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 so long ago. He has skills now that he didn’t have then. He is an assassin and he has unfinished business.RED WOLF begins a few months after the end of THE BOMBER. Annika Bengtzon has become a free-lance reporter, free to follow stories that intrigue her. One of those stories dates from 1969 when a plane was destroyed on the field at the Swedish air base in Lulea, near the Arctic circle, a clear case of terrorism. A young soldier was killed in the explosion. No one was ever caught but during that period there were a number of groups with varying degrees of activity who supported the Soviet Union. Home-grown Communists may have played a role when talk of the “revolution”, people taking control of their countries to bring about pure communism, was popular. There were cells spread throughout Sweden; members of which had a code names and some have been waiting for forty years for the call to action. Annika believes that there may still be a story worth writing all these years later.Annika learns that another journalist, Benny Ekland, from a paper near Lulea, is working on the same story and has discovered something that might finally move the destruction of the plane back to the front page. Annika agrees to meet Benny in Lulea and arrives in the town to discover that Benny is dead, killed in a hit-and-run accident. Annika doesn’t want to intrude on the grief of his friends so she goes to the site of the accident, just as something to do, a sign of respect. She discovers something the police have missed – there is a witness. Annika’s source knows without question that Benny’s death was a well-planned execution.As Annika tries to continue where Benny left off, she is also being dragged into the emotional turmoil of her friend Anne who sees her career being destroyed if she can’t close the deal on a cable television project. The minister of culture is raising obstacles where there should have been none. Coincidentally, the minister of culture is from Lulea. There are so many ties to this small town near the top of the world that Annika wonders of there are connections between the actors in this new drama.It doesn’t help Annika’s concentration when she sees proof that her husband is having an affair. Annika’s been told by her editors that they want no more terrorism stories. They think Annika is obsessed while she knows that there is something lurking just under the surface that could have serious repercussions for Sweden. But how to concentrate on this so that her editor sees what she sees, when she is still seeing Thomas with another woman?RED WOLF is the long-awaited sequel to THE BOMBER. Published in Sweden in 2003, RED WOLF is not quite the book that THE BOMBER is. It takes much longer to get the action started. While it is important to the story, there seems to be more details than necessary about Anne and the complicated plan to unite all of Sweden through their connection to cable television. But, when the book hits its stride, about half way through, it clearly has been worth the time invested in all those details.
The fifth book in the Annika Bengtzon series, I've absolutely no idea whether or not the entire series has been translated in order or not. I've sort of lost the plot with this series, probably because the first book - THE BOMBER - didn't appeal a lot. The last I read, PRIME TIME, was better, but a lot of the problem is that Annika, as the main focus, is a character I find it very hard to either warm to, or increasingly raise much interest in.The plot of RED WOLF, that idea of the past having a direct impact on the present, is something I'm noticing a lot these days. The interweaving of the 1969 destruction of a plane on a Swedish air base, home-grown Communist sleeper cells and the impacts of the Cold War on Sweden then and now was carefully drawn out, given immediacy and current day relevance by the death of another journalist, Benny Ekland. It's an interesting idea, in this book executed reasonably well, although it does take a little while to get going. Which wasn't exactly helpful, as there's also a lot going on in Annika's personal life, which, if like me, you're having trouble with Annika, doesn't help with getting into this book.This is probably my biggest cause of confusion with this series. I can't work out why Annika grates quite as much as she does. Somehow she comes across to me as less stoic and determined and more whingy and inclined to play the martyr. Less put upon and more the cause of most of her problems. There's also another pattern I've noticed a bit. Whilst having a journalist as an investigator of crimes, outside the law, isn't that big a stretch of the imagination, there is sometimes a tendency to just make out that the official police investigators have "missed" vital clues. Again, not a big stretch of the imagination to think that maybe it could happen... but every time a journalist is involved? Blast, I think I'm in nitpicking territory. Which isn't a good thing. The biggest problem I've now got is that I'm not keen on the idea of just abandoning a series based on problems with one or two books - working on the principle that a book should stand alone, as well as be part of the series. 3 books out of 5 translated that have left me feeling a bit disappointed might mean that I have to shuffle the other couple down the priority pile a bit.http://www.austcrimefiction.org/revie...
What do You think about Red Wolf (2011)?
I enjoyed this thriller, mystery which takes place in the frozen land of northern Sweden. Annika Bengtzon is an investigative reporter. She has two young children and an inattentive husband who is starting to stray. She is only barely recovering from being kidnapped and terrorized by a mad serial killer connected with a story she had broken last year. As she tries to readjust to her job and family, she finds herself questioning the usefulness of one and the stability of the other. A small town reporter, whom she was supposed to meet for a lead on a story about a terrorist attack on an air base many years ago, is killed in a suspicious hit and run.This is my favorite novel by liza Marklund. To understand the life of Annika Bergtzon one must read her novels in their respective order not in the order they were written.
—Vicki
In this book, part of a mystery series, Swedish journalist Annika Bengtzon is looking into a terrorist attack that happened decades earlier, in 1969. Along the way, there are a few fresh murders, but everything is tied up cleanly by the end of the book. The last 50 or so pages were fast-paced and interesting. I wish I could say as much for the rest of the story.I thought that I would like this book, so when it didn't live up to my expectations, I refrained from just skimming through it until about the 200-page mark. The characters were mostly unlikeable, which is okay, but they were also mostly uninteresting, which is not. I really don't care exactly how Annika makes one of her endless pots of coffee, or how many meals she doesn't eat. Her angels talking to her was just weird. The personal relationships in the story were sad. Even a steamy affair, despite its explicitness, had all the titillation of a middle school sex education class given by people who don't know the grown-up terminology yet. The murders didn't have the emotional effect on me that I expect in a good mystery. The discussions of politics seemed endless.Perhaps the story lost something in translation. Perhaps the storyline just wasn't right for me. Perhaps other readers will love this book. For me, I wish I had spent my reading time on something else.I was given an advance reading copy of this book by the publisher for review.
—Susan
Years ago I read a book by Liza Marklund called Bomber, which I thought was fascinating. It was one of the first Scandanavian mysteries that told me something substantive about the health care system and the newspaper business in Sweden, all wrapped up in a finger-biting mystery. Therefore, I gave some latitude to Ms. Marklund for her follow-on novels ( Studio Sex, for one) though I didn't care for them as well.In this, her fifth Annika Bengtzon novel, Marklund really reminds me what was so good about her first novel. The character of Annika is very well-drawn, strong yet sympathetic, brazen yet vulnerable, a real mixture of a character. I liked reading about her family, her work, her obsessions. But this novel felt a little too long for me, and the plot much too unlikely. I hate to think some people will not read Red Wolf because I didn't give it five stars--it still deserves attention, and lovers of Scandanavian mysteries will love to read of how people live above the Artic Circle. She certainly gives us local color.
—Trish
