Until Thy Wrath Be Past

Starred review from June 20, 2011
At the start of Swedish author Larsson's stunning fourth crime novel (after The Black Path), the ghost of 17-year-old Wilma Persson describes how she was murdered during a dive beneath the ice of far-north Lake Vittangijärvi while looking for a downed Nazi airplane. Prosecutor Rebecka Martinsson, psychologically fragile from previously killing three men in self-defense, and Insp. Anna-Maria Mella, badly shaken when her impulsive actions nearly killed herself and her detective partner, inexorably uncover old passions and vicious crimes in their search for Wilma's killer, but the real allure of Larsson's meticulously crafted narrative lies in her unflinching dissection of human needs and desires. As doom-filled as Larsson's leitmotif of ravens (in old Scandinavia the messengers of Odin, god of poetry and berserker fury), this remarkable tale of twisted love and vengeance and redemptive nonjudgmental devotion resounds, like its epigraph from the Book of Job, with all the pain of human existence.

Starred review from August 1, 2011
The fourth Rebecka Martinson novel finds the young lawyer settled into her life in her grandparents' northern Swedish village and enjoying her work as a district prosecutor. When the body of a missing teenager, Wilma, appears in an ice hole in a local river, most are willing to dismiss it as a diving accident. But after she dreams of Wilma telling her she did not die in the river, Rebecka convinces both the pathologist on the case and Inspector Anna-Maria Mella to keep searching for clues. Soon they are also convinced that much more is going on. Little do Anna-Maria and Rebecka realize that they are not just investigating the death of two teenagers but, rather, are digging deep into the murky past of a small village strongly implicated in WWII, when Nazi German business was welcomed by neutral Sweden, and local companies got rich trucking supplies to the Eastern Front in nearby Finland. Narrated by Rebecka and the wraith of Wilma, this may be Larsson's best book so far. The supernatural elements are worked seamlessly into a complex and engaging mystery, resulting in a thoroughly compelling reading experience. Make sure to suggest this one to fans of James Thompson's Finnish mysteries and those who enjoy Scandinavian crime fiction with strong female leads, such as Ann Lindell (Kjell Eriksson's The Demon of Dakar, 2008) and Detective Inspector Huss (Helen Tursten's The Glass Devil, 2007).(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)