的女人时候。这是部有野心的作品，可以为作者把彼得罗维奇重新带到台前评个满分。这本书也确实值得一读。

The air is fresher in “A Death in Vienna”, although the dark, claustrophobic corridors of St Florian's military school, set in the Vienna woods, harbour their own bloody secrets. When a young cadet is found dead the authorities are keen to close the case quickly. But Inspector Oskar Rheinhardt has a strong feeling that something is badly awry in St Florian's closed, conservative hierarchical society. His hunch proves right when a strange pattern of razor cuts is found on the boy's body.
在<维也纳死亡>中，虽然依然黑暗，但风格确是新鲜的。圣弗洛军事学校的幽闭恐怖的走廊，处在维也纳的密林之中，伴随着他们自己血腥的秘密。当一个学员被发现无端死去时，高层们迅速的关闭了学校。但是调查者奥斯卡·莱茵哈特有着强烈的感觉，认为守旧的高层关闭圣弗洛军事学校是一个严重的错误。他的预感得到了证实，男孩的尸体上发现了一个特殊花纹的剃刀伤痕。

“A Death in Vienna”, which first came out in America in 2006 and is now being published in Britain, takes place in 1903. The Habsburg capital is on the cusp of modernity, its cosmopolitan mix of nationalities, and the dangerous new notions propagated by Sigmund Freud are evocatively pictured.
<维也纳死亡>，2006年最先在美国发表，最近刚刚在英国出版。这是个发生在1903年的故事，哈普斯堡王朝走在现代化的前沿，是一个多民族移民混合的国家。西格蒙德·弗洛伊德宣扬的危险新观念在这里回忆般的铺展开来。

There are hints too of the terrible darkness yet to come. Like Investigator Petrovich, Inspector Rheinhardt has a sidekick, a Jewish psychoanalyst, Dr Max Liebermann. The author, who is a clinical psychologist, deftly weaves in a primer on the brain's inner workings into the hunt for the cadet's killer. Meanwhile, a raven-haired Magyar concert violinist adds an exotic love interest to an already enthralling narrative.
在可怕的黑暗来临时，它发出了一些暗示。和彼得罗维奇一样，莱茵哈特也有搭档，一个犹太心理分析学者，Max Liebermann博士。作者本人也是个临床心理学者，在搜寻罪犯的过程中，他熟练的穿插着思维工作机理的初级内容。与此同时，乌黑头发的匈牙利音乐会小提琴家使充满异国情调的恋情成为令人难忘的情节。

“Stratton's War”, set in London during the Blitz, also has two protagonists: Diana Calthrop, a society beauty and MI5 agent, and Detective Inspector Ted Stratton. The spook and the policeman are brought together by the gruesome death of former film star, Mabel Morgan, who is found impaled on the railings outside the block of flats where she lives. Wartime London is sharply drawn: the darkness of the black-out, the aftermath of a bomber raid, the glamour of West-End nightlife, the seedy world of aristocrats' rent boys and the Londoners' irrepressible Blitz spirit.
<斯特拉顿的战争>发生在伦敦闪电战时期，同样也拥有两位主角：Diana Calthrop，社交名媛同时还是军情五处的特工，以及侦探特德·斯特拉顿。间谍与警察被一起可怕的死亡案件牵扯在一起，曾经的电影明星美宝·摩根，被发现钉死在所住公寓外的栏杆上。战时的伦敦黯淡无光：灯火管制的黑暗，轰炸机的袭击，糜烂的西区夜生活，破旧贵族世界的小男仆，空袭警报搅得伦敦市民人心惶惶。

But the German bombers are not the only danger Britain is facing. Stratton and Calthrop are soon fighting the enemy within: the Right Club, whose aristocratic members demand that Britain fight with, not against, Hitler.
但是英国人不仅仅要面对德国轰炸机。斯特拉顿和Calthrop所要对抗的还有内部的敌人：右翼俱乐部，它的贵族会员们要求英国与希特勒并肩作战，而不是反抗。

Laura Wilson is good on the distinctions of class, accent and vocabulary that divide Calthrop and Stratton. But even in stiff-upper-lip Britain humanity breaks through. The happily married policeman is puzzled to find himself increasingly attracted to the society beauty. She is fighting unsuccessfully against her hunger for her fellow agent, the sinister Claude Ventriss.
劳拉·威尔逊深谙不列颠不同阶层百姓的口音和语言，由此创作出Calthrop跟斯特拉顿两个不同的角色。除此外她还从英国人死板的名族特征寻求突破，刻画了一个痴迷于自己搭档Calthrop美色的已婚警察形象。同时这个名媛Calthrop也陷入情网不能自拔，爱慕同是特工的克劳德－－一个阴险恶毒的大魔头。

This enjoyable, intelligent book is based in part on fact. The Right Club existed; so did the spymasters and agents that inspired some of Ms Wilson's characters.
这本有趣有内涵的小说部分是真实的，它所提到的正义俱乐部是存在的。威尔逊女士的人物或许会激起间谍头子和特工的灵感。

Two books set in cities at war, two in cities yet to be consumed by fire. However grim the backdrop and dangerous the journey, all of these fine works show that the human spirit remains indomitable.
两本书发生战争中的城市，两本发生已被大火毁灭的城市。严酷的背景，危险的旅途，所有这些细节都反映了人类精神的不屈不挠。


The Saladin Murders
By Matt Rees



Atlantic Books; 352 pages; £11.99

Buy it at
Amazon.com
Amazon.co.uk

A Vengeful Longing
By R.N. Morris



Penguin; 336 pages; $24.95. Faber and Faber; £12.99

Buy it at
Amazon.com
Amazon.co.uk

A Death in Vienna
By Frank Tallis



Random House; 480 pages; $12.95. Published in Britain as

Buy it at
Amazon.com
Amazon.co.uk


Stratton's War
By Laura Wilson



Orion Books; 464 pages; £18.99

Buy it at
Amazon.co.uk