Between Summer's Longing and Winter's End

July 26, 2010
The apparent suicide of an American journalist in 1970s Stockholm propels Persson's ponderous English debut, the first of a trilogy. The victim, John Krassner, was working on a book detailing the exploits of his uncle, Col. John Buchanan, an OSS agent in the years following WWII and Buchanan's ties to a now high-ranking Swedish politician known by the code name "Pilgrim." The Swedish secret police, who were hearing chatter concerning threats to the Swedish prime minister, had been keeping an eye on Krassner at the time of his death. Curious about Krassner after discovering a personal connection to the case, police superintendent Lars Johansson begins his own inquiry and unearths more than he bargained for, including disparate pieces of a vast political conspiracy. In contrast to the work of Stieg Larsson, this thriller lacks both memorable characters and a streamlined plot.

August 15, 2010

Engaging Swedish whodunit, the first of a trilogy—reminiscent of the work of Henning Mankell and Stieg Larsson in its toughness, and just as cynical in its politics.

A story that begins with the brutal death of a deaf dog may not be entirely promising, at least for the animal lovers in the audience, but that memorable episode suits Persson's purposes just fine: Though leafy and full of nice wood furniture, Sweden, suggests the author—in his spare time a psychological profiler for the national police—is full of unhinged folks who would not think twice about committing such dastardly deeds as dispatching "an admittedly old Pomeranian" by means of a falling body who just happens to be an American of some interest to the international community. But homegrown loonies don't hold a candle to the assorted nutcases and psychopaths filling the ranks of the security forces of the superpowers, as with one CIA officer who once haunted the Stockholm embassy while nursing anti-Semitic grudges, brooding about better times and hoarding scrap metal. Ah well, shrugs the lead investigating officer, "This country is full of crazy people who collect such things." The case gets ever uglier, and if the spooks are nasty, the Stockholm cops charged with hunting down the usual suspects are decidedly incompetent. The main character is a world-weary exception, a police superintendent who seems to be living for retirement, showing "disturbing signs of wavering conviction since he'd left the field campaign against criminality to take it easy behind a series of ever-larger desks." Laced with irony and satire, Persson's tale takes a serious turn straight from the headlines of yore with a plot to remove a popular prime minister from the scene.

"What fucking people there are and what fucking lives they live," reflects one grim flatfoot. Just so. Persson does a fine job of pitting one desperate soul against another in a philosophically charged tale worthy of Ingmar Bergman—but with lots more guns.

(COPYRIGHT (2010) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

Starred review from September 1, 2010

At first glance, this novel appears to be nothing more than a detail-driven police procedural of the type Swedes have in recent years proven they do so well. Then it veers offtrack. It becomes something possibly unique in modern crime fiction: a dark, dark comedy of crossed purposes, mistakes, and misunderstandings that result, almost coincidentally, in the assassination of a prime minister--Olaf Palme--in 1986. The story starts with the apparent suicide of an American journalist. A good cop, Johansson, refuses to accept the verdict of suicide and presses for further answers. Security head Berg, on the other hand, doesn't want to hear the truth: all he cares about is his own career. And his subordinate Waltin is a monster whose actions set in motion horrible deeds. Around them circles a web of bullies, incompetents, and place seekers who create a tissue of half-truths that ultimately results in two deaths. This is a grim story, though leavened by Persson's gallows humor. VERDICT This exceptional novel, the first of a trilogy by Sweden's top psychological profiler and foremost expert on crime, starts slowly but never stops building. It merits a wide audience.--David Keymer, Modesto, CA

Copyright 2010 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 15, 2010
The unsolved 1986 assassination of Swedish prime minister Olaf Palme hovers behind much of contemporary Scandinavian crime fiction, often as a watershed momentthe point at which the countrys slow decline into American-style crime and chaos kicked into high gear. Now Swedish writer Persson, in his U.S. debut, tackles the Palme case head-on, positing a believable scenario in which the prime ministers death is almost an afterthought to another killing and its cover-up. It is a classic story of bureaucratic bungling and investigatory incompetence in which a deranged American journalist, convinced that his CIA-agent uncle worked with the young prime minister, sets out to write an expos' and winds up dead, inadvertently starting a random chain of events that leads to tragedy. Persson layers his incredibly dense novel, the first in a trilogy, with numerous parallel story lines and a plethora of characters, most of whom fail to capture our imagination. Clearly, the publisher is hoping for a Steig Larssontype success here, but this is a very different book by a less-skilled storyteller. The vision of bureaucracy run amok that drives the premise is spot-on, but the onslaught of detail is, in the end, overwhelming.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association.)