Midwinter Sacrifice is the first book in a new series of Swedish crime fiction. This series, written by Mons Kallentoft, introduces a unique and very interesting Swedish detective: Malin Fors of the Linköping police.

Malin Fors is an intriguing and complex heroine – she is tough, has had serious problems in her marriage and is now divorced. She also has a problematic relationship with her daughter, and tends to drink too much. She is mostly unbalanced and on the edge. I tend to think of her as a blend: one part Irene Huss, one part Inspector Winter and one part Harry Hole. She is talented, ambitious, tough, smart and unpredictable. She listens and ponders:

‘An investigation consists of a mass of voices, the sort you can hear, and the sort you can’t. You have to listen to the soundless voices, Malin. That’s where the truth is hidden.’

In Midwinter Sacrifice, a man is found hanging in a tree in the middle of the winter in Sweden. He is very beaten up and was most likely murdered, possibly in a ritual of some kind. We follow Malin Fors as she doggedly investigates this difficult case, first seeking to determine the identity of the deceased. Then the investigation progresses into the life of the murdered man – including his very strange and tangled relationships. He was, it seems, a bit of a loner and a man harassed by many and liked by few.

The investigation is thorough and very interesting to read. Midwinter Sacrifice in some ways may be viewed as opening up and shining a light on the inner workings of a seemingly peaceful social democratic and egalitarian Swedish small town; it shows the hidden life under the picturesque surface. Gradually the investigation reveals that the dead man was much damaged and that he played a role in an earlier, very tragic event. We also learn more about a group of strange, quite destitute people living outside the city.

The author uses supernatural-like elements to great effect in this book. I usually don’t like “whispering voices” or similar devices in crime fiction books, but this, I suppose, is a matter of taste. Mons Kallentoft writes these sequences in a different prose, and creates effects that are peculiar, esoteric, and almost dreamlike.

I liked the book – it is an intriguing exploration of evil; this is not a new theme in crime fiction exactly, but Kallentoft manages to penetrate deep enough into its origins and into some pretty cold hearts to make the plot plausible. The investigation is very interesting and the ending quite satisfactory and very suspenseful.
Moreover, Kallentoft is an outstanding writer, and the translation is excellent too. Also, the character descriptions are very good, and his descriptions of the settings and the wintery Swedish landscape very evocative. So, as you understand, I enjoyed Midwinter Sacrifice and I also very much enjoyed reading about Malin Fors. She is an interesting character that I look forward to meeting again!

Reviews of Midwinter Sacrifice:

“Mons Kallentoft has realized that the language in a mystery story does not have to be one-dimensional and totally focused on suspense. His first novel about Linköping police officer Malin Fors is definitely one of this spring’s highlights.” — Svenska Dagbladet

“The action takes place in Linköping, a town surrounded by snow-covered plains that could have come from the Coen Brothers movie, Fargo, although with different overtones. (…). Kallentoft shifts the perspective ever so slightly, to a different language, a different mood. Only just enough so that one feels lost. It’s a new territory, that Linköping where Malin Fors lives.” —
Lotta Olsson, Dagens Nyheter

“More very impressive input from another Scandinavian writer with something refreshingly different to say and with a different way of saying it . . . the background of Sweden in the grip of a cruel and punishing winter is brought vividly to the page. His illustration of the complex character of his heroine is also impressive . . . An impressive book.” —Tangled Web

Links to books by Mons Kallentoft at Amazon US, Amazon UK, and Amazon CAN.

The Boy in the Suitcase is a new, wonderful addition to the already quite large Scandinavian crime fiction literature in translation. For a long time, writers from Sweden, Norway and Iceland dominated international Scandinavian crime fiction, but now several new and very interesting Danish writers are being published internationally as well. Earlier this year, the first book in Jussi Adler-Olsen’s series about Department Q and the peculiar and quite intuitive detective Carl Morck was published both in the UK and the US. And now we get the first installment in Kaaberbøl and Friis’ excellent series of their Nina Borg Mysteries.

The very intriguing mystery in The Boy in the Suitcase revolves around the finding of a small boy in a luggage locker in Copenhagen Central Station. Inside a suitcase. Neatly folded. For that is how you go about smuggling a 3 year old boy into Denmark: You fold him neatly and put him in a suitcase?!

Nina Borg, a nurse working with immigrants in Denmark for the Danish Red Cross, is the person who makes the shocking discovery. She was asked by her friend Karen to retrieve the suitcase. Nina is utterly stunned. Who is the little boy? Why was he left there? Where is he from? What language does he speak? And what now? What should she do?

The plot has several threads that are interwoven, and the authors move from one thread to the next sequentially. The main threads involve the well-to-do Danish architect who has purchased a “good”; a shady Eastern European gangster who has sold the “good”; a Lithuanian single mother named Sigita who doesn’t drink, but nevertheless has somehow become so intoxicated that she almost lost her life and who is now living through the nightmare of having lost what some others consider a “good”; and the energetic and at times quite single-minded Nina Borg who is now in possession of what for some is the “good” but for her is a problem and something she feels compassion for.

The Boy in the Suitcase tells an ugly tale about the buying and selling of human beings and the disgusting realities of this kind of trade. The authors do not describe this market in the abstract, but instead give it a human face: the faces of the neatly folded little boy named Mikas and his mother Sigita, the face of the rich Dane who wants to buy a better life and marital bliss, the face of the gangster who is a businessman and just wants to make a little money, and others.

It is a very strong story. And in the midst of it is Nina, who, after retrieving the suitcase, has a hard time getting in touch with her friend Karin. And then Karin is brutally murdered by hard men searching for the “good” that was lost; the “good” which to them means a fortune and is a means to realize dreams. Now Nina realizes that her life too is in danger and that someone is after her and the boy. As the pursuers get closer and closer, she tries to find out who the boy is and how to best deal with the horrible situation.

The Boy in the Suitcase is an exceptional crime fiction debut that shines a light on a tragic and real social issue. It manages to address this problem with a seriousness and social conscience that add significant weight to the story. It is an engaging, suspenseful, and excellently written crime fiction novel with complex and well-drawn characters which has been a bestseller throughout Scandinavia. The Boy in the Suitcase is definitely worth a read!

Links to books by Agnete Friis and Lene Kaaberbol at Amazon US, Amazon UK, and Amazon CAN.

Reviews of The Boy in the Suitcase:

“Stunning. Hooked me from the beginning. The Danish bourgeoisie and the criminal underworld collide in a moving, fast-paced thriller with psychological depth.”—Cara Black, bestselling author of Murder in the Marais

“Among the best crime novels of the year…. marks Kaaberbol and Friis as serious talents to be reckoned with, ready to be discovered by an American audience.”—Publishers Marketplace

“This is a thrilling and most urgent novel reflecting a terrifying reality.”—Maj Sjowall, bestselling co-author of the Martin Beck series

Fear Not (Pengemannen) is the fourth novel in Anne Holt’s series about Johanne Vik and Adam Stubo translated into English. In my opinion it is perhaps the best book so far in the series.

Fear Not starts with several bangs. They take the form of a series of seemingly unrelated events. First Johanne’s daughter, Kristiane, walks by herself out of a hotel where the family is celebrating a wedding, and into a busy street in the middle of Oslo. She would probably have been killed by a tram if she hadn’t been saved by a stranger. The stranger saves her and then disappears.

Then, quite shockingly, a on Christmas Eve a female Norwegian bishop is found murdered in Bergen! Bishop Eva Karin Lysgaard is a very popular and highly respected bishop. Why would anybody want to kill her? And why was she out by herself on Christmas Eve, walking the deserted streets of Bergen? Streets in Norway are deserted on Christmas Eve.

Also, a young asylum seeker, only seventeen years old, is found dead in the harbor of Oslo. The young man was a prostitute.

Adam Stubo is dispatched to Bergen to assist the police there in the investigation of the Lysgaard murder. This is a high profile case that gets lots of media attention, and the police are clueless.

Meanwhile, in Oslo, criminal psychologist and profiler Johanne Vik, working on a project about hate crimes, finds indications that the killings may actually be connected. But while she searches for proof of a connection and Adam continues to investigate in Bergen, bodies keep turning up in Oslo.

Johanne Vik thinks she may know the solution, but her theory is so farfetched that she can hardly believe her own reasoning. Lacking evidence and hard facts, she doesn’t even feel that she can bother Adam with her ideas. At the same time she strongly feels that unless something is done, the killings will continue.

Fear Not is an action-filled crime fiction novel that implicitly raises important and interesting questions about such topics as terrorism, hate and the nature of love. It takes a while for the suspense to be felt, but when it does, this novel really grabs hold of you. The plot is complicated, intriguing and very engaging. While the plot may not be all that likely, it certainly seems possible. I like reading Anne Holt, I enjoyed the book a lot, and eagerly await the next installment in the series!

Links to books by Anne Holt at amazon US, amazon UK, and amazon CAN.

What is evil? How does it manifest itself? This outstanding and very special novel by Swedish writer Pär Lagerkvist is written from the point of view of a dwarf, 26 inches high. He is proud of being a dwarf. In his opinion, dwarfs are not humans; they are a different species, a different and detestable race. But much as he regrets it, they are forced to coexist with humans – “a pack of ingratiating cows”. So he gives them what they want – if they want something bad done, he does it. If they need flattery, he will provide it:

“Human beings need flattery; otherwise they do not fulfill their purpose, not even in their own eyes.”

Pär Lagerkvist’s dwarf is a social outcast. He hates humans and everything about them; their smells, their pretentions, their bodies, and the assumptions they make about dwarfs.

The dwarf, Piccoline, serves at the court of an Italian City-state in the Renaissance as the servant and confidante of it’s prince. Exactly where is unclear, but since a character seemingly modeled on Leonardi da Vinci appears in the novel, it most likely is Milan (or it could be Florence – both Mona Lisa and The Last Supper are in the plot: one created in Milan, the other in Florence). Several real historical events and persons are mixed into the tale.

Piccoline becomes a confidant of the Prince and Princess, and he carries out missions for both of them – carrying secret messages, doing wicked things, keeping an eye on things. He does it willingly – he has no conscience. He doesn’t care. Humans are despicable anyway, so why would he?

“I have noticed that sometimes I frighten people; what they really fear is themselves. They think it is I who scare them, but it is the dwarf within them, the ape-faced manlike being who sticks up his head from the depths of their souls.”

So what if an atrocity is committed? If a human is killed or feels compelled to commit suicide? They are only humans! When he is asked to poison some enemies of the Prince, he willingly does it and poisons a friend of the Princess on the side as well, while he is at it. He dislikes him; he deserves it. His hatred extends in all directions and includes himself:

“It fills me with satisfaction that I am hated…But I hate myself, too. I eat my own splenetic flesh. I drink my own poisoned blood. Every day I perform my solitary communion as the grim high priest of my people.”

The novel – especially the thoughts and emotions of the dwarf – is shocking and thought-provoking. Swedish Nobel Prize winner Pär Lagerkvist is an exceptional writer and this is one of his best novels. Hatred and evil flows freely in every direction. Piccoline the dwarf is one of the most original characters in literature, a true nihilist. Pär Lagerkvist’s richly philosophical novel is an exceptional exploration of individual and social identity. The Dwarf is highly unique and I recommend it to anyone liking deep and meaningful books. It is extremely well-written and very fascinating.

Praise for The Dwarf:

“Don’t miss this. You will not soon find another like it. The evil in the Dwarf’s nature is in ours, too–is universal.” —Dorothy Canfield

Links to books by Pär Lagerkvist at Amazon US, Amazon UK, and Amazon CAN.

Frozen Assets, which was published in the UK under a different title – “Frozen Out”, takes place in Iceland at the time when the earth started to collapse beneath the big, expansive Icelandic banks. With the bursting financial bubble as backdrop, English writer Quentin Bates has written an excellent crime novel that begins with the discovery of the corpse of a drowned man near a sleepy and quite boring village not too far from Reykjavik.

Iceland is a cold and wet place, very Scandinavian. Not necessarily an easy place to write about if you are an outsider. Quentin Bates, however, is quite familiar with Iceland – he has spent a lot of time there and seems to have learned a great deal about the country and its people. Frozen Assets feels very authentic, and I was very impressed by Bates’ understanding of the “mores” of the fish-loving folks living on this little volcanic island far out in the Atlantic Ocean.

A corpse has washed up on a beach in the area where police sergeant Gunnhildur Gisladottir, a “big fat lass with a face that frightens the horses”, is in charge. It is quite possible that the dead man could simply have drowned. It happens. But Gunna the Cop has a feeling. And there are some strange things about the case: How did the deceased get to Hvalvik? What brought him there?

As Gunna – a strong-willed and somewhat stubborn woman who is strong on street-smarts, and has a sound understanding of how things work in Iceland – identifies the drowned man and starts to map out his movements and his networks, the case takes her away from peaceful little Hvalvik and propels her into circles in Reykjavik dominated by deceit, violence, corruption and abuse of power. A man has drowned in the middle of the night at a place more than one hundred kilometers away from where he was last seen – a man in a position to possibly possess sensitive information and Gunna wants to know how and why.

Gunna’s questions are reasonable. She does what the police are supposed to do when people die under suspicious circumstances. Even so, it seems many powerful people want her to stop digging. They know where the trail Gunna stubbornly follows will end, and want the truths hidden there to remain forever buried.

Gunna is a very interesting and quite intriguing woman, and the other characters are well drawn and fit nicely into the story. The narrative is intriguingly layered, with lots of interesting side stories and power plays: a mysterious blogger that reveals inside secrets and adds tension (‘Skandalblogger’), corrupt and greedy politicians, shady business dealings, a violent hired gun on the loose, and so on.

Frozen Assets is a very good crime fiction novel. I found the story quite compelling, warm, well-told and quite suspenseful. It’s a solid police procedural, with an excellent cast of characters that is well worth reading and is an interesting addition to the Icelandic crime fiction literature. I really liked Gunna and think she has lots of potential – I’m already waiting for the next installment in what I hope will become the Gunnhildur series of Icelandic crime!

Links to books by Quentin Bates at Amazon US, Amazon UK, and Amazon CAN.

PS: You may also want to have a look at a very interesting interview with Quentin Bates at Barbara Fister’s blog.

In the idyllic, quiet and mellow small town of Stavern, close to Larvik, on the South-Eastern coast of Norway, a cut-off left foot in a training shoe is found on a beach. This macabre finding turns out to be the first in a series. Soon, another left foot is found. And then some more. In one week, four left feet have floated onto different parts of the shoreline. What on earth is happening? Are the owners of the feet dead? Is there a mass murderer on the loose in Stavern?

Inspector William Wisting is an experienced police officer, who has investigated many murder cases. But he has never ever seen the likes of the case he encounters in Dregs. Four feet – left feet – and therefore obviously from four different people.

Soon he and his excellent team of investigators are able to link the feet to people that have been missing. It’s a heterogeneous group – three elderly, retired men and a woman with a mental illness. Wisting goes back to the investigations of the missing person cases, and finds that the cases have been very poorly investigated. The three men, it turns out, knew one another. Their ties go back a long time, to the Second World War. But why would somebody hunt them down now – more than half a century later? And what about the murdered woman – how does she fit in?

The pace in Dregs accelerates as the plot develops and climaxes in a wonderfully realistic and violent denouement.

Jorn Lier Horst is an interesting and very good Norwegian crime fiction writer. Dregs is the sixth book in Jorn Lier Horst’s series about Inspector William Wisting, and the eight novel published by the author. Lier Horst is actually a police officer, working in the city of Larvik, not far from where the action in Dregs takes place, so he knows police work as well as the area he writes about, and it shows. His books, including this one, feel very authentic and have excellent descriptions of police work.

I have read several of Jorn Lier Horst’s books, and I am delighted that he has finally been translated into English. I would have liked it better, of course, if the publishing had started with the first book in the series. That said, Dregs is a well written crime fiction novel, with a very interesting mystery and an excellent and twisting plot. It’s a very good police procedural, and William Wisting is an interesting character that I look very much forward to meeting again.

Praise for Jorn Lier Horst:

‘At his best, the author is both a sociologist and a philosopher.’ –Terje Stemland, Aftenposten

Links to books by Jorn Lier Horst at Amazon US and Amazon UK.

Headhunters,
US Edition

Finally Jo Nesbo’s freestanding novel Headhunters, is here. This is not a Harry Hole novel: instead of the tall, gutsy detective this novel features Roger Brown, a headhunter. An excellent headhunter even, a man who is extremely good at locating and selecting the right candidates for top corporate positions. He is an expensive guy to hire, but definitely worth every penny: He is a man who can see right through job candidates, asking just the right questions, testing their wits and skills and making them tense or relaxed at will. When he is ready, he slices them open with a winning smile. He intuits what the employer needs, even if the employer doesn’t know it, and delivers candidates with the perfect mix of qualities.

Roger Brown, the main protagonist in Headhunters, is an intriguing guy. He is small: only 1 meter 68 centimeters – five and a half feet. Despite what some might view as an obstacle, he is extremely successful, very well-respected, and quite attractive to beautiful women. He has that certain “je ne sais quoi” – that extra-special something; the glitter in the eye, the wit, the sharp edge, the charisma. He is hands-down the best headhunter in Norway, and he knows it. His talent has led to stunning successes for some very fortunate corporations and has saved others from ruinous disasters.

Headhunters,
UK Edition

Roger Brown is married to the stunningly beautiful and desirable Diana – definitely a sight for sore eyes but a very expensive woman to maintain. So, even though Roger makes a small fortune at his profession, he finds himself in deep financial trouble. He and his delightful and charming wife always manage to spend far more than even Roger is able to bring home.

So Roger needs to make some serious money on the side. Which he does. He has a second career where he is every bit as competent as he is in his “day” job. Roger Brown is an extremely adept art thief. In a sense, he has leveraged his job as a headhunter into this second, highly profitible career – Roger-the-Headhunter learns many things that are useful for Roger-the-Thief. And he doesn’t mind stealing from his clients, just as long as the chances of his being found out are minimal.

However, after breaking into the house of the ideal candidate for a very high-level position, he suddenly realizes he may have gone one step too far. Brown felt certain that the theft of the candidate’s Rubens would be the solution to his financial woes. The final solution, in fact. But in the house, he discovers something which leads him to believe that the relationship between him and his beloved Diana may not be exactly what it seems. Then, the next morning he finds his “partner in crime” dead in the front seat of his own car. Something is very wrong, indeed: The headhunter/art thief has now become the prey of a depraved but very smart and experienced man-hunter. If Roger is to come out of this in one piece, he will have to employ all of his considerable brainpower, wits and skills, and will need a very hefty dose of luck as well.

Headhunters is a wonderful crime fiction novel. Roger Brown may well be one of the best headhunters out there – who knows? It is quite certain, however, that Jo Nesbo is one of the very best crime fiction writers of our time, with a dynamic, unique writing style, excellent dialogues, intriguing characters, good descriptions, and who is wonderfully skilled at building suspense. Headhunters is an entertaining, action-filled and very well-crafted crime fiction novel. Jo Nesbo’s plot has more twists and turns than the road from Oslo to Bergen! Headhunters is an absolute pearl of a thriller – great fun, keeps you on the edge of your chair, and leaves you with a serious craving for more!

Links to books by Jo Nesbo at amazon US, amazon UK, and amazon CAN.

“Tarantino meets the Coen brothers in Nesbø’s crime novel.”
Politiken (Denmark)

“Headhunters has everything that makes a good crime novel: Strange murders, inventive disappearing acts and above all brilliant fraud for all you’re worth.”
Bogrummet (Denmark)

“…a highly entertaining, first-rate crime novel, where Nesbo uses his entire register of narrative techniques and tricks to tell a story that is wilder and more zany than anything he has ever written before.”
Dagbladet (Norway)

See also: The trailer to the Headhunters movie!

Icelandic crime fiction writer Yrsa Sigurdardottir is back with a new novel about Reykjavik lawyer Thóra Gudmundsdóttir. I am a fan of Icelandic crime fiction, and enjoy reading both Yrsa Sigurdardottir and Arnaldur Indridason. Indridason is more well-known internationally, but Sigurdardottir is getting better and better and is in the process of building a big fan base as well.

Yrsa’s protagonist, Thora, is a single mother, partner in a law firm in Reykjavik, and a very smart and resourceful lady. In The Day is Dark, she is offered a special case by her German banker boyfriend Matthew. His bank urgently needs to conduct an investigation into mysterious happenings in a distant place.

The mysterious place turns out to be Greenland: A mining camp in a distant location, close to a village of Greenlanders, established to assess mining possibilities. Three people working in the camp have gone missing and are assumed to be dead. Now the workers are scared and refuse to return to the camp. They don’t know what has happened to the missing people, and are afraid to go back there. It’s located on a spot with a bad reputation, considered to be evil and cursed by the Inuit.

When Thora, Matthew and the other members of the team get to the camp, it is deserted and vandalized. Their job is to find out why this has happened? Were the workers killed by somebody working there? Were they killed by the locals – who seem to strongly dislike the Icelandic presence? Was it a contagious disease? Or three mostly unrelated deaths due to the harsh natural conditions – had the workers lost their sense of direction in a storm, got lost, and frozen to death? Or are the deaths, as some seem to believe, caused by the malign spirit Tupilak?

Yrsa Sigurdardottir

The team thinks they are alone out there, in the freezing cold, far from civilization and without contact with the rest of the world. They are not. Watching them from a distance is the great Inuit hunter Igmaq, a man who is among the very few with the skills to survive on his own, without belonging to a community, under the extreme conditions on Greenland. He feels it is his duty to protect the souls of people long dead – sprits of people who have died childless who can haunt the living – who are now threatened by the Icelandic mining camp. He is also a father who has lost his only daughter.

The Day is Dark is very evocative. The setting of the novel is very interesting, and Yrsa Sigurdardottir provides intriguing observations on the social conditions on Greenland: the alcoholism, unemployment, the old versus modern beliefs, and how the old way of life is disappearing without anything real and meaningful to replace it (Peter Hoeg does an extremely good job of this in Smilla’s Sense of Snow). The mystery is intriguing as well, and the story is told in an interesting and suspenseful fashion. In my opinion the book is a little long-winded, but even so this is a very solid crime fiction novel and good entertainment. This is, in every way, an ice cold Icelandic thriller.

Praise for Yrsa Sigurdardottir:

“As with the other books in this series there is humour and warmth. Atmospheric, complex and compelling with an unexpected ending.” (www.shotsmag.co.uk)

“A chilling read, enhanced by Sigurdardottir’s taut plotting, realistic characters, and dry humour.” (Metro Crime Books of the Year, on ASHES TO DUST )

“..this novel is superior crime fiction, ably translated by Philip Roughton” – Eurocrime

Links to books by Yrsa Sigurdardottir at amazon US, amazon UK, and amazon CAN.

This is the fourth book in Swedish author Asa Larsson’s series about Rebecka Martinsson and Inspector Anna-Maria Mella. Following the terrible events in the previous book, The Black Path, where she killed three men in self-defense, Rebecka Martinsson has now moved to the town of Kiruna in the Northern part of Sweden, where she works as public prosecutor.

Until Thy Wrath be Past starts with a bang. The 17-year-old Wilma Persson, who together with her boyfriend is diving beneath the ice of Lake Vittangijärvi, looking for the wreck of a Nazi transport airplane that crashed there during the War, tells the story of how she and her boyfriend is murdered. They have dived from a whole they have sawed in the ice, and someone has closed the hole, thus preventing them for surfacing. Wilma fights desperately to survive, but knows that soon there will be no more air. And then the air runs out, and there is only the ice cold water of Lake Vittangijärvi.

That’s the setup of the mystery in Until Thy Wrath be Past. As readers we know two young people have been murdered in the lake. We don’t know why and we don’t know who did it. But the police do not know they have been murdered at all. All the police know is that they are missing.

Sometime later, in the Spring, Wilma’s body is found. Not in the lake, but in a river some distance away from the lake. She has clearly drowned. It seems very much like an accident, but there are some details that are strange. Under her fingernails there are traces of green paint. Both Anna-Maria Mella and Rebecka Martinsson, who takes charge of the investigation, feel there is more to the case then meets the eye. The facts don’t add up the way they should.

When they start to dig deeper into the case and talk with family and people who knew the dead girl, they soon come face to face with people trying to prevent the truth about certain incidents during World War II from surfacing. In the strange rural villages of Northern Sweden they encounter odd, twisted love and people who will go to any length to protect their secrets. Some of the wounds and conflict from the War are still not healed. As the investigation progresses, more people are brutally murdered to prevent the investigators from learning more. Somewhere in the cold lurks a murderer who will continue to kill as many as it takes to keep the past firmly buried.

This is a remarkable and interesting book, very well written, about repression, violence, devotion and ruthlessness. The epigraph from the Book of Job – Until Thy Wrath be Past – with reference to the pain of human existence, is very appropriate as a title. While I did not particularly like the literary device Asa Larsson uses in this book – letting the dead Wilma talk from the grave, so to speak – I really liked the book, it is perhaps the best Asa Larsson has written so far!

Until Thy Wrath be Past is a great crime fiction novel, and I am already looking forward to the next Rebecka Martinsson novel!

Links to books by Asa Larsson at Amazon US, Amazon UK, and Amazon CAN. And (in German) from Amazon DE: Sonnensturm, Der schwarze Steg, or Weiße Nacht.

Nothing But The Truth is the third book translated into English in the prize-winning crime fiction series Helsinki Homicide by Finnish writer Jarkko Sipila. Like the two previous books in the series, it focuses on the Violent Crimes Unit in the Helsinki Police. The key characters are Detective Lieutenant Kari Takamäki and the undercover detective Suhonen. Like the previous books, Nothing But The Truth too is a noir crime fiction novel, written in a relatively stark and direct style.

Outside an apartment building in Helsinki, a young cocaine dealer is gunned down. Detective Lieutenant Kari Takamäki and his homicide team move quickly and succeed in finding and arresting the shooter, a well known criminal named Esa Nyberg. So far so good. But Nyberg doesn’t talk – all he says is “No comment”. Even though they have the killer, Takamäki and his team want more: They want to know why the dealer was shot. And – in particular – they want to know who ordered the killing.

The Violent Crimes unit knows most of what there is to know about the criminal underworld in Helsinki. And they know Nyberg works with a very ruthless psychopath and crime boss named Risto Korpi. They suspect he is the man behind the execution. But pinning the crime on him will be difficult unless someone talks. But, as Takamäki know too well – Korpi and his men will not talk.

Then, after the police have issued a statement to the media and asked witnesses to the crime to step forward, a woman from a neighboring building – a lady with photographic memory – comes forward with an image of the getaway driver’s face and the registration number of the car. All the pieces fall into place, and Korpi is arrested and brought to trial.

However, after testifying, the witness, Mari Lehtonen finds herself the target of an escalating spiral of threats. To protect her, the police whisk her away to a “safe house”. But staying there means that both Mari and her daughter must give up their ordinary lives – no job, no school, no shopping, and no freedom. Mari doesn’t want that. She is not a criminal, just a citizen doing her duty. Why should she be punished? Why should she be forced to give up her life? She moves out of the safe house with her daughter. The prize she now has to pay for her principles are high – threats, attempts at her life, threats directed at her daughter. As the threats mount, she is torn between her principles and her desire to keep her family safe. Is this all Finland can and will do for her? How much should an ordinary citizen sacrifice for the benefit of society as a whole?

This is a marvelous crime fiction novel and in my opinion the best so far from Jarkko Sipila. Its treatment of the relationship between the police and the media is superb and very entertaining. Also, like Anders Roslund and Börge Hellström’s Three Seconds – which pointed a critical finger at the use of police informants – Nothing But The Truth too raises a timely and very important question: What can be done to make certain that citizens that do their duty in the criminal justice system do not risk ruining their lives when they do so?

Moreover, the book not only raises important questions, it is also a very entertaining, suspenseful and excellently plotted crime fiction novel. The writing style is just right for the story, and the plot has all the twist and turns an excellent crime fiction novel should have, along with a delightful ending. I strongly recommend Nothing But The Truth – it’s dark, fascinating, important and delicious.

Links to books by Jarkko Sipila at amazon US and amazon UK.