The Swimmer

The dual narration by Peter Ganim and Elisabeth Rodgers helps track the meandering plot of this international thriller, but, disappointingly, it doesn't do much more. With alternating points of view, geographic locations, and time periods, listeners can easily find themselves lost. The story about a spy, voiced by Ganim, and the daughter he never knew, voiced by Rodgers, also contains a plethora of subplots and characters who overshadow the daughter, making a second male narrator seem more appropriate than a female one. The extraneous content also weighs down the momentum of the novel; both narrators echo that sluggish pace, causing the listener to question the label of "thriller." Fans of the genre can safely bypass this audiobook. J.F. © AudioFile 2015, Portland, Maine

December 1, 2014
Swedish author Zander’s entertaining first novel owes more to Forsythe and Ludlum than to Larsson and Mankell. An unnamed narrator, who is a retired spy living in Virginia, addresses his late wife in his mind, telling her a convoluted tale that begins with her death and continues across the world over the next 33 years. Meanwhile, Mahmoud Shammosh, who’s in a Ph.D. program at Uppsala University, is working on a book about the privatization of war when he hears from an old friend who has information proving that the CIA and private contractors used torture on captured terrorists. Shammosh ends up with the info and goes on the run with his former lover, Klara Walldéen, an E.U. parliament aide. Given Zander’s literate, descriptive style, it’s easy to see why this thriller has been a bestseller in Europe, though American readers may find it overlong in arriving at the inevitable conclusion. Agents: Astri von Arbin Ahlander and Christine Edhäll, Ahlander Agency (Sweden).

February 15, 2015

Billed as Homeland meets Stieg Larsson and already an international best seller, this Swedish thriller from debut author Zander lives up to the hype. Klara Walldeen was raised by her grandparents on a remote archipelago in the Baltic Sea and is now an EU Parliament aide in Brussels. Ex-boyfriend Mahmoud, a graduate student writing his dissertation on the privatization of war, arrives in Brussels to give a presentation and then reaches out to Klara when he ends up in a dangerous situation. They're soon tracking down a laptop full of classified information and being chased across Europe by someone intent on killing them. Meanwhile, an American spy finds his past catching up with him and tries to make it right by helping Klara. Back in Sweden, truths finally begin to emerge after a brutal convergence of the hunters and the hunted. VERDICT The chapters alternate between different and not always named characters and jumps from one decade and locale to another, which makes the novel's beginning both intriguing and disorienting. Despite the potential for some initial confusion, the book rewards with a suspenseful story of international espionage and political misdeeds. [See Prepub Alert, 8/11/14; library marketing.]--Melissa DeWild, Kent District Lib., Comstock Park, MI

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 1, 2014

Abandoned by her CIA agent father and raised by her grandparents on an archipelago in the Baltic Sea, EU Parliament aide Klara Walldeen has seen something on a laptop she shouldn't, and she's on the run for her life--with her father trying finally to do right by protecting her. A best seller in the author's Sweden, with rights sold to 28 territories to date; that explains the 150,000-copy first printing.

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

December 1, 2014
An international thriller with the pace and intensity of a Jason Bourne adventure, Zander's debut follows the intertwining stories of a young Swedish woman and a washed-up American spy.It's 1980, and a car bomb detonates in Damascus, killing the mother of a baby girl. Skip ahead three decades: It's 2013, and Swedish graduate student Mahmoud Shammosh (dissertation topic: "The Privatization of War") receives an anonymous email requesting a meeting. "I have information that's of interest to us both," the note says, followed by an unsettling warning: "Be careful, you're being watched." Meanwhile, in Brussels, George Loow, lobbyist for the world's biggest PR firm, receives a sinister assignment of his own from a shadowy American company. Among his instructions? Bug the office of a young parliamentary aide named Klara Walldeen-who just happens to be the estranged ex-girlfriend of Mahmoud. Why is George tracking Klara? He's not sure, just as Mahmoud isn't sure why he's being watched, just as Klara isn't sure why-days later-Mahmoud has suddenly reappeared in her life streaked with blood. But when Mahmoud and Klara find themselves in possession of dangerous information, one thing becomes clear: All three of them have been unwittingly thrust into a world of international conspiracy, and the stakes are life and death. Skillfully moving between the past and the present, from Sweden to Syria to Washington and back again, Zander weaves an increasingly tight web of intrigue and suspense with Klara at the center. And if the novel occasionally veers toward spy-movie cliches, it's quickly reanchored by the strength of its characters. Beyond the blood-pumping chase sequences and requisite shootouts, there is real humanity here. A compulsively readable page-turner with unexpected heart.

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Starred review from December 15, 2014
A CIA agent, burned out by three decades of lies, betrayals, and disastrous Agency cross-purposes. A Swedish Muslim with a shadowy past writing a PhD dissertation on private security companies in the Middle East. An ethically challenged lobbyist working in the EU capital of Brussels. And a beautiful Swedish aide to an EU parliamentarian. Their lives will variously intersect, reconnect, or collideand some lives will end. First-novelist Zander has written a truly polished and compelling thriller that nods at all the standard thriller tropes. It begins in Damascus in 1980 when a car bomb kills the CIA agent's wife, and it moves through three decades and locales in Syria, Brussels, D.C., Paris, Stockholm, and a remote Swedish archipelago during a fierce winter storm. The plot will resonate with readers appalled by the U.S. invasion of Iraq and the George W. Bush administration's embrace of private firms like Blackwater. Tension and action abound. But it is the depth of Zander's characters and the quality of the writing, which at times touches elegance, that make The Swimmer a winner. (It's already a best-seller in Europe, with rights sold in 28 countries.) Zander looks to be a very talented new branch on the flourishing tree of Scandinavian crime fiction.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)