This is the fourth book in the Erica Falck – Patrik Hedstrom crime fiction series by Swedish writer Camilla Lackberg (Swedish: Läckberg). As in the other books in the series, the story is set in the idyllic little towns of Fjällbacka and Tanumshede, small places in south-west Sweden. These are places Camilla Lackberg knows well – she grew up there. But they are small, and by now Camilla Lackberg must have killed off a very significant proportion of the population in her series.

Patrik (police detective) and Erica (writer) met in The Ice Princess, but now they are living together and have a new, cute little baby. They are about to get married.

In The Gallows Bird, Patrik is called to the scene of a car accident where a woman, Marit Kaspersen, is found dead. Seemingly she is the victim of a tragic car crash. Since the car smells of alcohol it is assumed to be case of drunken driving. However, Marit Kaspersen didn’t drink. And it seems she had a lover and that her husband was jealous. And the autopsy reveals bruises around the mouth, signs that liquor has been forced upon the driver. Perhaps the assumed accident is a murder?

Then a spectacle arrives in Tanumshede and creates turmoil in the community: A bunch of people participating in a reality TV-show that is to be filmed there. Many people in the city are delighted with the nationwide publicity, but it isn’t so easy for Patrik and colleagues to cope with the fall-out. As cameras shadow the stars’ every move, relations with the locals are strained to breaking point. The participants behave outrageously and manage to alienate the locals. When one of the show’s participants is found murdered, is gets more complicated for Patrik and his colleagues.

Now the little town really attracts the attention of the media, and the investigation receives much too much attention. As the country tunes in, the bodies mount up in Fjällbacka, while Patrik faces his toughest investigation yet under the intense glare of the media spotlights!

Suddenly a piece of evidence reveals that the two seemingly disparate homicides are linked. It also becomes clear that there is a pattern of similar deaths over a period of time and in different parts of the country. Patrick is forced to realize that these cases are closer to home than he thought.

The Gallows Bird is a pleasant and easy read. The characters are well rounded – moody, make mistakes, seem alive – and Camilla Lackberg adds side stories about Patrik and Erica, their new child, the marriage, and so on, that are told with warmth, are interesting to readers who follow the series and add depth to the characters. The mystery is interesting as well, and the plot is relatively unpredictable but not among the best in this otherwise very good series. The Gallows Bird in an interesting, suspenseful and entertaining read that I recommend.

Praise for Camilla Lackberg:

‘Lackberg is an expert at mixing scenes of domestic cosiness with blood-curdling horror! a must for white-knuckle junkies’ — Guardian

‘Lackberg is particularly good at portraying the claustrophobia of a small community in which everyone knows everyone else and the police may well be friends with killers’ — The Times

‘As with earlier books, there is an adroit manipulation of elements: the unpredictable plotting, the striking evocation of life in this idyllic (but flawed) community and – perhaps most satisfying – the intriguing interaction between Patrick and Erica, both loving and fractious. It’s Läckberg’s particular skill to have created two of the most fully rounded characters in contemporary crime fiction, with a warmth that cuts through the Nordic chill’ —
Barry Forshaw, The Independent

Links to books by Camilla Läckberg at amazon US, amazon UK, and amazon CAN.

The Unit is the debut novel of Swedish writer Ninni Holmqvist. She has previously published three collections of short stories, but this is the first time I have read her. I really liked the book – while the tale itself is dark, and to me quite disgusting and terrifying – the writing style is quiet, solemn, well-controlled, descriptive and at times relatively sparse, and the book has been excellently translated by Marlaine Delargy. The Unit is a dystopia set in a near future, and the writing style – and the humanity, passion and warmth – contrasts dramatically with the horrifying story Holmqvist tells, and the contrast makes the tale all the more gripping.

This is a novel that transcends genres; it could justifiably be labeled as science fiction, fantasy, or crime fiction. In many ways it is a Huxley-type or Orwellian dystopia – very, very scary.

The Unit is about a future Sweden where a utilitarian philosophy – to some extent mixed with aspects of the welfare state ideology that currently dominates in all the Scandinavian countries – has been carried to it’s extreme. Human beings are now viewed as valuable capital–they are biological material. They are blood, organs and tissue that can be recycled. And all who fall into the new social category of “dispensable” are moved into special facilities where they are tended and harvested.

Dorrit Weger, the main protagonist of The Unit, is a dispensable. On her fiftieth birthday she is picked up and checked into the Second Reserve Bank Unit for biological material. For male dispensables, the same thing happens at their sixtieth birthday. All contact with the world outside is shut off. For the world outside the institution, she has ceased to exist.

Dorrit gets a nicely furnished apartment, she gets to meet lots of people, she can use all sorts of recreation facilities at no cost, there are restaurants, theaters and much more available. Everything going on inside the institution is monitored – there are cameras and microphones everywhere – even in the bathroom there are three cameras. The people living in the Unit are now property of the State, and can do anything they want as long as they do not harm themselves – the property of the State.

Dorrit – like most humans – is adaptable. She makes and spends time with friends, engages in other people’s lives, and she shares in the pain when friends have operations to remove organs or are damaged as the result of medical experiments gone wrong. The dispensables are expected to participate in drug and psychological testing and donate their organs, one by one, until the time has come for the final donation. Like the others, Dorrit resigns herself to her fate, what else can she do? Then she meets a man, falls in love, and things turn upside down for her.

The Unit is a rich, terrifying novel full of understated themes– satire, ethics, human adaptability to circumstance, ideology, and so forth. However, there is little to no argument in the book – it is not a polemical book; it just tells a story. And the story it tells is haunting, compelling and very intriguing, full of believable characters, with interesting turns and twists, and told in excellent prose. I liked it a lot and I recommend it.

Praise:

“Holmqvist’s spare prose interweaves the Unit’s pleasures and cruelties with exquisite matter-of-factness, so that readers actually begin to wonder: On balance, is life better as a pampered lab bunny or as a lonely indigent? But then she turns the screw, presenting a set of events so miraculous and abominable that they literally made me gasp.” – Marcela Valdes, The Washington Post

Links to books by Ninni Holmqvist at Amazon US, Amazon UK, and Amazon CAN.

This is an interesting Swedish crime fiction novel; a book that to some extent is a cult novel in Sweden, and that has attracted much attention because it provides a possible explanation for the assassination of Prime Minister Olof Palme in February 1986. The author, Leif GW Persson, is a professor of criminology at Rikspolisstyrelsen (National Police Board) in Sweden and one of Sweden’s bestselling crime fiction writers. Some believe the explanation to be the truth or close to the truth, others that it is completely misleading. Be that as it may – this is a book of fiction based on an actual event, and as such doesn’t need to be true. Instead, it needs to be entertaining and fun to read, and that it is, and more.

The intriguing and somewhat lyrically named story – deliciously told, with lots of humor and with live, fallible and flawed characters – starts with the apparent suicide of a young American, John Krassner, visiting Stockholm. Krassner was working on a book detailing the exploits of his uncle, Col. John Buchanan, an OSS agent in the years following WWII. The young man has seemingly fallen from a window in a student dorm, and his loose shoe killed a little dog taken for an evening stroll by its owner. Had the man been Swedish, the case might have stopped there. But he wasn’t – he was an American. So, to be on the safe side, a small investigation is launched. As it turns out, the search of his room reveals a few strange things. Even so, the case is classified as a suicide.

Then, by accident, police inspector Lars Martin Johansson and his colleagues get involved in the case. And as Johansson starts to look into it, he unearths more than he bargained for, and a larger and quite complex context for the apparent suicide quickly emerges. There is seemingly a huge puzzle surrounding the event – a puzzle that involves international espionage, attempted cover-ups, greed, and other ingredients. A high-ranking Swedish politician known by the code name “Pilgrim” features prominently in the puzzle. Also, several factors seem to point towards incompetent police work and possibly behind the scenes involvement and disinformation by Sweden’s secret police. The deeper Johansson looks, the more he sees that simply doesn’t add up the way it is supposed to.

Between Summer’s Longing and Winter’s End is at the same time fascinating and shocking. We embark on a journey deep into the underbelly of the Swedish police force, and meet lazy, incompetent and perverse police officers concerned mostly with position, power, pay, comradeship, drinking and sex. We meet cynical politicians and spin masters in controlling positions.

It’s a dark novel and a dark journey which not only seems very realistic but also masterfully recreates the blanket of uncertainty, the multiple ways insights get lost in huge and complex organizational environments where most actors have their own agendas. Fortunately there is also sarcasm, black satire, dark humor, mind boggling insights, and dialogues that make you laugh out loud. It is a wonderful novel, a riveting anti-procedure police procedural, a psychological drama, and an adventurous journey into a murky landscape we can perhaps only hope doesn’t exist but most likely does. The publication of Between Summer’s Longing and Winter’s End by Leif GW Persson is one of the major crime fiction events of 2010!

Links to books by Leif GW Persson at Amazon US, Amazon UK, and Amazon CAN.

“Laced with irony and satire . . . Reminiscent of Henning Mankell and Stieg Larsson in its toughness . . . Persson does a fine job of pitting one desperate soul against another in a philosophically charged tale worthy of Ingmar Bergman—but with lots more guns.”
—Kirkus (starred)

“A brilliant political thriller.”
—Der Tagesspiegel

“One of the best Swedish crime novels of all time.”
—Expressen

“One of the most exhaustive investigations ever to have been written about. A plot full of suspense, a great adventure, and a philosophical view of the dark and painful sides of life.”
—Il Giornale di Vicenza

“Leif GW Persson’s big lush novel is a tale of mystery and intrigue and murder. .. From a country known for terrific crime novelists, Sweden’s great crime writer Leif GW Persson brilliantly takes the reader into a world of fascinating mystery and secrets.”
—Joseph Wambaugh

Gentlemen was originally published in Swedish in 1980, and received great reviews all over Scandinavia. It has been excellently translated into English by Tiina Nunnally. Östergren is a great storyteller, and it is good that the novel is now available in English, even though it took quite a while.

Klas Ostergren’s novel covers 40 years, and the main story is the tale about the Morgan Brothers in post war Stockholm and around Europe. Henry, the oldest, is a boxer with his tie always done in a Windsor knot, a jazz piano player, a composer, a bartender, and also an old-fashioned gentleman with a Gatsby-like capacity for turning life into a feast. Leo is his younger brother and somewhat of a star poet, philosopher, political provocateur, and a drunk as well. Their strange tale is told by a certain Klas Ostergren – the narrator of the story. He is a beaten up and scared young writer who hides in a Stockholm apartment and writes the story of its disappeared inhabitants: the odd, flamboyant and perhaps even charismatic Morgan brothers. He may be a friend of the two brothers – exactly what is a little unclear. He tells the stories of their strange lives, their relationships, and their adaptation to the changing times and circumstances.

Henry is – to me at least – by far the most interesting, and perhaps even somewhat of a magnetic personality. Leo is strange – one he has suffered a mental breakdown and has the ability to bring down a disaster at any time. It is Leo, of course, that involves them in a scandal with illegal weapons and gangsters. Soon the three men – the Morgan’s and the narrator – find themselves trapped in a dangerous plot.

One possible take on the book is to view it as a story about how a younger man becomes enthralled by an older one – that is, how the narrator/author is taken under the wing of Henry Morgan and perhaps “seduced” by him. And Henry helps him find work and introduces him to his wily friends. To a large extent, this is the story of the first section of the novel.

Henry lives his life on a very on a grand scale. He finances this by selling off his grandfather’s rare book collection and other various small capers. Leo, on the other hand, lives smaller and is concerned primarily with preserving his sanity. Klas, is sucked in, seeks desperately to understand it all, and most certainly enjoys the grandness of it all. But grasping the big picture is not at all an easy job – there is international scheming and intrigue, as well as politics and business, and large hidden forces at work affecting Henry and Leo, and, of course, Klas as well. Klas struggles, yet seems to never be sure of what he experiences – what was real, what was he just imagining, and what has he overlooked or completely forgotten?

Gentlemen is viewed by the Swedes as perhaps the most important literary work to emerge from Sweden in the past thirty years. Whether it is true, I am really not so sure. It is a tremendous novel, and a wild ride to read – enjoyable as well – but as yet I am still uncertain as to its greatness. To the extent there is greatness, it is with the story more than with the writing itself – it’s the story that keeps you turning the pages. But regardless of what it is – you can be the judge of that – it is definitely a book well worth reading.

Links to books by Klas Ostergren at amazon US, amazon UK, and amazon CAN.