The other life (2011) by Ellen Meister

Poor novel. Portals to an other world. Um

Widow (2016) by Fiona Barton

It’s not surprising that Fiona Barton’s debut novel The Widow was optioned by the team behind the Wolf Hall miniseries before it even hit stores. The story, which primarily follows a suburban British woman dealing with unwanted attention from the press and police after her husband is accused of abducting and murdering a child, feels right out of the Lifetime movie playbook. But Barton executes her trashy concept with style, producing a highly compelling guilty read.
The story focuses on Jean, a quiet hairdresser who was wooed by charismatic banker Glen Taylor. Barton deftly shows the small rifts in their relationship—such as his tendency to order food for Jean, who is too afraid of offending him to tell him when she doesn’t like something. Jean is desperate for a baby, but after trouble conceiving, Glen refuses to consider “unnatural” in vitro or the prying into their personal lives that adoption would entail. When he stops working in the bank in favor of driving a delivery truck, Jean believes his reasons for the career change: His boss didn’t like him because he was ambitious; he wants to start his own business. When Glen gets a computer that he doesn’t let Jean interact with, she refers to her husband’s new habit as “his nonsense” and grudgingly accepts his increasingly withdrawn state.
By giving us glimpses of Jean’s submission, Barton conceals the truth about how much Glen’s wife really knows about him. Their relationship is publicly questioned once he becomes the prime suspect in the disappearance of Bella, a little girl plucked out of her backyard while her single mother was inside. Is Jean willfully ignorant? An accomplice? A victim herself? Those are the questions that the book’s two other narrators, reporter Kate Waters and detective Bob Sparkes, want answered after Glen dies in a car accident.
Barton is a former reporter for the British tabloid the Daily Mail, and her past experience shows in her matter-of-fact prose. Given the subject matter, the book could easily feel exploitative or overly sensationalist, but Barton leaves any graphic details to the reader’s imagination. She can be a bit too dry at times, with a section on the police’s investigation through chat rooms frequented by pedophiles coming off a bit like an essay on how to catch an internet predator. Likewise, in her desire not to delve too deep into the procedural, Glen’s trial feels a bit like only glimpsing the JonBenét Ramsey case from the periphery.

But her tight writing works well when she just shows a glimpse of what’s going on in Jean’s head and then moves on, keeping the deeper question of “what does she know?” a mystery. There are moments when Jean rebels against her passive life in little ways, like plucking an apple from the counter of the posh hotel her media handlers have taken her to and then walking out on them. Other times it’s clear her relationship with Glen has left her deeply emotionally scarred, clinging to the image she had of herself when they were still a young couple full of potential. Particularly compelling is Jean’s resentment of Bella’s mother, who she blames for making the girl so easy to snatch.
Waters is a particularly compelling supporting character, a predator in her pursuit of exclusive interviews with both Bella’s mother and Jean—working to build trust with both vulnerable women in their moments of crisis. Yet Barton also makes her deeply sympathetic in intimate moments that seem drawn from the author’s own life, like a conversation about her career with her husband or the chaste flirtation she shares with Sparkes.
Lacking the personal experience that helps her quickly develop Waters or the page count devoted to Jean, Barton’s portrayal of Sparkes feels shallow by comparison. He’s relegated to an old cop archetype—devoted to catching his man even if it puts him at odds with his superiors and his wife. But his dedicated police work helps the narrative slowly unfold in a way that feels more methodically earned than the big twist that drives Gone Girl. Evidence slides into place, but nothing fundamentally shifts the paradigm in a way that will jar the reader. That might not make television audiences gasp in the same way, but there’s still plenty of suspense that promises to make The Widow as effective for binge watching as it is as a page-turner.

Thanks to AC Club for excellent review.

A faceless killer (2009) by Hening Mankell

Thanks to Goodreads for their review

One frozen January morning at 5am, Inspector Wallander responds to what he believes is a routine call-out. When he reaches the isolated farmhouse he discovers a bloodbath. An old man has been tortured and beaten to death, his wife lies barely alive beside his shattered body, both victims of a violence beyond reason. The woman supplies Wallander with his only clue: the perpetrators may have been foreign. When this is leaked to the press, it unleashes racial hatred.

Kurt Wallander's life is a shambles: his wife has left him, his daughter refuses to speak to him, and even his ageing father barely tolerates him. He works tirelessly, eats badly, and drinks his nights away in a lonely, neglected flat. But now, with winter tightening and his activities being monitored by a tough-minded district attorney, Wallander must forget his troubles and throw himself into a battle against time and against mounting racial hatred.

The woman who walked in sunshine (2015) by Alexnder McCall Smith

Trouble man (2009) by Henning Mankell

 

 Photograph: Christian Charisius/ Reuters

 

 

What is an acceptable shelf life for a fictional detective? Has Wallander gone too soon? Should Henning Mankell have kept him going for a few more years? These are the questions that will trouble fans of Inspector Kurt Wallander, Europe's and arguably the world's most popular policeman, when they finish page 365 of Mankell's latest, and last, novel in the series that began 20 years ago. Wallander is not dead: his creator, though, has made it clear that he will no longer be with us.
There are, according to Mankell's website, 10 books in the series, though other aficionados stretch it to 13 by adding novels in which Wallander is not the central character. Not so many in comparison with other detectives who have a following across the world. Sherlock Holmes kept Arthur Conan Doyle busy for 40 years and 60 stories. Maigret featured in more than 100 cases, if one includes Georges Simenon's short stories as well as more than 70 novels. In the modern era there are writers who know when to call it a day, those who don't, and those who die before their detective does. Walter Mosley and Ian Rankin fall into the first category. Mosley gave Easy Rawlins 11 outings in Los Angeles of the 1950s and 1960s, and no more. "When the 21st century hit, I realised the series no longer spoke to people today," Mosley said. DI Rebus lasted longer in Edinburgh, but Rankin sensibly retired him in 2007.

                                                                                

James Lee Burke, sadly, is a category two man. Detective Dave Robicheaux, despite his wonderful Louisiana backdrop, has been with us far too long – closing in on 20 books – and has become the most self-righteous, self-pitying, guilt-ridden ex-alcoholic in crime fiction. Please, somebody, push him into the bayou, and into the jaws of a man-eating alligator. And do it soon.
Michael Dibdin and Manuel Vázquez Montalbán, even more sadly, fall into category three. They died before their famous detectives, respectively Aurelio Zen in Italy, and Pepe Carvalho in Barcelona, where there is a tourist trail dedicated to the gastronomic ex-communist investigator.
Wallander, too, has made his mark in tourism, drawing visitors to Ystad, the picturesque medieval town in southern Sweden. None has been murdered, which is remarkable in an area awash with serial killers and psychopaths.
There is far more to enjoy in the Wallander series than his solving of crimes, however: his relationships with his father, his daughter Linda, his heavy-drinking ex-wife Mona, his Latvian ex-lover Baiba Liepa, his past, his colleagues, the state. The books would be far less enjoyable without his many difficulties and idiosyncrasies, all of which add to the general sense of Scandinavian gloom that pervades the work of Mankell (son-in-law of Ingmar Bergman) and so many other popular Nordic writers.

 

One only has to turn to the second page of chapter one of The Troubled Man to find a few lines that are, for fans of Wallander and all good writers of Scandinavian crime, satisfyingly gloomy. Wallander is conscious that, at 60, he is in the "third age". He frequently thinks about death. He recalls that just after his 50th birthday "he had bought a new notebook and tried to record his memories of all the dead people he had come across. It had been a macabre exercise and he had no idea why he had been tempted to pursue it. When he got as far as the 10th suicide, a man in his 40s, a drug addict with more or less every problem it was possible to imagine, he gave up."
There are significant changes to Wallander's life. He becomes a grandfather; he moves from his town-centre apartment in Ystad to a more remote, and more lonely, rural home; and he finds a new companion, a dog.
Of all his colleagues from his first days in Ystad, only one, Martinsson, remains. He, too, is on his way out. When the two men sit and talk over coffee in Wallander's kitchen, Martinsson says, "I just can't take it any more," and starts crying. Wallander, characteristically, offers no physical support as the tears flow, and does not know what to do. He is impressed, though, that Martinsson, who describes his police work as "torture", has the courage to cry in front of another man.

The other grandparents of Linda's daughter are central to the plot. Hakan Von Enke, a retired naval commander, and later his wife, Louise, both disappear. Wallander neglects his duties in Ystad to investigate. He finds himself delving into the past: the cold war, Soviet-Bloc spies, Russian submarines in Swedish waters, and the most famous unsolved crime in Swedish history, the assassination of prime minister Olof Palme in 1986. This gives Wallander, and Mankell, ample opportunity to comment on the social wellbeing, or lack of it, of modern Sweden.

Three actors have played Wallander in different series televised by the BBC, one of them British and two Swedish (annoyingly the least good of the three, Kenneth Branagh, has his picture on the front cover of the book). The detective's popularity is unparalleled, and Mankell has sold more than 30 million books worldwide. He could go on and on. Has he made the right decision to retire the man who made him famous? Yes. Mankell is a category one writer in every respect.

Review thanks to The Guardian

Make me (2015) by Lee Child

         

          

 

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 Once again, thanks to Goodreads.

Make

A Jack Reacher Novel

“Why is this town called Mother’s Rest?” That’s all Reacher wants to know. But no one will tell him. It’s a tiny place hidden in a thousand square miles of wheat fields, with a railroad stop, and sullen and watchful people, and a worried woman named Michelle Chang, who mistakes him for someone else: her missing partne

“Why is this town called Mother’s Rest?” That’s all Reacher wants to know. But no one will tell him. It’s a tiny place hidden in a thousand square miles of wheat fields, with a railroad stop, and sullen and watchful people, and a worried woman named Michelle Chang, who mistakes him for someone else: her missing partner in a private investigation she thinks must have started small and then turned lethal.

Reacher has no particular place to go, and all the time in the world to get there, and there’s something about Chang . . . so he teams up with her and starts to ask around. He thinks: How bad can this thing be? But before long he’s plunged into a desperate race through LA, Chicago, Phoenix, and San Francisco, and through the hidden parts of the internet, up against thugs and assassins every step of the way—right back to where he started, in Mother’s Rest, where he must confront the worst nightmare he could imagine.

Walking away would have been easier. But as always, Reacher’s rule is: If you want me to stop, you’re going to have to make me.

The long shadow (2008) by Liza Marklund

Posted: October 13, 2013 by Neil Smith   for https://crimescraps2.wordpress.com

 
Annika Bengtzon turns down the offer from Anders Schyman to be lead editor at the Evening Post and finds herself on a rota with Patrik, her new boss, giving her orders. Then a story comes her way as the news agency inform them about a whole family killed by gas used in a break in in Spain. 
‘Every break in uses gas. Gas-detectors are more common than fire-alarms in the villas of Nueva Andalucia.’ 
Annika learns that there is a large Swedish colony on the Costs del Sol, and the murdered family are the Soderstroms. The husband Sebastian was an ex-NHL ice hockey star who ran a tennis club, and the mother Veronica, a corporate lawyer with an office in Gibraltar, and probably some shady clients. When Annika realises that a teenage daughter Suzette was not killed in the gassing  she becomes involved in a difficult search for the missing girl which will take her across two continents
The Long Shadow is a direct sequel to Lifetime and I would advise anyone to read that book immediately before attempting this one. If there is too big a gap you might forget whose who! There are many characters and numerous familial connections with that novel. I wished I had made a chart of all the characters and their relationships because complex and convoluted don’t go far enough to describe a plot full of coincidences.
There are certain features that seem standard in recent Scandinavian crime fiction. There is a massive amount of detail packed into the 568 pages; the reader learns about the European drugs trade, money-laundering and financial crimes, narcotic drugs, naloxone and fatal doses of morphine, how journalists work in Sweden, and how Swedes enjoy the jet set lifestyle in Spain. The Swedish title of The Long Shadow is appropriately “en plats i solen”-A Place in the Sun.
The novel is an easy read because the narrative closely follows Annika’s progress and to enjoy these books you have to like or be interested in Annika Bengtzon. She is however a flawed heroine, egocentric and at times  impossible to work with; her clashes with photographer Lotta are one of the best parts of the story. Liza Marklund’s male characters are unfaithful pathetic creeps or violent villains, and It is sad that Annika has such poor judgement when it comes to her sex partners, and the reader is teased into thinking the unthinkable. Will she take trophy husband Thomas back?
I don’t think this is one of Marklund’s best books but despite the length, the very complex plot, being taken down paths that turn out to be dead ends or themes for future books, and the scattering of anti-Brit comments [which may be Agatha Christie like clues] I enjoyed reading about Annika’s adventures in the sun.
‘One in five households won’t join our little association because of the membership fee, which goes into gardener’s wages, pool maintenance and the satellite television dish. Isn’t that just dreadful?’ She drank some more wine.
‘They’re not welcome here. And guess what?’ She whispered in Annika’s ear: ‘They’re all Brits.’
Racism comes in all shapes and colours, Annika thought.

disobedience (2006) by Naomi Alderman

    

Lucy Beresford  The Telegraph UK

12:01AM BST 02 Jul 2006

In this début novel, which has just won the Orange Award for New Writers, Naomi Alderman explores the fertile, if familiar territory of individuals rebelling against rules. The main focus of her tale is Ronit, a lapsed Orthodox Jew who also happens to be the daughter of an eminent rabbi in ultra-conformist Hendon.

The conflicts are nicely set up: not only has Ronit escaped to live in New York, turning her back on both her family and faith, but she is also a lesbian having an affair with her married (male) boss. When after six years of silence her cousin Dovid calls with the news of her father's death, the scene is set for a return visit to north London, and a confrontation with all that Ronit has worked so hard to suppress.

Alderman is at her most sure-footed when writing about Jewish lore. Each chapter is prefaced by a religious quotation, which is followed by a description of how this is woven into orthodox practice, all told in a controlled, almost rabbinical voice. As a non-Jewish reader, by the middle of the book I was devouring these segments as eagerly as the attendees at the rabbi's funeral who fall upon the lavish kosher buffet.

The problem is that these erudite, moving, often uncomfortable passages demonstrate the very thing Ronit complains about in Jewish orthodoxy. They are compelling in their own right, but they stifle the plot, as though Alderman hasn't left enough space to give her characters room to breathe. Ronit has chutzpah (although her speech is, like, enslaved to some sort of Sex and the City dialect to emphasise her estrangement from Hendon, and quickly irritates). But numerous other characters remain hidden metaphorically behind the synagogue curtain, coyly under-drawn.

The one character who shines quietly through is Esti - wife to insecure, migraine-addled Dovid, and Ronit's erstwhile lover. Esti's unquestioning conformity (something Ronit scorns) becomes by the end of the novel something admirable. The scene where she struggles to purchase a pregnancy testing kit as the minutes tick down towards Shabbat is gripping.

Despite some novelistic weaknesses, Alderman's commentary on Orthodox Judaism in the 21st century is thought-provoking and illuminating, and she has the comic's gift to assassinate from within with compassion.

The hand trembles (2011) by Kjell Erickson

 Reviewed by Ananth Krishnan on Scandinavian Crime Fiction blog. Posted on January 10, 2012 by Barbara. 

 

 

There is no doubt that I have been smitten by the Scandinavian crime bug. If Mankell and Maj Sjöwall / Per Wahloo have sown the seeds, then further care was bestowed by the likes of Jo Nesbo, Camilla Lackberg & Steig Larsson with Kjell Eriksson marking the official existence of the contagion – nevertheless, it is a viral infection that I am enjoying infinitely ! Though all the name dropping above is but a drop in the ocean I think these names are enough proof of the impact these authors have had in the world of crime fiction (not to mention the big fat hole in my wallet, however I must mention here my thanks to Allison & Busby for providing me a review copy of this particular book)
Eriksson’s The Hand that Trembles marks my latest foray into this wonderful world. The book deals with three sub plots, so to say – Sven-Arne’s Persson’s vanishing without a trace from public life after being a successful politician for several years, a dismembered foot washed up on the beach leading Ann Lindell to investigate further and an age old but unsolved crime of the beating to death of Nils Dufva being looked into by Berglund (Ann’s boss). Given that this is crime fiction, there are no points for guessing that these would all be linked somehow but where Eriksson shines is the approach he employs to develop the plot – the characters are all carefully etched and the settings amidst which their interplay happens suggests loads of intricate research.
Eriksson excels in his prose many a time employing excellent metaphors that show an amazing depth in the character – this especially comes to the fore when his characters indulge in their introspective ruminations. Of special mention is the character Ante Persson (Sven-Arne Persson’s uncle), a staunch communist – his trauma is palpable and his portrayal is so vivid that one cannot help but show empathy towards this old man. It is also with this character that Eriksson manages to tie in a militant past that embodies much of Sweden’s actual history (in terms of communism and Nazi politics during the 1930s). The novel ebbs and flows across time and places never leaving the boundaries of the three sub plots yet still managing to inject enough twists and spins to keep the reader interested. As with most other Nordic writers Eriksson too manages a wonderful depiction of community life and how tight knit its inhabitants and their lives are – Bultudden is where the discerped foot appears and it is with its residents that Ann Lindell is pitted against in order to untangle the mystery.
I don’t think I need to specifically mention that I enjoyed this book but I do have to mention some little gripes. I could not help but have a disjointed feeling as I was turning the pages – I don’t know if it was because this was my first read of the series (it is actually eight-old in Swedish and four-old in English) lending to unfamiliarity with the recurring characters or the random order translation of the series itself into English – irrespective, it was something I could not shake off. Not to mean that I found it boring but I found some sections random and incoherent in relation to the flow of events. Ann Lindell comes across as a very promising and talented detective but this particular book does not have enough to paint a picture in my head, I really wished Eriksson would have spent some more time for those not-in-order readers like me. Another thing that I just have to say – I am an Indian and I could not help but judge how Bangalore was portrayed (Bangalore is featured in this book as Sven-Arne Persson’s hideout after his disappearance).  I wonder if Eriksson has actually been to Bangalore but I find the imagery including the nuances fairly accurate but I would have liked it if some judgmental portions were toned down just a touch.
Even so, these issues are just me bellyaching for this was a book that I found to be a very satisfying read. It was a journey that was filled with all the ingredients that a successful crime fiction novel should contain – strong characters with honest portraits of their daily realism, an unassailable plot that is a reward to see resolved and some fitting research work not to mention the tinge of India thrown in to top things off – a winning recipe all around!!!

 

Firewall (2003) Firewall by Henning Mankill

     Thanks to Goodreads for this synopsis    

          

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Preview — Firewall by Henning Mankell

  

Stopping to get money from a cash machine one evening, a man inexplicably falls to the ground: dead. A taxi driver is brutally murdered by two teenaged girls. Quickly apprehended they appal local policemen with their total lack of remorse. One girl escapes police custody and disappears without trace. Soon afterwards a blackout covers half the country. When an engineer arri Stopping to get money from a cash machine one evening, a man inexplicably falls to the ground: dead. A taxi driver is brutally murdered by two teenaged girls. Quickly apprehended they appal local policemen with their total lack of remorse. One girl escapes police custody and disappears without trace. Soon afterwards a blackout covers half the country. When an engineer arrives at the malfunctioning power station, he makes a grisly discovery. Inspector Kurt Wallander is sure that these events must be linked - somehow. Hampered by the discovery of betrayals in his own team, lonely and frustrated, Wallander begins to lose conviction in his role as a detective. The search for answers leads Wallander dangerously close to a shadowy group of anarchic terrorists, hidden within the anonymity of cyberspace. Somehow these criminals seem always to know the police's next move. Wallander finds himself fighting to outsmart them In their gripping police procedural about our increasing vulnerability in the modern digitalised world.

The laughing policeman (1970) by Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo

 Thanks to Goodreads for write-up.    

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Preview — The Laughing Policeman by Maj Sjöwall

   

 

The Laughing Polic

The incredible fourth novel in the Martin Beck mystery series by the internationally renowned crime writing duo Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö, finds Martin Beck heading a major manhunt in pursuit of a mass-murderer.

On a cold and rainy Stockholm night, nine bus riders are gunned down by a mysterious assassin. The press portrays it as a freak attack and dubs the killer a madman The incredible fourth novel in the Martin Beck mystery series by the internationally renowned crime writing duo Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö, finds Martin Beck heading a major manhunt in pursuit of a mass-murderer.

On a cold and rainy Stockholm night, nine bus riders are gunned down by a mysterious assassin. The press portrays it as a freak attack and dubs the killer a madman. But Superintendent Martin Beck thinks otherwise—one of his most ambitious young detectives was among those killed—and he suspects it was more than coincidence. Working on a hunch, Beck seeks out the girlfriend of the murdered detective, and with her help Beck reconstructs the steps that led to his murder. The police comb the country for the killer, only to find that this attack may be connected to a case that has been unsolved for years.

do less (2014) by Rachel Jonat

do less is a minimalist guide to creating a simplified, organized, and happy life.  Lots of good ideas, but I can't help but think that this is the way I lived as a child, and so did the other families' around us.  No such thing as two cars, in fact many families had no car and travelled by bus.  Children shared bedroom, beds, and closets.  Toys were few.  No need for a family room, as that was the kitchen where we played board games.  You had your good shoes and your play shoes.  And only sailors had tattoos! Hair was washed once a week, and baths were taken in a few inches as water so as to not waste. So many of us lived with wells.  No throwing clothes in the washer and dryer.  The winger washer was dangerous and belonged to mom.  Clothes were hung outside, summer and winter. Most clothes were handed down between siblings and cousins.  The word designer was a word reserved for architects and the like. There were also church clothes which were worn every Sunday.  This was normal. Breast feeding was no a new behaviour for mothers, but a healthy and inexpensive way to feed babies.  Guess that my generation knows lots already about a minimalist lifestyle.

Woman with a secret (2014) by Sophie Hannah

Thanks to KIRKUS REVIEW

The murder of a heat-seeking online columnist provides DC Simon Waterhouse and his wife, DS Charlie Zailer, with perhaps too many suspects—including a leading suspect so overburdened with guilt that she’s almost too convenient.
Whoever killed Damon Blundy put no end of thought into the job, arriving at Blundy’s home with a knife, a knife sharpener, a hazmat suit, and a roll of duct tape that was used to smother the victim only after he’d been stunned with the knife sharpener and the knife itself taped to his face. A note on Blundy’s wall, “HE IS NO LESS DEAD,” was written not in blood but in red paint the murderer also thoughtfully supplied. Less dead than who or what? wonder Simon and Charlie (The Carrier, 2015, etc.). Despite Blundy’s vast throng of enemies, whose numbers included Times columnist Keiran Holland, pot-smoking horror novelist Reuben Tasker, ex–MP Paula Riddiough, and virtually everyone else he’d ever mentioned in his column, suspicion quickly fastens on Nichola Clements, who’d been carrying on a long-term online relationship with the victim. Respectably married Nicki and the correspondent she’d known as Gavin had never met in the flesh (unless of course they had); instead they’d indulged their mutual appetite for sharing secrets by emailing each other 20 times a day. Agonized by shame and fear, Nicki finds even her brother, her mother, and her best friend arrayed against her, along with her own heavy conscience. But there are many more layers yet to be peeled.
Hannah, who plots rings around most of the competition, shares Ruth Rendell’s shivery conviction that there are still darker secrets than whodunit, how, and why.

Last will (2012) by Liza Markland

Thanks to EuroCrime Blog

December. Stockholm City Hall. The Nobel Prize-giving ceremonies. A woman stands outside the Hall and grinds out the remains of her cigarette. She marks off the stages of her assignment, the text message saying that the target was leaving the Blue Hall for the Golden Hall. Concentrating on looking cold and vulnerable in her evening dress and high heels, she heads towards the police officers at the building's entrance. As one of them prepares to stop her, she throws out her arms as if slipping. He grabs her arm to save her and she mutters something in English and moves inside the courtyard. So easy. Inside the Blue Hall, journalist Annika Bengtzon rises from her chair and politely acknowledges her seating partner, the managing editor of Science. She stands taking stock of the great and good surrounding her and, greeted by a fellow journalist from another paper, she gratefully allows herself to be swept off to the dancing in the Golden Hall. The woman known as The Kitten is there already, moving amongst the dancers, her gun heavy in her shoulder purse, looking for her target. Target found, she raises her arm on the pretext of dropping her phone into her bag and reaches for her gun. A loudly laughing figure knocks into her and she slips, treading on someone's foot. She looks into a woman's heavily made-up eyes. Shaken, she presses on with the job, concentrating. One shot to the man's leg, next shot to the woman's heart. Leave as the screams start.
Annika is face down on the marble floor. Someone is throwing up next to her. Someone else is standing on her hand. A man lifts her up and sits her next to the wall. Security men are everywhere in the chaos of the hall. Where is her bag? She must phone her editor. When a policeman comes to take her details, even when he takes her into another room to wait to be interviewed, Annika can think only of calling her paper. As luck would have it, or perhaps it is not luck, her interviewer is her police contact, Q. Did he just call her "a headline-chasing bitch"? He asks again about the woman who trod on her foot. What did she look like? What happened next? What did Annika see and hear? Two muffled noises. The man collapsing. His partner is looking at him in surprise as he falls – and then down at her own breast and her own blood. She looks into Annika's eyes as she dies.
Marklund has described her own work process as one in which, after the initial research and synopsis phase, she unplugs the phone and sits down to write "fast and concentrated,... almost like running a marathon". LAST WILL hits the reader with the same engagement. Its opening scenes of assassination at the Nobel Award ceremonies pin Marklund's reporter, Annika Bengtzon, right at the heart of the crime and her tension and stress will increase as she finds herself unable to write the ultimate eyewitness story because of the gagging order placed on her due to her role as prime witness. As with earlier books in the series there is a strong focus on Annika's personal life and her struggle to combine her roles as wife and mother with her obsessive drive to succeed with her own investigative skills and ambition. In LAST WILL the tension of her emotional struggle is equal to the suspense of the criminal plot. Indeed it seems all-consuming as the ban on her reporting increases her isolation at work and leaves her thrown onto the rocks within her marriage. By the time she decides to continue the family's planned move to a new home in a suburban neighbourhood, her isolation has become almost complete. Combine this with the her own apparent danger as an eyewitness to a professional "hit" and one starts to feel as ragged and sleepless as Annika herself. There is plenty of social observation feeding into the story: insight into the politics of science and the pressure of changes within the media. However there were times when I felt a bit lost in the relationship between the main plot and the constantly referenced life and times of Alfred Nobel himself. When asked about her readers anticipating the outcome of a plot, Marklund has said: "I think readers are after the journey of the novel, and that's everything BUT the solution". Fortunately this is most probably a good analysis of my own enjoyment of crime fiction and if I got a bit lost over some of the detail towards the end of this novel – I don't care. The pace of this book is flawless.
Liza Marklund has also said that it doesn't matter in which order you read her Annika Bengtzon books as she herself doesn't write them in chronological order, having started with the "fourth" in terms of journalist Annika Bengtzon's life and career. LAST WILL is the sixth in the series to be translated into English, this time by the sure skills of Neil Smith. And I say too – read them in whatever order you like, but do read them. Not least this nail-biter, LAST WILL.

Lynn Harvey, England   December 2012