Doubleday

As Leif G.W. Persson is a new author for me, I was interested to read the bio in this book:

"Leif Persson is the Grand Master of Scandinavian crime fiction.  Over three decades, he has taken a scalpel to the political and social mores of Swedish society in dark, complex and satirical crime novels.  His work melds the social realism of a Balzac or a Dickens with the hard-boiled street smarts of a James Ellroy."

Whatever that means.....  More importantly, the blurb eventually goes on to note that he is the author of nine novels, with BETWEEN SUMMER'S LONGING and WINTER'S END being the first translated into English.

This is a massive door stopper of a book at 551 pages, and I will confess to being more than a little concerned about how much of that could possibly be filled by the story of a doubtful suicide of an unknown American in Stockholm.  But this book has one of the all-time great opening sequences.  One of those "right, let's get into this!" sort of opening sequences which just grabbed interest and seemed to set things off at a snorting pace.  From there, well things got ... odd.  I've been thinking about this for a while now and I suspect that's going to be the best explanation I can come up with.  Before things got very odd.  Profoundly odd really.  The plot is dense to the point of condensed treacle.  It seems to head off in all sorts of directions in short, sharp bursts of viewpoints, snippets, back story, future stories and around in circles and back down laneways and into blind alleys to the point where, frankly, I wasn't sure which book I was still reading about half-way through.  

I suspect that the author has a tremendous sense of humour though, and there's a great deal of laugh out loud dark, satirical humour here.  That's not to say that the point is humorous - far from it really.  It's alternatively funny, shocking, thought-provoking and quite confrontational.  There also seems to be a cast of thousands.  There were people popping in and out of the story all over the place, and threads wandering in and out of the narrative like they'd got lost in the post somewhere.  Combine that jack-in-a-box behaviour with the humour and I did develop a sneaking feeling that we were actually playing some sort of written form of "Whack a Mole".  I understand this is book one in a trilogy however, and it could be that a lot of the ins and outs of CIA operatives, secret papers, code names, secret police, corrupt and incompetent governments, Cold War complications and whatever else I've forgotten was going on, will be clarified in the later books once they are released.  And here's a quiet plea to please translate the things in order - without too long a delay - so that readers who are interested have got a hope of clinging to the threads!

To be perfectly honest, I finished this book with absolutely NO idea what I was supposed to take away from it.  I'm still profoundly confused about what was going on.  But if part of the destination is the journey, then this was a ride no doubt about that.  I loved the satirical tone, and I didn't mind the odd madcap sort of style.  I can live with the idea that I've finished the book with very little idea of what it was all about.  Whilst I will be waiting for the following two books, this isn't necessarily a book I'd recommend with no reservations.  I think that a reader of BETWEEN SUMMER'S LONGING AND WINTER'S END who enjoys it, is going to be somebody that is open to something very different, happy with a rollercoaster of a ride to more questions than answers, and keen to try something that, to be perfectly frank, is completely and utterly different. And just that little bit odd.

Less of a fully fledged review, more of a musing on the latest Discworld Novel from Terry Pratchett UNSEEN ACADEMICALS.

The quote on the back sort of says it all "The thing about football - the IMPORTANT thing about football - is that it is not just about football".  Now I will admit I'm not a football (in any incarnation) fan.  Can't stand the hype.  Can't stand the carry-on.  Can't stand the games themselves.  So I was a little intrigued by this book - how would a Terry Pratchett treatment of the dreaded awfulness work?  I was certainly intrigued enough to put aside my up until now tendency to purchase immediately and horde for the future any Discworld novels (what can I say - I'm a bit weird - I'm doing it with a few of my all time favourite authors).  

Needless to say, football does get a lot of the Pratchett / Discworld treatment and there are some wonderful digs, jabs and observations about football, football fans and the way that this sort of game is regarded.  There are some great characterisations, and some cameo performances by many of the Wizards of the Unseen University and thankfully some fantastic politics in their ranks.

Perhaps there is a little less focus, sharpness, snappiness in the story telling.  Maybe this is because of the known health problems of Mr Pratchett, maybe it's just that every now and then a book gets a little more reflective, a little less paced and fast and furious.  Who knows, and frankly, who cares.  UNSEEN ACADEMICALS is another entrant in the Discworld series, and even if it's not the best ever book in a series of best ever books - it's a Discworld novel. 

Did it make me laugh enough to wake up the long suffering husband (who keeps saying that a Discworld book on the nightstand should immediately instigate a move to the spare bed)?  It did indeed.  Did it make me care about football?  Miracles don't happen in these parts.  But I do think the next time somebody asks me who I barrack for, I'll be nominating the Unseen University.

This book is just classic Swedish / Scandinavian crime fiction.  Slow, involved, intricate, revealing and complex, ECHOES FROM THE DEAD concentrates very much on Julia, and her father, and their slow and careful repairing of a relationship which was torn apart at the time that Julia's son disappeared.

Julia hasn't coped at all since her son's disappearance and she's at a particularly low ebb in life when her father calls her back to the small, closed in island on which the boy disappeared.  Julia's father, Gerlof, lives in a home now, but he's still connected with the island and the people.  And that's the other thing that this book draws out beautifully - connections.  Much of the solution to the disappearance of the little boy relies on the connection that only time can bring.  Gerlof and his cronies are islanders from way back, and the little tweaks of memory, knowing who to ask about what, and where to look for information is part of the reason that Gerlof and Julia are finally able to get to the bottom of the boy's loss.  Guilt and revenge also play their own part, as does stupidity and a momentary loss of control which leads to an even greater loss in years to come.  As does suspicion.  The character of Nils is particularly poignant - guilty perhaps, but not of everything, it's easy to make an outsider / somebody who is perhaps not quite "all there" responsible for everything.  It's really really easy to jump to conclusions and get things wrapped up all neat and tidy.

It's undoubtedly a slow book, but slow is exactly what you want in this instance.  You're pulled into this tiny little community.  You're pulled into the profound grief and total loss of Julia, you're pulled into the way that Gerlof tries to put things right with his own daughter.  But none of these things - after all those years - can be resolved quickly, and the book doesn't push you through, but quietly, understatedly allows the events to pull you to them.  It's a character study at the same time as it's an investigation.  The resolution is complicated and messy and untidy and maybe a bit unsatisfactory if you're into things nicely all tied up and done and dusted - but that's exactly as it so often is.

And that's what makes it classic Scandinavian crime fiction for this reader, nothing is easy, often things can't be wrapped up and ticked off, people make decisions that have profound long-term effects and violence is never going to be the solution.