Prime Time, by Liza Marklund
Filed under: Annika Bengtzon, book review, crime book, Liza Marklund, Swedish writer
This is the fourth book written in Liza Marklund’s series 
In Prime Time, well translated by Ingrid Eng-Rundlow, Annika gets involved in the investigation of a Swedish media personality, perhaps the brightest star of them all, TV presenter Michelle Carlsson. Carlsson has been on a Midsummer Eve party with 12 other people, in a beautiful and remote manor house in Sweden, and is found shot to death in a mobile control room. Michelle Carlsson was shot after a late night of drinking, quarreling and sex.
It is quickly established that more or less all of the other twelve people present both had opportunity and motives for wanting Carlsson dead. Liza Marklund takes us into the world behind the cameras, into a world where very few people like one another, where there is lot of envy and backstabbing, where the competition for the top spot is extremely intense and everybody is involved in a more or less continuous fight for power, money and fame.
With the murder, things get more complicated for Annika Bengtzon. One of the suspects is a close friend. And the relationship to her partner Thomas gets worse – he accuses her of letting the family down. And, on top of all of that, her boss also involves her in a power struggle in the newspaper. So Annika is often angry, complaining and difficult in this book. Meanwhile there’s a killer on the loose – and a tense drama about to unfold in the public eye. And in the center of it all is Annika, who in the end is the one who actually solves the mystery.
Prime Time is an interesting and good book, and times quite suspenseful. Even so, in my opinion it is the weakest of the books in the Annika Bengtzon series. However, it is still well worth reading, and you should, if possible, read the series in chronological sequence – that is, read Prime Time after Paradise and before The Bomber.
at amazon US andamazon UK: Liza Marklund (books and DVD’s)
. Links to books by James Patterson at amazon US
and amazon UK
.Lars Kepler – the pseudonym that aspires to be the next Stieg Larsson
Filed under: About books, crime book, Lars Kepler, Swedish writer
The Hypnotist (Hypnotisören) is the latest huge crime novel in Sweden. The first novel by a new and unknown author, Lars Kepler. Big hype, huge expectations about a new series of novels featuring a new interesting heroine, Detective Inspector Joona Linna. The book was an instant best seller in Sweden. The rights to the book has been sold internationally to more than 30 countries worldwide, including the U.S.
The plot is interesting. A father, wife and daughter are all brutally murdered as part of an attempt to wipe out an entire family. The police have to race against time to find the one surviving daughter before the killer does. The only way they can achieve this, is to convince a doctor, against his better judgment, to hypnotize the son who barely survived the killer’s attack.
Then it was revealed by the media that there is no Lars Kepler. Lars Kepler does not exist. Huge sensation. Lars Kepler turned out to be a pseudonym for two literary authors, husband-and-wife Alexandra Coelho Ahndoril and Alexander Ahndoril, now writing under the pseudonym Lars Kepler. They have so far barely been able to sustain themselves economically by their writing. Now they wanted to make money. And in Sweden, crime fiction writers make big money. And, of course, when in Sweden, do as the Swedes. So they decided to write crime fiction, using a cool name.
According to Jan Guillou, they have achieved their goal already: the book and rights have so far netted them 15-20 million SKR. Not bad. Or?
PS: The Hynotist by Lars Kepler is now finally available for preorder at amazon UK: The Hypnotist
Sidetracked, by Henning Mankell
Filed under: bestseller, book review, crime book, Henning Mankell, Kurt Wallander, Main character, Prize winning novel, recommendation, Swedish writer
Sidetracked starts off with two bangs. First, Kurt Wallander is called to a nearby rapeseed field where a teenage girl has been loitering all day long. He arrives just in time to watch her douse herself in gasoline and set herself aflame. Then, the next day he is called to a beach where Sweden’s former Minister of Justice has been axed to death and scalped. The murder has markings of a demented serial killer, and
Sidetracked is the fifth book in Mankell’s series about Inspector Kurt Wallander. It is a highly praised book, and has won The Macallan Gold Dagger for Fiction and Sweden’s 1997 Best Crime Novel of the Year awards.
“Before dawn he started his transformation. He had planned everything meticulously so that nothing could go wrong. It would take him all day, and he didn’t want to risk running out of time.” This is how Sidetracked begins. A hard, vicious award winning crime fiction novel. The translation of Sidetracked by Steven T. Murray is excellent.
In this book, Henning Mankell tells the story from the perspectives of both cop and criminal. So there are no surprises for us as readers – this is not a who-dunnit but a wonderful police procedural.
The action in Sidetracked is fast paced. Soon, three more people are found murdered and scalped, and signs suggest that the perpetrator is becoming increasingly agitated. Wallander and his crew follow standard procedure and try to link the four victims. However, their lives seem never to have intersected. Using American profiling methods as well as his own intuition, Wallander struggles to make headway in the case.
Kurt Wallander’s investigation is beset with obstacles – a police department distracted by the threat of impending cutbacks and the frivolity of World Cup soccer, as well as hiw own tenuous long-distance relationship with a murdered policeman’s widow.
Mankell’s meticulously detailed descriptions of Wallander’s investigation as well as his somewhat lyrical portrayal the Inspector’s attempts to rearrange his thought processes in Sidetracked are masterful. This, along with his treatment of the deeper phenomena involved in this crime, turns Sidetracked into something much more than an ordinary police procedural. This is another great Henning Mankell, with Kurt Wallander, the fumbling Ystad police detective with the big heart and the great intuition, at his very best.
Prise for Sidetracked:
“Connoisseurs of the police procedural will tear into this installment like the seven-course banquet it is.” Kirkus Reviews
“[A]bove all, the novel stands out for its nuanced evocation of even the peripheral characters. Winner of Sweden’s 1997 Best Crime Novel of the Year, this is another terrific offering from the talented Mankell.” Publishers Weekly
“It is Wallander’s anguished voice. . . that captures us….Mankell’s philosophical hero vows to make it up to the coming generation while he still can.” The New York Times Book Review
See more reviews of books by Henning Mankell at ScandinavianBooks.com (and other Scandinavian crime fiction writers as well)!
Unspoken: A Mystery, by Mari Jungstedt
Filed under: Anders Knutas, book review, crime book, Main character, Mari Jungstedt, recommendation, Swedish writer
Unspoken is the second in Mari Jungstedt’s series of crime and detective novels set in Gotland, Sweden. The first is Unseen (see review) The main characters, in this book too, are Inspector Anders Knutas and investigative journalist Johan Berg.
Then, well into the investigation of the first murder, 14-year old Fanny Jansson, a volunteer at the local stables, vanishes. Initially Knutas and Jacobsson view them as separate cases. One is a violent murder, the other the disappearance of child.
Painstakingly, they work the clues, assisted by ambitious StockholmTV reporter Johan Berg, who tries to keep his bosses interested in Dahlström’s murder so he can take trips to Gotland to visit his married lover, Emma Winarve. And eventually they uncover a tenuous link between Henry and the missing fourteen year old Fanny Jansson. Before his murder Henry won a lot of money at the racetrack while Fanny cared for the horses at a local stable.However, matters become further complicated when sexually explicit photos of murdered 14-year-old Fanny Jansson are found in Dahlstrom’s darkroom.
The official investigation in Unspoken is cleverly designed by Mari Jungstedt to keep the audience’s attention. It is a great police procedural. And the cast is fully developed and interesting – in this book we also learn more about Knutas’ family and the very complicated love affair between Johan Berg and Emma Winarve.
Unspoken is a book with crisp prose, steady suspense, and flesh-and-blood characters, as well as powerful descriptions of the dark Swedish winter. The narrative is engaging and twisty, and will fool even the most attentive reader.
See more reviews of Swedish crime fiction at ScandinavianBooks.com!
Links to Mari Jungstedt’s books: Mari Jungstedt at amazon US
Stieg Larsson’s books hot in England
Filed under: book news, crime book, Fiction, International bestseller, Lisbeth Salander, Mikael Blomkvist, recommendation, Stieg Larsson, Swedish writer
The following list, from amazon in England, is quite interesting to a fan a Stieg Larsson!
The most popular items in Fiction at amazon UK. Updated hourly. (Average customer rating in parentheses):
- Breaking Dawn (Twilight Saga)
, by Stephenie Meyer (3.8)
- When Will There be Good News?
? by Kate Atkinson (3.9)
- The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, by Stieg Larsson (4.2)
- The 19th Wife, by David Ebershoff, (4.5)
- The Girl Who Played with Fire, by Stieg Larsson (4.6)
- The Secret Scripture, by Sebastian Barry (3.8)
- The Shack, by William P. Young (3.6)
- The Reader, by Bernhard Schlink (4.2)
- Revolutionary Road
- Wetlands, by Charlotte Roche (3.1)
So, right now Stieg Larsson’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Both of Stieg Larsson’s books have excellent customer ratings. The only book ranked higher among the current top ten by customers is the extremely remarkable Revolutionary Road, by Richard Yates. That is also quite a feat by Stieg Larsson. It is very sad that he did not live to see his astonishing success!
Links to Stieg Larsson’s books at Amazon US: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Coq Rouge, by Jan Guillou
Filed under: book review, Carn Hamilton Coq Rouge, Fiction, Jan Guillou, Main character, Swedish writer, Thriller
Jan (Oscar Sverre Lucien Henri) Guillou is one of Sweden’s most famous current authors. His Coq Rouge-novels, a series of books about the Swedish secret agent Carl Gustaf Gilbert Hamilton, the Scandinavian James Bond, have been translated into some 15 languages. This is the first book in the series about Hamilton.
Carl Hamilton has been given special training by FBI and US Navy, even though he comes from neutral Sweden. He comes from the Swedish aristocracy, but he is also a former leftist, opposed the Vietnam war in the 1960s, and was a member of the Maoist Clarté group. Almost like Jan Guillou himself?
Carl Hamilton, who has officially studied political science in California, but has in reality been trained as a Navy Seal, and a spy, is assigned the case. His is assigned the code name Coq Rouge. This is his first big case, with a trail that goes to Oslo, Beirut, Lillehammer, Israel, and Iran.
Coq Rouge is a great read, with an interesting and international plot, and it is a wonderful start on the fabulous series of books about Count Hamilton. This is one of the best international spy series in modern time, in the same class as LeCarrè and Daniel Silva, but considerably more action packed. All of the books, and this one as well, are extremely exciting, with lots of action and rapidly unfolding plots. Carl Hamilton is a likeable and skilled operator, and a great character. Coq Rogue is a wonderful read.
For some or other reason, the books in this series are hard to find in English, and a number of them are currently selling for USD 100 or more from private sellers on various internet sites.
Also by Jan Guillou: The Knight Templar (Crusades Trilogy)
Order from amazon UK: Coq Rouge.
Good Night, My Darling, by Inger Frimansson
Filed under: book review, Inger Frimansson, Swedish writer
Inger Frimansson is well established as a Swedish crime writer, and Good Night, My Darling is one of her best books. It has won the Swedish Academy of Mystery Authors Award for Best Swedish Crime Novel in 1998.
Good Night, My Darling is the first book in a
Inger Frimansson enables the reader to enter Justine’s child-thoughts of being an almost willing victim while she absorbs both the hurt and the methods of cruelty used to hurt her. We sympathize with Justine the child, but as she grows to maturity we become less sympathetic. Now the memories come back to haunt Justine, but she is prepared. It is time for Justine to take revenge on everyone who has done her wrong. Terrible things start to happen.
Inger Frimansson has the courage to experiment with the crime genre. Good night, my darling is not a whodunit crime book or a thriller. This book is a how-could-she-do-it. In her effort to understand this – to peer into the mind of a dark soul – Frimansson has written a deeply psychological crime novel which in several ways reminds me of the Norwegian author Karin Fossum.
Good Night, My Darling takes a while to really pick up speed, but when it does, the tension is almost unbearable. Putting it away does not feel as an option before the end is reached.
Praise for Good Night, My Darling:
“With this book, she stands out as one of the great authors of psychological suspense in contemporary Swedish literature.” – GT
”
.. whereas Mankell often tries to pinpoint the external factors which shape our lives, Frimansson concentrates on what we look like on the inside; what it feels like to be at someone’s mercy.” – Eskilstuna Kuriren
Order Good Night, My Darling by Inger Frimansson from Amazon UK: Good Night, My Darling
The White Lioness, by Henning Mankell
Filed under: book review, crime book, Henning Mankell, International bestseller, Kurt Wallander, Swedish writer
The White Lioness may well be the best
There are many ingredients to the plot in The White Lioness. First, a happily married woman disappears in southern Sweden while going about her business as an estate agent. There is no explanation and no motive. Inspector Kurt Wallander and his team are called in to investigate this case of a missing person.
As readers, we know right from the beginning what is going on: she was at the wrong time at the wrong place. However, Wallander does not know this. Inspector Wallander has a gut feeling that the victim will never be found alive, but he has no idea how far he will have to go in a search of the killer and the origin of the crime.
The case turns out to be much more complicated that it appeared to be. The search for the truth behind the killing eventually uncovers an assassination plot, and Wallander finds himself in a tangle with both the secret police and a ruthless foreign agent.
It turns out that it all started in South Africa. A pro-apartheid conspirator has sent a gaunt, steel-eyed former KGB assassin and a black hit man to Sweden to train for a unnamed killing. When their hideout is destroyed in a fireball and the remains found in the ashes – a precision firearm, a sophisticated, high-powered radio, and a severed human thumb – the clues lead Wallander back to South Africa.
Combining compelling insights into the sinister side of modern life with a riveting tale of international intrigue, The White Lioness keeps you on the knife-edge of suspense. Some may find the book a little long-winded in the passages about South-African politics, but it is a wonderful book even so!
You can read more Henning Mankell reviews at ScandinavianBooks.
The White Lioness has been filmed as well. You can order the DVD from amazon (US): The White Lioness
Or, order from amazon UK: The White Lioness (book)
What is the name of Stieg Larsson’s third book?
Filed under: book news, crime book, Lisbeth Salander, Mikael Blomkvist, Stieg Larsson, Swedish writer
For a long time I have been certain that the third book in the Millennium-trilogy by Stieg Larsson would be named Castles in the Sky. That is that name many people use, and which is used at stieglarsson.com.
However, now I am not so sure. Just today I came across translator Steven T. Murray’s page on Wikipedia, and there I found that he was currently engaged in translating the third book of the Millennium-series, entiteled The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest.
This title makes some sense – The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played With Fire, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest – all titles with “The Girl Who”, so that it becomes a series by virtue of the naming. Also, Castles in the Sky makes sense from the point of view of the content of the book, but since the book is to a large extent about Lisbeth Salander, so does “The Girl Who Kicke the Hornets Nest“.
Oh well. I guess we will soon know which it is!
PS: See reviews of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and The Girl Who Played With Fire at ScandinavianBooks.com!
Faceless Killers, by Henning Mankell
Filed under: book review, crime book, Henning Mankell, International bestseller, Kurt Wallander, recommendation, Swedish writer
An aging farmer and his wife have been attacked on their isolated farm. When Inspector Kurt Wallander arrives, he finds the elderly couple brutally tortured, the husband dead and the wife barely clinging to life, They appear to have little money and no enemies. The only clue is the dying word of the farmer’s wife: “foreign”.
That is where the plot starts in 
Henning Mankell’s first Kurt Wallander detective mystery: Faceless Killers. The result is a well-done, intense and enjoyable police procedural..
Since Faceless Killers is the first book in a series, the reader is provided with some background information on the main characters. Kurt Wallander is gritty and determined, newly separated from his wife and somewhat estranged from his daughter. He often drinks too much, and he has problems dealing with the interim prosecutor, who is an attractive young woman sent down from Stockholm. Also, he has a somewhat strange relationship to his father, an ageing artist, who is showing the first signs of senility. As well, he is a little grumpy at times.
In Faceless Killers, Mankell lets the reader join in on the investigation process. There are no hidden clues as in Agatha Christie’s books. It is all hard work, sweat and reasoning.
With a keen sense of the psychological dimensions of his characters, Henning Mankell delivers a fast paced, very interesting and highly entertaining read in Faceless Killers.
You can read more reviews of Henning Mankell’s books at ScandinavianBooks.com.
Order Faceless Killers from amazon UK: Faceless Killers (Kurt Wallender Mystery)
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