The Disappeared

Starred review from January 6, 2014
Credible characters whose heartaches are all too close for comfort populate Ohlsson’s outstanding third Fredrika Bergman crime novel (after 2012’s Silenced). Fredrika, a Stockholm detective who has returned from maternity leave too soon, lives with an emotionally fragile, much older partner, who’s being targeted by a vengeful student. Recently widowed Alex Recht, a colleague of Fredrika’s who became obsessed with the disappearance of Rebecca Trolle two years earlier, must contend with the discovery of Rebecca’s dismembered body. That Rebecca had been investigating a possible snuff film suggests the darkest of motivations for her murder. While the main characters often lapse into self-doubt, self-deprecation, and self-disgust, they never abandon their essential humanity. Alex finds the stirrings of new love with Rebecca’s grieving mother, and Fredrika confronts the reality of life with the aging partner she still loves—fitful glimpses of redemption in Ohlsson’s stark landscape of moral turpitude. Agent: Niclas Salomonsson, Salomonsson Agency (Sweden).

Starred review from January 1, 2014
This is the follow-up to Silenced (2013) and the third entry in the terrific Fredrika Bergman crime series. Detective Alex Recht remembers well an earlier case involving a missing girl, so when a dismembered young woman's body is found, he realizes right away whose it is. As the site is excavated, another body is unearthed; this one is a man who has been buried for a much longer time. Then still another body is found. Investigative analyst Bergman, assigned the task of looking into the young woman's life, finds that she had been researching a children's author, Thea Aldrin, who was convicted of murdering her partner and suspected of foul play with her missing teenage son. Aldrin seems somehow connected to all of the bodies, but she is mute and cannot offer much help. Bergman disturbingly also finds her own partner's name among the young woman's effects. Recht, a recent widower, finds work is his salvation and becomes obsessed with the case. The third member of the team, detective Peter Rydh, recently reconciled with his wife, and has her support as he delves into the murders that threaten to consume them all. This is a complicated yet fast-moving story, and the detectives all find themselves with personal connections to the case. Ohlsson excels at creating multilayered stories with substantive characters, and she does it brilliantly here; the intertwining story lines culminate with a shocking ending. Scandinavian crime-fiction fans should be enthralled.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)