MostlyFiction Book Reviews » Sweden We Love to Read! Wed, 14 May 2014 13:06:32 +0000 en-US hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=4.3 THE FIFTH WOMAN by Henning Mankell /2011/the-fifth-woman-by-henning-mankell/ /2011/the-fifth-woman-by-henning-mankell/#comments Mon, 19 Dec 2011 02:10:30 +0000 /?p=22140 Book Quote:

“When I was growing up, Sweden was still a country where people darned their socks.”

Book Review:

Review by Roger Brunyate  (DEC 19, 2011)

I first read this 1997 novel (the sixth in Henning Mankell’s Inspector Wallander series) in 2004, and saw the television adaptation starring Kenneth Branagh last year. So the general outline was familiar; I even knew who the murderer was going to be. All the same, I read the book this time with just as much enjoyment as on the first occasion, and with even more appreciation of detail of its texture. Unlike most detective novels, this one is less about the eventual solution than the process of getting there. The review from the Rocky Mountain News quoted on the back of my edition has it exactly right: “a police procedural in which the main procedure is thought.”

The first short chapter (following a brief prologue) ends with both a murder and (unusually) a glimpse of the murderer: an elderly man, coming out at night to listen to migrating birds, falls upon a group of sharpened bamboo stakes placed point-upwards in a pit; the person watching his agony from the shadows is a woman. Not that Inspector Wallander and his small team of detectives in Ystad, on the Southern coast of Sweden, realize this at first; the reader almost always knows a thing or two more than they do; the interest comes in seeing how they get there. More victims will follow; although different, the cases seem connected as different phrases in the same language that the murderer is using to communicate with the world. But this is no more than Wallander’s feeling; translating that language, finding factual connections between the victims, deducing the murderer’s motive, all this will be the work of many months.

A few weeks ago, after reading PD James’ THE PRIVATE PATIENT, I wrote a review entitled “TMI” (too much information). For almost 100 pages, James handled nothing but exposition, introducing almost the entire dramatis personae in separate chapters of great detail. Only then could the murder be committed and the work of detection begin. Mankell, by contrast, has almost no exposition at all. He plunges the reader immediately into the daily work of the Ystad police force, investigating an apparently minor crime, a break-in at a flower shop, that will turn out to have greater significance later. Mankell’s great strength is his grip of texture; he reveals information in bits and pieces, as would happen in life. You meet the officers in the station as a group who are doing a job; any personal details you might discover about them come up almost accidentally, just as they might among colleagues in the workplace; the one exception is Wallander, whose family relationships do play a small part, but their effect is to emphasize the difficulty of balancing his personal and professional life. Although this is the sixth book in a series, there is none of those tedious side-bar summaries for those who missed the earlier novels, and the reader has no sense of being left out either. You never doubt that this is a real world, not something concocted for your entertainment.

A less realistic crime novel might filter the information reaching the investigators so that everything is either a Clue or a Red Herring. Mankell does nothing of the sort; business at the Ystad station does not stop for the murders, and much information comes in that has little directly to do with them — things such as the formation of a local vigilante group to make up for the perceived inefficiencies of the police. But vigilantism does turn out to be a running theme in this novel, and yet one more example of Mankell’s underlying subject: the rapid decline of law and order in Sweden. He sees it as an age where it is easier to throw something away than take responsibility for it, an era “when people stopped darning their socks.”

Mankell’s novels have all tended to balance an inner focus on a small area of Sweden against an awareness of the outer world, especially Africa, where Mankell lives for part of each year. Even so hermetic a novel as the excellent Italian Shoes (not a Wallander story) has tentacles reaching into other continents. Of note, in one of his most recent novels, The Man from Beijing, in my opinion the balance tipped too far towards the global scene, losing the meticulous sense of local life which is his anchor. It would appear that The Fifth Woman also has an African connection; the prologue begins with a killing in the Sahara: four nuns and a fifth woman, a Swedish tourist, whose death has been suppressed by the local authorities. The back cover suggests that the fate of this Fifth Woman will be integral to the solution of the case, but the connection is merely catalytic. The true meaning of the title will appear as other women appear in the Swedish shadows, and the half-seen world has deadly impact on the real one.

AMAZON READER RATING: stars-4-0from 50 readers
PUBLISHER: Vintage (August 30, 2011)
REVIEWER: Roger Brunyate
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE:

 
EXTRAS: Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: Read our review of:

Bibliography:

Kurt Wallander Series:

Stand alone novels:

Teen Read:

Movies from books:

]]> /2011/the-fifth-woman-by-henning-mankell/feed/ 0 ITALIAN SHOES by Henning Mankell /2011/italian-shoes-by-henning-mankell/ /2011/italian-shoes-by-henning-mankell/#comments Sun, 31 Jul 2011 12:36:18 +0000 /?p=19569 Book Quote:

“A naked man in the freezing cold, with an axe in his hand, opening up a hole in the ice? I suppose, really, that I hope there will be someone out there one of these days, a black shadow against all the white — somebody who sees me and wonders if he’d be able to stop me before it was too late.”

Book Review:

Review by Roger Brunyate  (JUL 31, 2011)

This is a compact sonata of a novel, composed in four “movements.” The title of the last, “Winter Solstice,” might have been a better title for the whole book, set mainly on a small frozen island off the coast of Sweden. It is certainly an appropriate image: the solstice is the darkest part of the year; after it, the days will get longer, but it will still be winter for a long time. This is a book about resurrection, thaw, the slow flowering of the frozen spirit, but it promises few miracles, and even at the end there are setbacks and reversals — a feeling Nordic people must know well in their long wait for Spring.

Fredrik Welin lives alone on his rocky Baltic island, in a decaying house with an anthill slowly engulfing the table in the living room, breaking the ice on the sea each morning for the chilling plunge that is his principal means of assuring himself that he is still alive. He is not a good person, as other characters in the book will tell him; he is too ready to shrug off his responsibilities. As a young man, he abandoned a woman who loved him. Later, at the height of his career as a surgeon, he abandoned medicine after one horrible mistake. Now in his sixties, he has essentially abandoned life. His only contact with the outside world is the irritating mailman; “it’s not easy when your closest friend is somebody you dislike.”

Then one day he sees a figure on the snow outside his door, an old woman with a walker. It is a figure from his past come back to claim him, to demand an accounting for broken promises, implacable as a Fury, yet offering gifts in return: the opportunity once again to care about others, to move beyond his island fastness, to find a family. Rebirth is painful, and the book is full of violence and anger — but also happiness. Twice, the emotions are so strong that Welin flees back to his island. His is by no means a steady progress, more like a game of Chutes and Ladders; there is one especially shocking turnaround just as you think you’re coming into the home stretch. Mankell resolutely avoids easy endings; but the understated ending he does write is quietly moving and absolutely true.

There are several different Henning Mankells. Welin’s imperfections as a family man are an extension of Kurt Wallander of the detective novels, only without the crime. He has used the Baltic archipelago setting before in his WW1 psychodrama Depths, but this novel is modern, and thankfully less psychotic. Less isolated too, but the global politics that have been a concern of several of his later novels, most especially The Man from Beijing, are only a distant aura. But still a perceptible one; two of the women who enter Welin’s life are involved in a world beyond Sweden, mostly combating intolerance and greed. One of the characters has gone on pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela in search of God, but failed to find Him. “When I closed that church door behind me, there was nothing else left. But I realized that this emptiness was a sort of consolation in itself.” Mankell works with emptiness, turning it from negative space into a positive one, even a sacred space in a secular world. Long before Christianity, the Winter Solstice has always been associated with religious rites, a magic too mysterious for mere words.

And the title Mankell did choose? A small detail merely, a pair of handcrafted Italian Shoes, made over a period of months by an old Italian craftsman living in retirement in the Swedish forest. A sacrament also, they are a small example of the search for perfection, and a reminder of love where other loves have failed.

AMAZON READER RATING: stars-4-5from 35 readers
PUBLISHER: Vintage; Reprint edition (October 19, 2010)
REVIEWER: Roger Brunyate
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Henning Mankell
EXTRAS: Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: Read our review of:

Bibliography:

Kurt Wallander Series:

Stand alone novels:

Teen Read:

Movies from books:

]]> /2011/italian-shoes-by-henning-mankell/feed/ 0 MISTERIOSO by Arne Dahl /2011/misterioso-by-arne-dahl/ /2011/misterioso-by-arne-dahl/#comments Wed, 13 Jul 2011 16:00:48 +0000 /?p=19144 Book Quote:

“Not much had been said during the meeting, no new progress had been made. They were now working from the theory that the killing spree was over and that the deficit for the Swedish business world was going to stop at three and only three entries: Kuno Daggfeldt, Bernhard Strand-Julen, and Nils-Emil Carlberger.

They were wrong.”

Book Review:

Review by Bonnie Brody (JUL 13, 2011)

Misterioso by Arne Dahl is a unique and wonderful book. It is part mystery, part police procedural, part existential philosophy and part comedy. There is something so distinctive about this book that it resists categorization. On the surface, it is a mystery but so much of the novel lies below the surface, getting into the characters’ minds and thoughts as they live their lives and work at trying to catch a serial killer.

The title of the book comes from a piece of music composed by Thelonius Monk, a famous American jazz pianist and composer, now deceased. There is a serial killer on the loose in Sweden who is killing very rich and powerful men. The killer waits for his prey in the victim’s living room listening to Monk’s Misterioso on the stereo and when the victim arrives he is shot in the head two times. The killer views the music as “a pantomime, a peculiar dance of death.” The Swedish police put together what they call an A-Team to find this killer.

Paul Hjelm is one of those chosen for this select group. It is ironic for him as on the afternoon he was picked, he expected to be fired. He was with his colleagues that morning and there was a hostage situation in a building near police headquarters. An Estonian immigrant, here illegally, was holding a group of people in the immigration office hostage. Paul decides to take matters into his own hands and he goes into the office and shoots the man holding the others hostage. Paul feels very badly about doing this and expects Internal Affairs to fire him for his impulsive action. He acted on his own without waiting for back-up. Instead of being fired, he becomes a national hero.

The group gathered to form the A-Team is very original. There is a singer – a man who used to be Mr. Sweden when he took steroids; there is a Chilean who is called black-head because he is not blonde like most Swedes; there is a woman who also sings and likes to masturbate in her office; there is a Finn who has a secrets from his past life prior to coming to Sweden; there is a pedantic idealist who loves to give his political views. The reader sees how the team interacts and gets to know one another. Hultin, the team leader, always enters the room through a mysterious door that no one knows about. Where it comes from and where it leads to is a mystery.

As the team works together, there are four victims dead. The A-Team checks out all kinds of leads including the Russian and Estonian mafia, the victims’ businesses and personal lives, and they find out a lot of information. One of the victims is a pedophile, together the three of them tried to rape a woman who later committed suicide, and some of their businesses are involved in mafia corruption. “An amphetamine-babbling proprietor of a video store with private viewing booths in Norrmalm had cheerfully offered them some child porn films with Russian subtitles, even though they had shown him their police ID. He was arrested.”

Paul is in the midst of a marital crisis, an existential aloneness where he and his wife of many years, Cilla, can no longer communicate and find themselves totally separate. Paul has this “dreadful, unbearable feeling that we can never really reach anyone else. Never ever, not even those closest to us. The horrifying sensation of absolute existential aloneness. And now he saw this same emotion in Cilla’s eyes.”

We learn about the Palme murder that is a huge deal in Sweden. It is mentioned several times in this novel. Olof Palme, the Prime Minister of Sweden, was assassinated in 1986 and the murderer was never found. The A-Group does not want to be seen as ineffective like the investigation of the Palme murder turned out to be. It is very much in the back of their minds as they search for the serial killer. When they do not have luck finding the murderer after a month “either they were doing something fundamentally wrong, or else they were dealing with another Palme murder.”

We also learn about the prevalence of xenophobia in Sweden. The term black-head refers to anyone who doesn’t have blond hair as do most of the Swedes. There is a great deal of prejudice against immigrants and looking like a Swede is considered very important.

“The more they got to know each other, the harder it becames to understand each other. As always.” This background of existential ennui reminded me of Sartre and Camus, especially Sartre’s book Nausea. Paul becomes obsessed with a mark on his cheek, most likely a common pimple. However, he worries it’s melanoma and the mark takes on different shapes depending on his mood and the different crises he is facing.

Much of the dialog is tongue in cheek and I found myself laughing at the oddest moments. Tiina Nunnally did a wonderful job of translation and the book flows throughout. There is not a dull moment. It seems like the Scandinavians are having a true renaissance in crime writing and Arne Dahl is right at the top with this first in a 10 book series finally available to US readers.

AMAZON READER RATING: stars-4-5from 18 readers
PUBLISHER: Pantheon (July 12, 2011)
REVIEWER: Bonnie Brody
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Wikipedia page on Arne Dahl
EXTRAS: Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: More Scandinavian mysteries: 

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

The Shadow Woman by Ake Edwardson

The Snowman by Jo Nesbo

Bibliography (translated only):

]]> /2011/misterioso-by-arne-dahl/feed/ 0 THE TROUBLED MAN by Henning Mankell /2011/the-troubled-man-by-henning-mankell/ /2011/the-troubled-man-by-henning-mankell/#comments Sat, 09 Apr 2011 16:21:13 +0000 /?p=17284 Book Quote:

“Was his life really so restricted that major events taking place in the outside world never had much effect on him? What aspects of life had upset him? Pictures of children who had been badly treated, of course – but he had never been sufficiently moved to do anything about it. His excuse was always that he was too busy with work. I sometimes manage to help people by making sure that criminals are removed from the streets, he thought. But aside from that? He gazed out over the fields where nothing was yet growing, but he failed to find what he was looking for.”

Book Review:

Review by Bonnie Brody  (APR 09, 2011)

Henning Mankell’s Wallender mystery series has come to an end with The Troubled Man, the last book in this popular series that was also made into several movies for public television with Kenneth Branaugh playing the part of Wallander. Wallander has turned sixty in this book and he is obsessed with looking back on life and not seeing much for his future except growing old. He dwells on the past a lot. At one point he considers entering a restaurant that he used to patronize, that had a waitress there he liked, but he changes his mind. “He knew why he didn’t go in, of course. He was afraid of finding somebody else behind the counter, and being forced to accept that here too, in that café, time had moved on and that he would never be able to return to what now lay so far away and in the past.”

Wallander is a police detective who carries the world on his shoulders. He suffers from diabetes, drinks too much and is very lonely. He often dwells on the dark side of life. After his fiftieth birthday party, thrown by his colleagues, he starts to write a list of everyone he knew who has died. The list depresses him so much that he has to stop because there are so many suicides on the list.

Recently, Wallender went on a drinking binge and for some reason took his police revolver with him, leaving it at a restaurant. He was reported and put on administrative leave. During the time he is on leave, his daughter Linda has a baby. This is the one bright spot in his life. He agrees to go to Linda’s prospective father-in-law’s 75th birthday party. While there, Linda’s prospective father-in-law, Hakan Von Enke, tells him a very troubling story. Early in the 1980’s, while he was in the navy, he was an officer on a Swedish submarine. The Swedish submarine detected a Russian submarine in Swedish waters where it should not be. Remember, this was still the height of the cold war. The protocol was to scare the ship and if the ship did not retreat, the protocol was then to drop depth charges to force it to the surface. For some unknown reason, the commander was told to leave the ship alone. The ship was let go and Von Enke has become obsessed with what or who was behind this order. On top of that, he is acting fearful, as though there is someone after him. At one point in his conversation with Wallender, he hears a noise and his hand goes inside his jacket. Wallender suspects that Von Enke is carrying a gun. There is also someone suspicious lurking outside the window.

A short time after Wallender and Von Enke have this talk, Von Enke disappears. He leaves for his morning walk and never returns. On top of that, Louise, his wife, also disappears some time later. Wallender decides that he needs to look for them and find out what happened. After all, they are Linda’s prospective in-laws. He is still on administrative leave when he begins to look for them, fairly sure that their disappearance is connected in some way to the story about the submarine. Wallender gets to learn a lot more about the cold war than he ever knew before. Once Wallender is back at his job, though he is not officially part of the investigation to find the von Enkes, he continues to look for them. Suffice it to say, nothing is what it seems and the plot unfolds with many unexpected twists and turns leaving the reader spellbound. Most importantly, this book reflects real life and the consequences, both intended and unintended, of past actions.

Though this is a mystery, it is much less action driven than a typical American mystery. We get to know a lot about Wallender: his fears about aging, his loneliness, his philosophy of life and his generalized depressive attitude. The book has many twists and turns but is ultimately character driven. It is a fine book about a detective that has won the hearts of many readers. I know that I will miss him a lot. However, Mankell is very versatile and besides mysteries he has recently written a fine book called Daniel. Whatever genre Mankell chooses to continue with, I look forward to reading his books.

AMAZON READER RATING: stars-4-0from 65 readers
PUBLISHER: Knopf (March 29, 2011)
REVIEWER: Bonnie Brody
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Henning Mankell
EXTRAS: Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: Read our review of:

Also feeling their age:

Bibliography:

Kurt Wallander Series:

Stand alone novels:

Teen Read:

Movies from books:

]]> /2011/the-troubled-man-by-henning-mankell/feed/ 0 DANIEL by Henning Mankell /2010/daniel-by-henning-mankell/ /2010/daniel-by-henning-mankell/#comments Wed, 15 Dec 2010 15:22:54 +0000 /?p=14144 Book Quote:

“I’m a little boy, he thought. I have travelled much too far away. My parents and the other people I lived with are dead. And yet they live. They are still closer to me than the man called Father and the woman who doesn’t dare come close enough for me to grab her. My journey has been much too long. I am in a desert I do not recognize, and the sounds that surround me are foreign.”

Book Review:

Review by Bonnie Brody  (DEC 15, 2010)

Sometimes we open a book and become totally immersed. We are enthralled. That’s how I felt while reading Daniel by Henning Mankell. Traditionally known for his Swedish mysteries in the Wallander series, Mankell travels far afield from his usual writing in Daniel. Here we are given the treasures of writing that examine the internal, the stuff of the heart and mind. It is a small book in size but it is huge in scope and packs a big wallop.

In the Kalahari Desert in 1878 live a group of Bushmen known as the San people. They are being raped and pillaged by the Colonialists who murder every one they can. When 9 year-old Molo’s family is killed, he is in hiding and manages to escape the rampage. He is eventually caught, however, by a Swedish man named Anderssen who puts him in a small cage and pulls him to the nearest settlement. There he is seen by Hans Bengler, a Swedish wannabe scientist, who trades something for him. Hans calls Molo “Daniel” and requires that Daniel call him “father.” Neither knows the other’s language. Daniel pines for his parents, Be and Kiko.

Bengler has traveled to Africa to collect insects and with the goal of finding an insect never catalogued before.  After he finds a beetle that he thinks has never been seen in Europe, he returns to his home in Sweden and brings Daniel with him. Daniel keeps trying to escape in order to get back to his home in the sand so Bengler resorts to tying him up at night.

The first part of the story is in the form of a long letter written by Bengler to a prostitute he used to visit regularly in Sweden. He tells Matilda of his adventures, of finding the beetle and finding Daniel. Bengler teaches Daniel to speak some Swedish and how to open and close doors with the appropriate etiquette. He also teaches him to bow and to say “My name is Daniel and I believe in God.” Naturally Daniel is not aware of what his words mean but he is supposed to say them to everyone he is introduced to. Bengler has some plans for Daniel but he has little money and all the plans fall through, including showing Daniel off in a circus.

Most Swedes in the nineteenth century have never seen a black boy before and Daniel is a new sight for them. Along with Bengler, Daniel goes through one sad set of affairs after another. Not knowing the culture, Daniel doesn’t know the basic things such as how to eat, where to urinate, how to dress. He’s never worn shoes before and hates the feel of them on his feet. He begins to pick up the language but attempts to remain mute. He listens and observes, trying not to speak.

The second part of the book is told from Daniel’s perspective. His culture becomes known to the reader as Daniel dreams about his parents and they give him advice and are with him emotionally. Daniel wants to join them again and to do this he thinks he must learn to walk on water so that he can return to Africa. He practices walking on water but can not master the task. He even asks a minister how Jesus managed to walk on water and is met with anger. Daniel finally realizes that he will never master this task and his heart sinks. He must find another way to return to his land.

During the course of Daniel’s struggles to return home, he is witness to atrocities committed by Bengler, sent to live with another family and has his life turned upside down multiple times. What keeps him sane are the memories of his family and their visits to him in his thoughts and dreams. He especially wants to return home to the sand so that he can finish a drawing of an antelope that has religious and mystical meaning for him. Daniel meets a young woman who is emotionally disturbed and the two of them decide to try and travel to Africa together.

Daniel of the Old Testament was a prophet, a captive, and received an education. In a metaphorical sense, Mankell’s Daniel meets these criteria. However, he never accepts his “new” home and does not advance in society as the biblical Daniel does. Mankell’s Daniel, even at the young age of 9 years old, is a person of deep roots and memory. He knows where his home is and where his bearings are.

This is a deep book, a book of journeys and pitfalls, but Daniel never gives up. No matter what he must face, he knows where he needs to go and what he must do to find himself and his home. Mankell, who lives part-time in Sweden and part-time in Mozambique, has created a small masterpiece and has shown his ability to change genres and create something new and wonderful. (Translated by Stephen T. Murray.)

AMAZON READER RATING: stars-4-9from 13 readers
PUBLISHER: New Press, The (November 9, 2010)
REVIEWER: Bonnie Brody
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Henning Mankell
EXTRAS: Reading Guide and Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: Read our review of:

Bibliography:

Kurt Wallander Series:

Stand alone novels:

Teen Read:

Movies from books:

]]> /2010/daniel-by-henning-mankell/feed/ 0 THE SHADOW WOMAN by Ake Edwardson /2010/the-shadow-woman-by-ake-edwardson/ /2010/the-shadow-woman-by-ake-edwardson/#comments Sun, 28 Nov 2010 02:50:27 +0000 /?p=13803 Book Quote:

“Crime is an army. He was a policeman but he wasn’t cynical. He believed in the power of good, and that was why he spoke about evil. It was impenetrable, like observing the enemy through bulletproof glass. Anyone who tried to comprehend it with reason went under. He was starting to realize this, but he still had the urge to get in close to defeat that monster. If you couldn’t use your goodness and intellect to confront evil close up, what were you supposed to use? The thought had flashed through his mind before – a thought that was like a black hole right in the middle of reality, terrifying: that evil could be fought only in kind.”

Book Review:

Review by Lynn Harnett  (NOV 27, 2010)

Sweden’s youngest ever chief inspector, at thirty-seven years old, cuts his vacation short when one of his team – a black, Swedish-born woman – has her jaw broken at the annual Gothenburg party, an outdoor late-summer festival at which nativist thugs get drunk and run amok, often in motorcycle gangs.

Gothenburg is sweltering in an August heat wave and Winter shows up for work in cut-offs, a rock band tee shirt and uncut hair – quite a contrast to his usual designer suits and perfect grooming. The attack on his officer has provoked an unaccustomed rage and he unleashes it on his ex-brother-in-law, a criminal with racist ties. “Winter opened his eyes again and looked at his hands. Were they his? It had felt good clenching his fingers around Vennerhag’s jaw.”

It doesn’t take long to round up the attackers, but a murdered woman found in a lakeside ditch effectively ends Winter’s vacation. She has no id or identifying marks; her fingerprints aren’t in any database and no one has reported her missing, though the autopsy shows she’s had a child.

Winter, who finds himself musing on the nature of evil and the urge to fight violence with violence, sets his team in motion, chasing down every lead they can think of, no matter how thin:

“An investigation is a great big vacuum cleaner that sucks in everything: witness statements and forensic evidence, sound ideas and crazy hunches, most of it completely irrelevant to the case. Eventually you find things that fit together. Then you can formulate a hypothesis.”

It takes almost half the book to trace the woman’s identity. Meanwhile the narrative breaks for interludes with a child held captive and missing her mother and a lonely old lady growing anxious about her missing neighbors.

A police procedural with a strong psychological bent, Edwardson’s series stays primarily on Winter, while branching out to include details of his team’s private lives and aspirations. Winter himself is on the brink of a life choice, spurred by his girlfriend Angela’s ultimatum.

The prose is Scandinavian spare with a vivid sense of place only occasionally confusing to an American audience. Fans of Scandinavian crime fiction will love Edwardson. (Translated by Per Carlsson)

AMAZON READER RATING: stars-4-0from 21 readers
PUBLISHER: Penguin (Non-Classics); Reprint edition (September 28, 2010)
REVIEWER: Lynn Harnett
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE:
EXTRAS: An Interview with Ake Edwardson
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: Other Swedish novels:

Partial Bibliography:

Chief Inspector Erik Winter Novels:

]]> /2010/the-shadow-woman-by-ake-edwardson/feed/ 1 BETWEEN SUMMER’S LONGING AND WINTER’S END by Leif GW Persson /2010/between-summers-longing-and-winters-end-by-leif-gw-persson/ /2010/between-summers-longing-and-winters-end-by-leif-gw-persson/#comments Wed, 15 Sep 2010 20:43:31 +0000 /?p=12138 Book Quote:

“Despite the fact that the secret Swedish military and political cooperation with the United States and the other Western powers was thirty years old, and that in all essentials it had ceased twenty years ago, it still had considerable political explosive force. Describing the Russian bear as more and more moth-eaten was one thing. It wasn’t true, however, for his paws had never been more powerful than now; the fact that certain small teddy bears in his own winter lair had started talking back and nosing longingly in a westerly direction as soon as the wind was right only made him even more irritable.”

Book Review:

Review by Betsey Van Horn (SEP 15, 2010)

At the center of this Swedish espionage thriller is the death of an American journalist, John P. Krassner, circa 1988. Was it an accident, a suicide, or murder? The facts known at the opening is that first his body and then his boot falls from the 16th floor of a student dormitory. The boot struck and killed a Pomeranian named Charlie. Charlie’s owner, Vindel, is trying to recount the seconds between the body and the boot falling from the window.

After this wry and arresting opening, the reader is plunged into a dense and plodding world of Swedish politics. The characters and their careers are portrayed in all their Byzantine splendor, from the intricacies of the police and secret police (SePo) departments; to the police surveillance squad and covert operations; inside the Swedish Parliament; as well as the connections to WW II, the Cold War, and the U.S. central intelligence agency. There are many circuitous routes in the midst of this story, from the Russian communists to the beginnings of Sweden’s system of neutrality.

Lars Johansson is a solitary man, a “real policeman,” and the police superintendent on his way to becoming the head of the National Bureau of Criminal Investigation. He is a perspicacious type who seems to see around corners and figure out how things stand. The case comes to his attention from his best friend, Detective Chief Inspector, Bo Jarnebring, (from the department’s surveillance squad). He received Krassner’s belongings, including his boots, which had a hollow heel and a slip of paper stating “an honorable cop, Lars Johansson,” complete with Johansson’s address and phone number and a key to a safety deposit box.

Additionally, there appears to be a suicide note typed on Krassner’s Panasonic and parts of a manuscript of a book documenting and revealing spy secrets and transcripts of the West. Lars had never heard of Krassner before, and this begins his investigation into the case.

While Johansson is in the U.S. for some FBI training seminars, he follows up with Krassner’s ex-girlfriend, Sarah Weissman, to seek out more information. This proves valuable and sets him on a trail of espionage leading back to WW II and the OSS. Krassner’s uncle was a spy and an intransigent Irish racist who passed on his traits and his personal effects to his nephew.

In the meantime, Erik Berg, the head of SePo, is apprised of the case. He brings in his best friend, Claes Waltin, who he doesn’t fully trust. Waltin is the Police Superintendent and head of external operations. He is also a psychopath and a sexual deviant who keeps his perversions under wraps and uses his shrewd talent to further his personal and career ambitions.

As story unfolds, a web is manifested that expands into several areas of the government, covering a wide range of people and bureaus, including the Ministry of Justice. The author, while keeping the reader with one eye blind, teases out the facts gradually and uncovers a tremendous trail of secrets that connect, interconnect, and even disconnect various departments and governments.

There is a huge cast of characters, made up primarily of assorted members of the police force. Moreover, there are other colorful people and events, such as an alcoholic professor, a “deep throat” type, female exploitation by Waltin, a heavy-lidded special advisor to the prime minister, and the fascinating childhoods of Waltin and Johansson. And there are enough hearty, heavy meals to whet the appetite and gain ten pounds!

I was intrigued by the elaborate story and the complexities of plot and character. The problem was that, after the droll opening, the narrative style becomes ponderous and almost crushes under its own weight. The pace was labored and read much like a text or chronicle. It was too often too dry, and would have been improved with more of the sly levity that characterized the opening pages. Instead, it was frequently fraught with detail and tedious profiling. But his acumen–what makes people tick–kept me wanting more.

Moreover, the book was highly engaging and entertaining when Persson portrayed certain incompetent members of the police force and their operations as comparable to Keystone Cops adventures. And, in the end, Persson doesn’t let the reader down. We eventually understand that Krassner is at the center of a Gordian Knot with many fibers.

After reading the author’s bio sketch, I understood his style better. Persson has chronicled the political and social development of modern Swedish society for more than three decades in his novels. He has served as an adviser to the Swedish Ministry of Justice and is Sweden’s most renowned psychological profiler. (Translated by Paul Norlen.)

AMAZON READER RATING: stars-3-5from 2 readers
PUBLISHER: Pantheon (September 14, 2010)
REVIEWER: Betsey Van Horn
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Wikipedia  page on Leif GW Persson

Wikipedia page in Swedish
EXTRAS: Reading Guide and Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: More Swedish mystery/thriller:

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

Box 21 by Anders Roslund & Borge Hellstrom

Bibliography:

  • Pig Party (1978)
  • The Profiteers (1979)
  • The Pillars of Society (1982)
  • Linda – As in The Linda Murder Case (2005)
  • He  Who Kills the Dragon (2008)
  • The Dying Detective (2010)

Welfare State Cases: (Trilogy about Swedish Prime Minister Olaf Palme)‘s assination:

]]> /2010/between-summers-longing-and-winters-end-by-leif-gw-persson/feed/ 0 THE GIRL WHO KICKED THE HORNET’S NEST by Stieg Larsson /2010/the-girl-who-kicked-the-hornets-nest-by-stieg-larsson/ /2010/the-girl-who-kicked-the-hornets-nest-by-stieg-larsson/#comments Tue, 25 May 2010 04:15:49 +0000 /?p=9616 Book Quote:

“Her name is Lisbeth Salander. Sweden has got to know her through police reports and press releases and the headlines in the evening papers. She is twenty-seven years old and one metre fifty centimeters tall. She has been called a psychopath, a murderer, and a lesbian Satanist. There has been almost no limit to the fantasies that have been circulated about her. In this issue, Millennium will tell the story of how government officials conspired against Salander in order to protect a pathological murderer…”

Book Review:

Review by Kirstin Merrihew (MAY 24, 2010)

The Girl Who Played with Fire ended with Mikael Blomkvist dialing for emergency help after he found a man with an axe in his head and fugitive-from-the-law Lisbeth Salander in extremely critical condition with a bullet lodged in hers. The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest begins where Fire left off, and soon both Lisbeth and the man, Alexander Zalachenko, aka Karl Axel Bodin, are being airlifted to Sahlgrenska hospital. After undergoing operations, both patients are placed in the same critical care wing. Although the medical staff keeps them isolated, since they are mortal enemies, keeping them from attacking each other could be an impossibility if they wake up and manage to pull themselves out of bed. Meanwhile, Sweden’s law enforcers try to determine what charges should to be filed against each of them, but especially against multiple murder suspect Salander.

Meanwhile, Blomkvist, who used duct tape and clean sheets to keep Lisbeth’s blood inside her before the paramedics took over, isn’t allowed to see her. He has his own problems with the police. They want to know about the gun in his possession and about exactly what happened at Bodin’s Gosseberga farm. Mikael doesn’t have all the answers and even those he does have, he isn’t ready to fully disclose. In addition, he’s infuriated at the keystone cops who refused to heed his warning about the immense danger — even when trussed up — presented by the third person he — and Salander before him — encountered that night: the giant, Ronald Niedermann. And Blomkvist wants to get back to the offices of Millennium magazine so he can get on with his investigation into who masterminded more than two decades of cover-up that allowed Zalachenko to commit untold crimes and Lisbeth to be placed into a psychiatric facility and then declared mentally incompetent as an adult. The quote that introduced this review is lifted from his Word document; he is organizing the facts he has accumulated thus far. He’s kept so busy that he doesn’t even ask about how Lisbeth is doing for a while, and when he does think to ask, he feels his oversight wasn’t insensitivity, but a subconscious confidence in her will to survive: “It dawned on him that he had not been worried about her. He had assumed that she would survive. Any other outcome was unthinkable.”

And so, the reader immediately gets into the thick of things in the final volume of the late Stieg Larsson’s trilogy about the asocial girl with an eidetic mind (at least until her head wound), deep secrets that include her extraordinary computer hacker abilities and her burning, vigilante sense of justice. As in the previous books, quite a few epithets, some casual sex, lots of investigative journalism, and jags of violence and vengeance mark this novel. Alongside, it continues the unusual and winning liaison between Lisbeth Salander and “Kalle Bastard” Blomkvist. Endearingly and memorably, when one is in trouble, the other pulls out all the stops.

Broadly speaking, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo dealt with corporate greed and the violent secrets in the family of one of Sweden’s magnates. Then, Larsson turned to exposing the underbelly of the sex trade in Fire. Now, the subject is violation of Sweden’s constitution by a shadowy group. What can the media — to which Mikael Blomkvist belongs — do to uncover and expose the corruption and the illegal activities that have gone unchecked for so long? Can Blomkvist legally and ethically cooperate with the horde of legitimate authorities also suddenly launching criminal probes? Assuming his instincts are right and Salander does recover, can he find a way to communicate and work in tandem with her even if she is under arrest? And what can he do to help his sister defend Lisbeth in court if it comes to that?

In addition to the main story, this volume spools out a subplot about Erika Berger’s resignation from Millennium in order to become editor-in-chief at a major daily Swedish newspaper (in Fire, she had already begun thinking of making this transition). In her new job, she has to confront ethical questions about a story her old publication is investigating that might implicate someone with powerful ties to her new organization. And to top it off, she finds herself and others at the newspaper the targets of increasingly edgy and possibly dangerous harassment.

Although Blomkvist and Salander are by no means ignored in Hornet’s Nest, much of the novel is another procedural that courts tedium. The novel, slightly longer than the previous one, just suffers from too many cops from various agencies, too many prosecutors and other officials whose meticulously chronicled activities gum up the story. Arguably, the inevitable trial compensates for all that tedious groundwork, but Larsson also made what some readers will undoubtedly consider a mistake when he fairly thoroughly explained the plot’s major conspiracy early in the book from the viewpoint of one set of people and then used a large chunk of the remainder of the novel to show step-by-step how other characters unraveled that surreptitious set-up. The tale does perk up when certain characters connect and spark. But on the downside again, Blomkvist and Salander (necessarily) have very little face time together.

The idealistic activist Larsson used his characters as a platform to preach against the imperfections of Sweden’s systems of government, legal system, police, etc. I’m reminded of a somewhat similar subordination of character to message in the recently published “novel” entitled, Red to Black, by a journalist in Russia who employs the pseudonym Alex Dryden. However, Dryden fills his book with a great deal of allegedly true information about Putin and other power players in Russia and their purportedly conspiratorial activities. Dryden sometimes gets so carried away with background facts and figures that he neglects his featured couple. Larsson’s story is fiction, not lightly veneered nonfiction, although it does reference real people and actual historical occurrences from time to time. However, Larsson’s own experiences as a reporter and activist clearly served as a basis for Blomkvist’s activities as an investigative journalist and for fleshing out the rest of the detailed inquiries into who is doing what. Accordingly, Larsson’s novel has more of a nonfiction feel than it truly contains. That needn’t be a negative, except that Larsson ventured too far away from Blomkvist and Salander too often and allowed his penchant for adjunct characters and describing procedure to mar tight, more suspenseful plot structure.

In my review of Fire, I wondered whether the Salander/Blomkvist trilogy would conclude satisfactorily. I think it does. Many ongoing questions are resolved by the last page of Hornet’s Nest. There is closure of sorts — although, among a few ongoing issues: the whereabouts of Camilla, Lisbeth’s mysterious twin sister. Nevertheless, after I’d finished the last sentence, I couldn’t help wondering what Larsson might have presented to us had he lived and been able to write the ten books he apparently envisioned. An arc that only really began in this trilogy could have deepened and strengthened the bond between the taciturn woman who looks like a child and thought she was in love with Blomkvist and the journalist who, as his sister says, “…is completely irresponsible when it comes to relationships. He screws his way through life and doesn’t seem to grasp how much it can hurt those women who think of him as more than a casual affair.” I would have liked to have witnessed that Salander/Blomkvist evolution. But the series does rest here at a natural stopping place, and that creates decided contentment.

AMAZON READER RATING: stars-4-5from 889 readers
PUBLISHER: Knopf (May 25, 2010)
REVIEWER: Kirstin Merrihew
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Stieg Larsson
EXTRAS: Excerpt

Possible 4th novel?
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: Read our review of:

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

The Girl Who Played with Fire

Bibliography:

Movies from books:

  • The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2008)
]]> /2010/the-girl-who-kicked-the-hornets-nest-by-stieg-larsson/feed/ 1 THE MAN FROM BEIJING by Henning Mankell /2010/man-from-the-beijing-by-henning-mankell/ /2010/man-from-the-beijing-by-henning-mankell/#comments Wed, 17 Feb 2010 03:38:15 +0000 /?p=7850 Book Quote:

“I understand that this letter will wreak havoc with your investigation. But what we are all searching for, of course, is clarity. I hope that what I have written can contribute to that…. The day we stop searching for the truth, which is never objective but under the best circumstances built on facts, is the day on which our system of justice collapses completely.”

Book Review:

Review by Eleanor Bukowsky (FEB 16, 2010)

Henning Mankell’s The Man from Beijing, ably translated by Laurie Thompson, opens in January 2006. It is eerily quiet in the northern Swedish hamlet of Hesjövallen. No smoke rises from the chimneys and not a soul stirs. A photographer studying deserted villages in Sweden arrives and knocks on doors, but no one answers. Fearing that something is wrong, he breaks into one of the houses and to his horror, “there was an old woman lying on the kitchen floor. Her head was almost totally severed from her neck. Beside her lay the carcass of a dog, cut in two.” This isolated place will soon make headlines as the scene of a massacre “unprecedented in the annals of Swedish crime.” An unknown assailant used an extremely sharp weapon to torture and cut up his victims.

After Detective Vivian Sundberg and her team survey the carnage, they call for reinforcements, but even experienced law enforcement officials are stymied by the slaughter of nineteen people, most of them elderly. Equally puzzling is the fact that three individuals living in Hesjövallen were left alive. A district judge, fifty-seven year old Birgitta Roslin, has a personal interest in the matter (her mother grew up in Hesjövallen), and we get to know Roslin intimately. She takes her job seriously, suffers from recurrent panic attacks and high-blood pressure, has four grown children whom she sees infrequently, and worries about the future of her passionless marriage. Her fate will be inextricably tied up with the mass murder, which grew out of terrible events whose roots lie in the distant past.

The beginning of the book has an epic sweep and is absolutely mesmerizing. Mankell takes us to China in 1863, where the peasants live in squalor and are oppressed by wealthy and avaricious landowners. The author poignantly recounts the odyssey of three orphaned brothers who travel to Canton to find work. Eventually, they cross the path of predators who transport them in chains to the United States, where they spend many backbreaking hours cleaving mountains and laying rail lines for the transcontinental railroad. Because one of the brothers manages to survive long enough to leave a detailed diary, the tale of his family’s suffering will have grave consequences more than a century later.
Birgitta, whose mother grew up with foster parents in Hesjövallen, uses her sharp judicial mind to form a theory about the killings, based on the fact that a Chinese man was seen in the vicinity of Hesjövallen around the time of the murders. Since the police do not take her ideas seriously, she takes advantage of an opportunity to visit China with an old friend, Karin. There, Birgitta visits the Forbidden City, sees the Great Wall, and reminisces about her younger years as a radical who supported Mao’s ideals of solidarity and liberation. She also tries to learn the identity of the man behind the mass execution in Sweden. Unfortunately, her inquiries place her in danger, since she is being watched by a powerful and psychotic villain who will dispose of her if she gets too close to the truth.

Here, the novel starts to lose steam, as Mankell not only reveals the identity of the killer (a one-dimensional monster), but also introduces too many extraneous characters and subplots. Also irritating is the incredible ineptitude of the Swedish police, who are so clueless that Birgitta has to do their job for them. In addition, the pace of the narrative is slowed by tedious and heavy-handed passages in which various individuals lecture about China’s path to the future. Should this emerging superpower make more of an effort to stay true to its communist roots instead of succumbing to the lures of capitalism? Mankell has combined a crime story with a depiction of a female jurist’s midlife crisis and a polemic about China’s efforts to become a worldwide economic and political force. This is far too much baggage for one work of fiction.

The Man from Beijing might have been more satisfying had the author focused throughout on the massacre and on Birgitta’s efforts to solve the mystery and put her troubled life back together. As it stands, Mankell has written half of a good novel. The second half is a bit dreary and diffuse, and it will take some persistence to stay the course for the entire 366 pages.

AMAZON READER RATING: stars-3-0from 186 readers
PUBLISHER: Knopf (February 16, 2010)
REVIEWER: Eleanor Bukowsky
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE:
EXTRAS: Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: Read our review of:

Other Swedish crime writers:

Bibliography:

Kurt Wallander Series:

Stand alone novels:

Teen Read:

Movies from books:

]]> /2010/man-from-the-beijing-by-henning-mankell/feed/ 0 THE DARKEST ROOM by Johan Theorin /2009/the-darkest-room-by-johan-theorin/ /2009/the-darkest-room-by-johan-theorin/#comments Sat, 07 Nov 2009 22:18:00 +0000 /?p=6181 Book Quote:

“This is where my book begins, Katrine, the year when the Manor House at Eel Point was built. For me the manor was more than a house where my mother and I lived, it was the place where I became an adult.

Ragnar Davidsson, the eel fisherman, once told me that large parts of the manor were built with salvaged cargo from a German vessel carrying timber. I believe him. On the wall at the far end of the hayloft, the words “in memory of Christian Ludwig” are carved into one of the planks.

I have heard the dead whispering in the walls. They have much to tell.”

Book Review:

Review by Sudheer Apte (NOV 7, 2009)

Off the east coast of Sweden, on the Baltic sea, is the island of Oland, historically populated by fishermen and farmers. Swedish author Johan Theorin knows the area well, and he has used its cold, forbidding terrain as well as rich legends to great effect in both of his mystery novels so far.

The second of these novels, published as “Nattfaak” in Sweden last year, won numerous awards. Its English translation, The Darkest Room, is now available through Random House, and we are lucky to be able to enjoy it.

A young couple, Joakim and Katrine Westin, move from the big city of Stockholm with their two little children to the quiet island. They buy the fictitious Eel Point manor near a pair of lighthouses, and set out to refurbish it. A large, old house with centuries of history, the manor seems to hold stories of lives gone by: we hear some of these as introductory snippets or as interleaved passages with the main narrative. The creaks and groans of the house’s frame in the strong sea winds seem to replay tragedies and menace from decades and centuries ago.

But The Darkest Room is no cheap ghost thriller: far from it. As the couple starts settling in, we learn gradually that Katrine has a strong connection with the manor—her mother Mirja Rambe, a Bohemian single woman, once lived on the property with her own mother, a famous artist. Mirja is full of stories about the manor, but it is not clear how many of them are true. Moreover, we learn later on that the couple’s move to the country was not just a move away from the city life, but in fact had rather traumatic reasons behind it.

The island is not welcoming at all, and in the first few pages, tragedy strikes our young couple, which sends Joakim reeling and unable to sleep. Meanwhile, a gang of three bored young men is loose on the island, doing drugs and breaking into houses to steal things, just as a freshly minted policewoman is posted to keep law and order. The policewoman, Tilda Davidsson, has her hands full fighting for respect from her male chauvinist colleagues, and on the side she is discovering more details about her own connection to the island and the manor, by interviewing her old uncle. When we meet her, she is additionally in the middle of a messy affair of her own.

The novel is exquisitely plotted. Every character, no matter how minor, turns out to be important to the story. And slowly, convincingly, loose strings turn out to lead to knots of deceit, subterfuge, and murder. The crimes are, for the most part, not ordinary ones. Because of the careful order in which Theorin exposes his facts, a rich seam of motives of various people is uncovered, along with themes of grief and loss. The crime story is very logical, and it is enhanced by strong suggestions of the supernatural and by a fantastic sense of place. (Ttanslated by Marlaine Delargy.)

AMAZON READER RATING: stars-4-5from 19 readers
PUBLISHER: Delta (September 29, 2009)
REVIEWER: Sudheer Apte
AMAZON PAGE: The Darkest Room
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Official website for Johan Theorin

Wikipedia page on Johan Theorin
EXTRAS: Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: Other supernatual mysteries of note:

Isabella Moon by Laura Benedict

A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick

And more set in Sweden:

The Girl in the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

Box 21 by Anders Roslund and Börge Hellström

Bibliography:

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