Life Deluxe

July 7, 2014
Lapidus takes a fascinating look at moral ambiguity and ruthless ambition in the compelling conclusion to his Stockholm Noir trilogy, which follows the power struggle between members of Stockholm’s underworld and the police. Radovan Kranjic—the “godfather of godfathers” who controls the Yugo mafia—has built a massive criminal enterprise that his 22-year-old daughter, Natalie, a law student, may inherit. Ex-convict Jorge Salinas Barrio, who despises his job as a restaurateur, longs to find the perfect heist with his band of mismatched crooks. Deputy Insp. Martin Hägerström, a brilliant cop with personal demons, goes undercover to infiltrate drug dealer Johan “JW” Westlund’s gang. Despite the book’s expansive length and, at times, dense prose, Lapidus keeps the storylines straight, including the large cast of supporting characters, some of whom were the major focus in the series’s first two installments, Never Fuck Up and Easy Money.