Two Soldiers

July 1, 2014
A Stockholm suburb is being terrorized by a teenage gang's calculated reign of firebombings and burglaries. After a beaten female cop is left to die in the trunk of an abandoned car, DCI Ewert Grens will break all the rules in his effort to nab the perpetrators.The crime wave, which has residents locking themselves in at night, is being directed from inside a maximum security prison by 18-year-old Leon. He's having his "blood brother" Gabriel's girlfriend, Wanda, regularly smuggle in pills as a mule. The gang, dubbed the Ghetto Soldiers, has no reservations about recruiting 12-year-olds to do its grunt work. Their intense hatred for authority is fueled by the violent mistreatment of their mothers by their fathers, but the moms don't catch much of a break either. Down-in-his-cups Grens, who's not unlike Henning Mankell's Wallander, is haunted by an incident from 20 years ago involving someone connected to one of the teen felons. When Wanda becomes pregnant, the story takes a different turn and Grens' past begins catching up to him. This book is no short haul, containing more than 600 pages of terse narrative and circular digressions. But while the seasoned team of Roslund & Hellstrom (Cell 8, 2011, etc.) is a bit facile in its blueprinting of plot, which involves a perfectly timed string of prison breaks, the authors are great at getting inside the heads of the young criminals. The austerity of their style also gains in existential power as you get into the heart of the story.A bleak but gripping tale of a teen gang running amok.

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June 1, 2014

Veteran Jose Pereira now heads the Stockholm police department's Organized Crime and Gang Section in the dreary suburb of Raby where juvenile gang violence continues to escalate. On his radar are the Raby Warriors, a growing criminal syndicate led by Leon Jensen and Gabriel Milton--best friends and drug addicts since childhood--who recruit children as foot soldiers. While incarcerated, Leon breaks out of a maximum security prison with a hostage. DCI Grens Ewert partners with Pereira to pursue Leon and take down the gang. As they interrogate suspects and question witnesses, details of Ewert's past surface, which entwine to transform all of their lives. The best-selling Swedish authors (The Beast; Cell 8; Three Seconds) team up again to deliver a gritty, well-researched Nordic thriller. However, the duo's writing style is awkward and the language is oftentimes overly crass; the story is not for the faint of heart. Moreover, the transitions are jumpy and the plot develops slowly. VERDICT Fans of Jo Nesbo's most recent novels as well as readers of Henning Mankell's and Stieg Larsson's works will enjoy the creative blend of social commentary and suspense. Dickson's translation is adequate.--Russell Michalak, Goldey-Beacom Coll. Lib., Wilmington, DE

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Starred review from May 1, 2014
Eighteen years ago, Leon Jenson was born in a Swedish prison. Now incarcerated himself, Leon launches a cunning plot to escape and free five other gang members so that he and his blood brother, Gabriel, can catapult their gang to the top of the criminal underworld preying on Stockholm's suburbs. Stockholm Detective Sergeant Ewart Grens and his team are hunting the escapees, racing to stop the storm of violence the newly reborn Ghetto Soldiers have unleashed to ensure their rise. However, for Grens (Cell 8, 2012) this case is life-changing, not least of all because he believes the secrets he holds make him complicit in the bloody tragedy. This powerful sixth series entry upholds the high literary standards of the previous award-winning Grens & Sundkvist novels; jarring dialogue and alternating first-person narratives offer an unsettling portrait of the gangland cycle of violence, desperation, and hope. It's an ugly yet beautiful story that readers will find themselves immediately buried in. Highly recommended for fans of the violently realistic social commentary in Richard Price's Clockers (1992).(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)