Leona

June 5, 2017
Dysfunction in many unsavory forms haunts every page of Swedish author Rogneby’s disturbing first novel and series launch. Police officer Leona Lindberg, a 34-year-old loner who chafes at working within Stockholm’s Violent Crimes Division, investigates a bizarre bank robbery carried out by a naked and bloody seven-year-old girl. Leona’s abuse-plagued childhood parallels that of the young robber, as the reader learns in painful detail from the first-person accounts of the girl’s victimization. Meanwhile, Leona must deal with her severely ill son, a strained marriage, and a vicious gambling addiction. Too many heavy-handed hints at psychological disturbance, such as Leona’s urge to straighten pictures on the wall and pencils on her desk, telegraph her obsessive-compulsive plunge into disaster. Rogneby, an investigator in Stockholm’s police department, brings authenticity to this hard-boiled tale, but ironies piled on bitter ironies in Leona’s tangled career don’t make it easy to suspend disbelief. Agent: Elisabet Brännström, Bonnier Rights (Sweden).

June 1, 2017
The misadventures of Leona Lindberg, cop and criminal.A bank is robbed by a naked 7-year-old girl, covered in blood, who plays a recorded demand for money and disappears with the cash. Leona Lindberg, a detective in the Violent Crimes Division of Stockholm's police force, agrees to take the case; in time the reader learns she is the mastermind of the robbery. Married and the mother of two, Leona finds all her roles confining. Though a neurological condition is never specifically named, she is emotionally disconnected from everyone except her children, is a little compulsive about aligning tables and leveling pictures, and was an abused child. Two years earlier she began the process that would release her from "striving to be like other people," and the planning and execution of this robbery is a step in that process, and thus "the die is cast," as the subtitle says. It's not hard for Leona to clog the investigation, but a clever reporter has photos of her with the mysterious bank-robbing child, which he uses to blackmail her for information about a story he has an interest in, and his knowledge remains a serious threat to her plans. Leona reveals a poker habit, both online and live, though the descriptions of hands she plays suggest that neither she nor the author are especially skillful. Leona's son is diagnosed with a condition requiring surgery, but Leona has lost all of her family's savings. More robberies are committed, and the situation spirals out of control. But by then it's hard to care very much about Leona's fate. In effect, Leona is an assemblage of parts: possibly OCD or on the autism spectrum; a victim of childhood abuse; a gambling addict; a wife bored and confined by Swedish middle-class values; a detective stifled by workplace procedures and chauvinism--all of which (except the poker) are convincingly presented, but unlike the good doctor's assemblage, she never comes alive. There are similar lapses in the plotting. For example, why do bank officials and bystanders not simply scoop up a bloody, naked child and turn her over to the police? In a later robbery she's rigged up with a phony bomb, which makes such inaction a little more believable. But by then the plans are beyond repair. Psychology-driven crime drama with a learner's permit.

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July 1, 2017

Anaked and bloody seven-year-old girl enters a Stockholm bank and gets away with millions of kronor. When no trace of the girl or the money is found, the case falls to Leona Lindberg, a detective in the Violent Crimes Division with a distinguished record and prickly personality. Hounded by the media and her bosses to close the case, Leona appears to have no leads even as the child robs another bank. Early on, the reader learns the identity of the mastermind behind the thefts, and the story line then focuses on how far Leona will go to cover up these crimes. What was devised as a simple get-rich-quick scheme quickly grows out of hand as Leona tries to redirect the blame to anyone who gets too close to the truth. Leona is a true antihero with few if any redeeming qualities beyond her unexpected but rarely expressed love for her children. Readers who enjoy rooting for the bad guy may find their match in Leona, who is reminiscent of Jeff Lindsay's serial killer hero Dexter but less likable. VERDICT Making her fiction debut, Swedish criminologist Rogneby has written an unusual and compelling crime novel with a few too many unbelievable plot twists and convenient coincidences to be wholly satisfying. [Library marketing.]--Portia Kapraun, Delphi P.L., IN

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