Birth Marks: A Hannah Wolfe Crime Novel

Great female detective story. All plausable situations. Keeps you guessing all the way through. Page turner!!!

The dancer Hannah Wolfe was hired to find turns up dead, but that doesn't keep her from becoming a complex character. Dunant's characters are like Hirschfeld portraits - economical, vivid, and inscribed with her own maker's mark. The aging ballet mistress, the invisible cop-mentor, the eyelashes, the French beauties, they all leap off the page with very little ink needed. It's a book about people, Hannah most of all, but also her sister and her view of the world. You'll think you know the twist at the end, but you will be wrong. Sarah Dunant is a wonderful writer. Her prose is crisp and clever and so is her detective. Hannah Wolfe colors outside the lines, but carefully. Unlike VI Warshawski and Alex Tanner, Hannah doesn't go blindly/willfully into dangerous situations; she makes phone calls telling people her location - then she steps into the shadows. I wonder if the detective's feminine name is further evidence that Dunant doesn't feel she has anything to prove in these books. Hannah is a truly evolved independent professional. The first-person narration is so witty that you'll laugh in inappropriate places. Dunant's character is monarch of the throw-away line. After her ego suffers a black-eye, Hannah comforts herself with a series of platitudes, then remarks "A poultice of cliché's brought down the swelling." She's a self-critical narrator, but ironic and sardonic rather than depressed or bitter. Hannah is such a 21st-century hero that it's a triple shame Dunant seems to have let the series lapse.

I have to say I liked Hannah, I liked Frank, but I could have cared less about the dead ballerina. If it weren't for the great main character and her biting point of view, I wouldn't have read past when Hannah starts digging around in France.

Sarah Dunant writes really good detective novels -- so good that I wish she hadn't moved on to historical fiction. Her smart protagonist, Hannah Wolfe, is both cynical and vulnerable, and the secondary characters are extremely well drawn. BIRTH MARKS will grab you with a shocking early development that most authors wouldn't dare employ, but Dunant makes it work. Definitely recommended for readers who like V.I. Warshawski and other strong female sleuths.