I really enjoyed this mystery. The setting in upper Sweden was different and the person solving the crime was also. It's a reporter in this instance, not a detective. The story is fast paced and I liked the way that there was a resolution, or so one thought, and then another and another, so that ...
One of these days, I'm going to learn to start reading a new-to-me author's books with his/her first. I think it would have been easier to follow had I known more of the backstory contained in Marklund's previous novels. However, this is till a terrific book - exceptionally well written. It's ...
I'm not quite sure what I think of Liza Marklund's character Annika Bengtzon. She is a study in contrasts and perhaps that is why, though I might occasionally shake my head in exasperation at her, I find her so interesting to read about. I first met her when I read Marklund's Paradise. It's so...
A man, born in Sweden near the Arctic Circle, returns to his country after nearly forty years. He has become more comfortable speaking and thinking in French than in his native tongue. He fled Sweden as a young man and now he is returning to die. He needs to see some of the people he knew so well...
She waited on the pavement for a few minutes. There was still a chill in the air: the sun hadn’t yet risen above the Sierra Blanca. Her plane left at ten o’clock, and Thomas’s at a quarter to four. He was going to drive her to the airport, then fetch his things from the Parador. It felt as though...
He snorted, then groaned as the pain from his stomach reached his head. The wooden panels in the ceiling swayed slowly to and fro, he looked away and stared into the boarded walls, shocked at how bad his breath smelled. The smell was taking him over. La mort est dans cette ville, he thought, pant...
This was absolutely the worst Midsummer Eve ever – just imagine getting all dressed up in your best summer dress and sandals to take part in a grand show, and then what happens? You get to see the show being taped and it, pardon the expression, stinks. Our little scatterbrain was all over the pla...
The descriptions of Hälleforsnäs and its industrial history are based upon real places and events, but all characters and many of the incidents related in this novel are an expression of the author’s artistic licence. In order to depict the future of the media industry I have taken inspiration fr...
Every last character originated in the mind of the author. Any similarities to real-life figures are sheer coincidence. The newspaper Kvällspressen does not exist, which also goes for Zero Television and the network I chose to call TV Plus. They were inspired by a number of existing organizations...
He had been lying there staring at the glowing red numbers on the clock-radio for more than an hour, and knew he wasn’t going to get any more sleep. He turned his head and looked at his sleeping wife, her lips parted, eyelashes resting on her cheeks, chest rising and falling under the duvet. She ...
Early morning meetings at the top of the central building of the police complex on Kungsholmen were notorious, particularly the ones in the corner rooms with a view of the treetops in Kronoberg Park outside the window.And now it was his turn.The head of the Security Police and Bertstrand, his dep...
Nordic Credit had gone bankrupt during the First World War, but its emblem was still engraved above one of the side entrances, Anders Schyman had forgotten which. He paid for the taxi with the newspaper’s credit card, then glanced at the reporter beside him. She looked like an unmade bed. At the ...
I lifted the plants in October. You let the soil rest over the winter. In organic farming, it's vital to keep the greenhouse and soil free of bacteria and fungus diseases. Present-day farmers often use rock wool or peat, but I stick to soil. Come here, I'll show you." He walked down the path an...
The daylight making its way through the white curtain told her that it was lunchtime and that the weather was lousy. Strangely enough she felt rested and it didn’t hurt anywhere.She rolled over on her side, her gaze stopping at the card she had put on the night-stand. Rebecka’s number. The decisi...