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Title: Engrossing story with a heroine cynics can love.
Review: This story and its unusual heroine lingered with me long after I'd read it. Smilla is a wonder: strong and resourceful, yet quirky, vengeful and darkly cynical. You see her drawn into the case of the little boy's suspicious death, almost in spite of herself, because her instinct is to fiercely protect her solitude and independence. The exotic settings (to me -- never been to Scandinavia)of Denmark and Greenland add to the inscrutable mysteries of Smilla and her story. The plot takes an X-Files-ish twist near the end, but you're so involved with the characters by then that you can forgive this. Sample of Smilla's thinking: "Falling in love has been greatly overrated. Falling in love consists of 45 percent fear of not being accepted and 45 manic hope that this time the fear will be put to shame, and a modest 10 percent frail awareness of the possibility of love. I don't fall in love anymore. Just like I don't get the mumps." Gotta love her.
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