Set in modern day Sweden, we follow the investigation into the murder of Stellan Broman, a beloved retired TV star (think Johnny Carson/Terry Wogan). It quickly becomes evident that the murder is in some way connected to the reactivation of a decades-old East German spy ring with the objective of passing on a long-forgotten weapon to Islamic fundamentalists.

The key investigator is Sara Nowak, a policewoman working in a vice unit arresting men using prostitutes. Her family connection to Broman enables her to get involved in the investigation and she is is the only one who takes the connection to the spy ring seriously.

This is a depressing book. Every character is horrendously flawed or damaged; evil psychopathy or sociopathy seem to run riot through the population. Murder, violence, rape and incest are everyday events in all Swedish life, it appears. Sara is self-righteous and violent who believes her moral code is the only one to live by and is prepared to do anything, including breaking the law and hurting people, when she feels she has been wronged. She draws a morel equivalence between eating meat and using prostitutes.

The core of the book entails Sara re-evaluating her whole life and relationships based on her discoveries about the case, rather than focusing on the murder/spy-ring investigation itself, so the narrative does not move forwards very quickly. To help with the pacing we, the reader, are given more information than that available to the investigators, which weakens the suspense somewhat.

The writing is quite strong, although the only characters we get to see in any detail are Sara and Stellan Broman’s widow, Agneta.

I was aiming at two-and-a-half stars for this book, but there is a delicious twist at the very end which is worth an extra star. ( )

Why would hearing just one word on the telephone cause Agneta, a loving wife and mother and a doting grandmother, to immediately go into the living room and shoot her 85 year-old husband in the head, to quickly retrieve a package she’d hidden many years earlier before packing it, a miscellany of other items and some food, into a rucksack and then to flee the house on an old bicycle which had once belonged to one of her daughters? And why is police detective Sara Nowak so determined to involve herself in the subsequent investigation into the murder of the old man and the disappearance of his elderly wife?
Set in Sweden, Gustaf Skördeman’s gripping debut novel combines many different, but interlinked, plot-lines. Alongside the investigation of a present-day murder mystery, is a complex spy-thriller which has its roots in an historic story which dates back to the Cold War. It gradually exposes a network of spies and secret agents, all recruited by East Germany during the 70s/80s, as well as ‘sleepers’ who’d been put in place to lead normal lives until it was time for them to be ‘re-awakened’ by a handler.
From the start of this gripping and multi-layered novel, the reader is quickly drawn into a dark and disturbing world, one which explores the relatively recent history of European politics, of communism, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the reunification of Germany, international terrorism, corruption, both political and personal, sexual abuse and, central to all these themes, the often devastating human cost. From the myriad small details which were included as the story unfolded, it soon became clear that the author has not only researched this period well, but is skilled at making very effective use of his knowledge to create convincing and evocative scenarios throughout his storytelling. As he's a screenwriter, director and producer, maybe it should perhaps come as no surprise that his writing has such a ‘visual’ quality. Although I regard myself as fairly knowledgeable about this period of European politics, this novel encouraged me to do some more research of my own – and any book which does that always adds a layer of satisfaction to my reading experience!
I particularly enjoyed the many convincing twists and turns which required me to frequently re-evaluate who could or couldn’t be trusted. The skilful, controlled way in which the author only slowly revealed the hidden secrets which showed how past and present intersected not only created an impressive build-up of tension, but also kept me fully engaged with the unfolding plot. The only aspect of his storytelling which I found disturbing was the level of detail he included in his descriptions of the sexual abuse of under-age girls. Whilst I recognise that it was a linking theme in the story, I think most readers are capable of imagining the deeply disturbing and traumatic nature of this abhorrent crime without any need to have it depicted quite so graphically.
I enjoyed the author’s convincing portrayals of his two complex and intriguing female main characters. Although there’s nothing novel about having a deeply-flawed female detective as a central character, I think the back-story he created for Sara very effectively demonstrated why she was so conflicted and obsessed, and why she behaved and reacted in the ways that she did. As it’s not often that an elderly grandmother is ‘allowed’ to be violent and something of a baddie, I was fascinated by the elderly Agneta and thought that her character was equally well-observed, although I would have liked to have got to know more about her and what drove her … but with a number of loose ends left when the story ended, perhaps a sequel is on the cards!
This story should appeal both to lovers of Scandi-noir crime thrillers and of spy dramas because Gustaf Skördeman combines the two genres in a satisfying and entertaining way in his debut novel! ( )