The Valkyrie Song
by Craig Russell

Release Date: 6th Aug 2009
Publisher: Hutchinson
ISBN: 9780091921446
RRP: £18.99

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Terrifying female assassins and a cop struggling to identify with women in general...

What makes a woman a better assassin? Is it her wiles and charm, her effective use of sexuality as a weapon to disarm, or is that she can commit cold, calculated murder without so much as a fluttering of her eyelashes?

Jan Fabel, head of the Murder division in Hamburg, Germany is having a hard time. His subordinate, Anna Wolfe is becoming increasingly strident in vocalising her opinions and has failed to learn to put a diplomatic stop on her mouth; her ex-wife is kicking up a storm about their daughter expressing a desire to join the police force and there is a sudden spate of inexplicable killings that has got him baffled.

Before the fall of the Berlin wall, when the Stasi still had control over national security, three girls were taken. They were seen to be of the right personality and psychological make-up necessary to turn them into a unique group of elite assassins. Of the three, one has dropped off the face of the planet; the second has been in a secure mental institution for over a decade and the third – well, the third, it would seem is very much alive. But who are these women? Who controls them? And are all the murders the acts of one or more of them?

Russell brings us to Hamburg and into unfamiliar territory, whilst this is nothing new, the author does little to help settle you in – rather, you are plunged into the murky depths of Stasi paranoia; odd observations about local similarities to locations in Denmark and rhetoric about the controversial and denied sexism of the main character, Fabel (Fabel would deny being a sexist, everyone else around him is convinced that he is). The Valkyrie Song’s most favourable aspect is its interrogation of the female assassin’s psyche – the uncomfortable fact that her work is that of a sane, if not emotionally balanced individual. Russell writes with intelligence and a huge amount of background knowledge that he eagerly taps into, even if it is lost on the reader. It is a slow starter and one must be prepared to persevere with it, but it has its moments of clarity and enlightenment, which make it if not enriching, then at least a little stimulating.

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