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In The Blood Road, the Scottish police are dealing with multiple major (high-profile) crimes simultaneously: several young children have disappeared recently and the public is increasingly anxious about their whereabouts and safety. The book begins with the body of a Scottish police officer being found in a car—the problem is that same officer had been found dead and buried in an official funeral two years before after a supposed suicide. This means that not only was the officer (known by the sobriquet of “Ding-Dong”) a rotten cop, someone (likely Ding-Dong himself) must have killed someone else two years ago to produce a body that could be mistaken for him and now he’s been killed himself! As usual, Logan gets up to his eyebrows deep in solving multiple crimes (which is odd because after the events of the previous book In the Cold Dark Ground Logan now works for Professional Standards, not Major Crimes). Offering both a personal and historical exploration of the Ho Chi Minh Trail, this book highlights the critical role the Trail and the young women soldiers who helped build and defend it played in the Vietnam War. Accompanied by two traveling companions, Sherry Buchanan winds her way from Hanoi in the north to Ho Chi Minh City, formerly Saigon, in the south. Driving through the spectacular scenery of Vietnam and Laos, she encounters locations from the Truong Son mountains, the Phong Nha Caves, ancient citadels, and Confucian temples to the Khmer Temple of Wat Phu at the western-most point of the Trail in Laos. A review conducted by Chief Physician Simon Frostad (1903–1984) showed that there were a total of 7,465 prisoners of war in Saltdal as of May 14, 1945. This figure is a minimum. [11] :48 The large number of prisoners represented more than a doubling of the population in the municipality. When the camps were shut down, many needed rehabilitation, and their repatriation also took time. After three months, all of the camps were empty. [4] :18 As of 2019 this is the penultimate book in the series. I'm sure eventually Macbride will return to Logan and Co. eventually but as of now I'm almost caught up.
The Blood Road was a road section northeast of Rognan in the municipality of Saltdal. The road was a new section of Norwegian National Road 50 between Rognan and Langset on the east side of Saltdal Fjord, where there was a ferry connection before the war. [9] :46 The Blood Road itself now corresponds to a section of today's European route E6 between Saltnes and Saksenvik. [4] :24 The prisoners that built the road belonged to the Botn camp. Next up was an elongated spell in Westhill -- a small suburb seven miles west of Aberdeen -- where I embarked upon a mediocre academic career, hindered by a complete inability to spell and an attention span the length of a gnat's doodad. A man living near the Botn camp stated: "I remember that among the Norwegian guards there was a very good man, who helped the prisoners with news and food, and who did not force them to work. But the Germans found out, and he suddenly vanished." [12] :96a b "Rapp, Ole Magnus. 2012. Noen av krigens grusomme dødsleirer var på norsk jord. Aftenposten (November 16)". Archived from the original on 2016-04-12 . Retrieved 2016-12-12. But university and I did not see eye to eye, so off I went to work offshore. Like many all-male environments, working offshore was the intellectual equivalent of Animal House, only without the clever bits. Swearing, smoking, eating, more swearing, pornography, swearing, drinking endless plastic cups of tea... and did I mention the swearing? But it was more money than I'd seen in my life! There's something about being handed a wadge of cash as you clamber off the minibus from the heliport, having spent the last two weeks offshore and the last two hours in an orange, rubber romper suit / body bag, then blowing most of it in the pubs and clubs of Aberdeen. And being young enough to get away without a hangover. In the summer of 1942, about 2,500 Yugoslav prisoners of war arrived at these five camps, and by the next summer only about 750 were still alive. The differences between the camps are apparent from the fact that in the camp at Bakken further up in Saltdal no prisoners died over the span of three years. [4] :7 Disgusting who puts vinegar on to macaroni & cheese Logan that's who, sounds nealy as bad as gravy on chips vomit food. Olukotun, Bayo (2017-11-21). " 'Blood Road' Documentary Combines Cycling with Meaningful Storytelling". HuffPost . Retrieved 2020-04-13.
Oooookay. So he’s policing the police. He really shouldn’t be involved in criminal investigations but things get a little complicated when Duncan Bell, a former cop, is found stabbed to death. Sad yes, but also a tad excessive seeing as they attended his funeral 2 years ago. a b c " Store norske leksikon: Blodveien". Archived from the original on 2017-11-07 . Retrieved 2016-11-19. So she stands there and watches as boots slam into the man’s ribs and stomach. On and on and on. Hard and furious and unrelenting. The sound of muted crunching and dull thumps coils out across the cattle court, punctuated by muffled screams and grunts of exertion. The Blood Road really is stand out crime fiction at its very very best. Head and shoulders above the rest. E poi parliamo dell’ Irn-Bru (che come mi hanno detto in Scozia è la Scotland's other national drink): che nostalgia! Come scordarsi di quel suo sapore alla gomma da masticare liquida (tipo Big Buble)... però mai la berrei con un doughnut come fa Laz; si rischia una crisi iperglicemica XDRoston, Tom (2017-06-17). "A daughter chases her father's ghost down the Ho Chi Minh trail". Salon . Retrieved 2020-04-12. The Hålogaland Court of Appeal dealt with most of the cases. Twenty-one guards were sentenced for a total of 25 deaths, six were indicted for having taken part in executions, 29 were sentenced for abuse, and some were sentenced for their general participation in guard duties. Presentation of evidence was difficult. Most of the witnesses were dead or could not be found, and the defendants themselves were witnesses. The time that had passed was a further difficulty, and many charges were dropped. Four received life sentences with forced labor, two received 20 years in prison, and the others received sentences of between 6½ and 17 years in prison. [11] :48 Perspectives on sentencing [ edit ] I have constantly heard rumors about what they're doing up there, and the other day I received confirmation from a man who came from there on leave because he came into my office and said " Heil og sæl, I am a trained killer." He told me that the Serbs they are guarding up there were sentenced to death in Serbia, but for one reason or another were brought up to Finnmark, and from there they will not escape alive; and it is these young Hird members' despairing duty to finish off each of these prisoners. From what my informant said, and from what I have also heard from others, the treatment of these men is inhuman. He claimed that in the time he has been there they have had to kill about seven hundred by shooting or hanging. That the Fører's young idealistic political soldiers should have to perform this kind of service is impossible and must be completely rejected. [10] :86–87
But there was always the writing (well, that's not true, the writing only started two chapters above this one). I fell victim to that most dreadful of things: peer pressure. Two friends were writing novels and I thought, 'why not? I could do that'. Then, finally, the crunching, thumping noises stop and Number One sags against the railings, puffing and panting. ‘Fin … finished … Pfff…’ I have two vastly different, but enduring memories of the Ho Chi Minh trail. Firstly, as an Air Force fighter pilot bombing the trail, and 31 years later, as the first post-war U.S. ambassador to Vietnam frequently travelling along its length while engaging in bilateral diplomacy. Consequently, in reading Sherry Buchanan’s meticulously researched, stimulating and beautifully written On the Ho Chi Minh Trail, I felt like I was on the journey with her. The book is an exceptional travel log; the reader gets a superb geography lesson; a narrowly focused history of the trail during the war; and an introduction into Vietnam’s unique artistic and cultural identity including a primer on some of its exceptional cuisine. But above all, the author’s trip companion’s commentary and the heart-wrenching stories of the people (especially the women) they met along the way are what makes this book an absolute gem.Their remarkable stories of survival and sacrifice along with their remembrance of the hundreds of thousands who did not survive along the Trail will keep readers spell bound.”Mr. MacBride’s portrait of a police structure filled with employees of varying degrees of competence and ambition is reminiscent of the TV show The Office at its most hilarious and poignant. One could venture a comparison to that other excellent comedy Brooklyn Nine-Nine, especially given that the latter is explicitly about a team of cops, but The Office has always had, at least to me, a greater emotional savagery to it that’s more in keeping with the pathos of Mr. MacBride’s novels. The sources give different accounts of the number of prisoners in total in the Botn camp. Cveja Jovanović specifies some figures in his book; namely, that 463 prisoners came to the camp on 25 July 1942. Of these, 276 died in April 1943. On April 11 the same year, a further 400 Partisan prisoners were transferred to Botn. Later that month, the Wehrmacht took over the guard duties, and under their direction a total of 18 were shot, 60 died of other causes, and 23 managed to escape. Later, 105 people were sent to the medical camp at Øysand in Trondheim. On June 1, 1944 the Boten camp was shut down and all of the remaining 381 prisoners were sent to the Potthus camp a little further south in Saltdal. [12] :95 These figures differ from those cited in other sources (the primary source is testimony by witnesses), but they give an idea of the magnitude.
Thirty-two guards from the Yugoslav camps in Norway were tried by a military court in Belgrade in the fall of 1946. The witnesses were former prisoners. Statements given by Norwegian eyewitnesses and recorded by the British War Crimes Commission in Norway were also submitted. The case went to the Supreme Military Court, which ruled on December 1, 1946. Death sentences were handed down to 22 guards, and prison sentences ranging from 5 to 20 years for the others. Among those sentenced to death, 17 had served in the original five camps in Northern Norway. Five of those sentenced to death were SS officers from the Botn camp, including Untersturmführer August Riemer. He was sentenced for both of the mass executions, in November 1942 and January 1943. [11] :47 I mentally squealed with delight when I saw that my audiobook service had this book. Even though it was over 16 hours to listen through. But, if there is one author I can trust completely to make all those 16 hours of pure fun and bloody joy is it Stuart MacBride. And, I speed it up so the narrator speaks as fast I speak and think (and I speak fast)! Blush, Kristin (2017-02-24). " 'Blood Road' - On A Daughter's Epic Journey To Find Answers, She Found A Lot More: BUST Review". The Hollywood Reporter . Retrieved 2020-04-13. Road construction was to take place simultaneously with railroad construction. Highway 50 (today E6) traversing Saltfjellet was opened in 1937, but it was a low-quality road. From Rognan to Langset, a few kilometers north in Saltdal Fjord, there was a ferry. Further north in Salten there were also many longer ferry connections. In December 1941, the Germans demanded forced road construction and offered prisoners to the Directorate of Public Roads to carry out the work. It was agreed to prioritize the three road systems in Korgen, in Botn in Saltdal, and around Beisfjord in Ofoten.And so to UNIVERSITY, far too young, naive and stupid to be away from the family home, sharing a subterranean flat in one of the seedier bits of Edinburgh with a mad Irishman, and four other bizarre individuals. The highlight of walking to the art school in the mornings (yes: we were students, but we still did mornings) was trying not to tread in the fresh bloodstains outside our front door, and dodging the undercover CID officers trying to buy drugs. Lovely place. The story as ever is a dark and hugely emotive one, this time featuring missing children and the continuing saga of Bell. I like Logan in his "professional standards" form but soon he's hot on the trail of a killer, Steele "helping " in her usual indomitable fashion. The dialogue is fast, pacy, darkly humorous and extraordinarily engaging, you just get swept along with them all in a kind of hypnotic reading trance, often involving inappropriate giggling. Now that made Marky’s gums itch. There were killers in here, people who’d strangled their wives, or battered a drug rival to death with a sledgehammer, or drowned their own brother, or slit a stranger’s throat because they supported the wrong football team. When the Wehrmacht took over management of the Botn camp in October 1943, the conditions gradually improved. The conditions further improved when the Red Cross learned of the camps and several inspections were conducted. Conditions at the camp improved when the Wehrmacht took charge at Easter 1943. Of the 472 prisoners who had arrived the camp, at least 302 had died. Thus, there were 170 prisoners in the camp when the Wehrmacht took over. On April 12, a new group of 300 prisoners arrived at the camp, including the then 20-year-old Ostoja Kovačević, who wrote the book En times frihet (One Hour of Freedom). The first Sunday that he was in camp, all of the new prisoners had to wash themselves outside in a small lake where ice was still floating. The German soldiers beat the prisoners and forced them into the water. [10] :44
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