Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
At the start of Swedish screenwriter and director Skördeman's excellent debut, a contemporary Stockholm police procedural, Agneta Broman, a 69-year-old grandmother, commits a shocking act. Within moments after her visiting daughters and grandchildren leave, Agneta fatally shoots her 85-year-old husband, Stellan, who was once a beloved television presenter, and vanishes. Sara Nowak, a police detective on the prostitution unit who has anger management problems, used to play with the Bromans' two daughters as a child and becomes obsessed with finding Stellan's killer. Gradually, she uncovers a terrorist web spawned by East Germany's dreaded Stasi, whose tentacles reach into Sweden's highest political circles, and that threatens "something big" with dire consequences for the entire European Union. In powerful secondary plots, Sara wages a private war against the Swedish government's refusal to defend prostitutes from exploitation and contends with the guilt she feels for putting her job before her family. Skördeman keeps readers fully engaged right up to the last shattering revelations. This tale of Cold War revenge and familial anguish will resonate with many. Agent: Johanna Gustavsson, Politiken Agency (Sweden). (May)
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Review by Library Journal Review
When Stellan Broman is found murdered in his home, Swedish police officer Sara Nowak is enlisted to help investigate as a friend of the family. Uncle Stellan was an esteemed and wildly popular television presenter during the Cold War era, and Sara grew up in the Broman household as the daughter of the housekeeper and sometime playmate of the Broman daughters. She was privy to many of the events in the Broman family but did not understand their importance at the time. While Sara is not part of the homicide division, the nature of the murder raises questions she cannot leave alone. Her investigation uncovers spies, code names, sex trafficking rings, hidden explosives, and international terrorists. Skördeman weaves several subplots into this complex story, and details about the Cold War and its consequences in Europe will give readers pause. Narrator Clare Corbett does an excellent job presenting the unfolding drama as clues are uncovered. VERDICT This recommended debut thriller from Sweden is a complex, layered story of spies and murder.--Joanna M. Burkhardt
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
The Cold War threatens to rise from the dead in this fast-paced Swedish spy thriller. Grandparents Stellan and Agneta Broman have been married for almost 50 apparently idyllic years. Stellan is a widely beloved television personality. But one night, Agneta receives a brief phone call, shoots her 80-year-old husband in the back of the head, and disappears into the night. Police think at first that the retired celebrity's murder might simply be a botched burglary, but police officer Sara Nowak believes that Stellan has been targeted. Then, on beginning to learn about his past, investigators think it may be the "beginning of a much bigger chain of events." They fear that the killer or killers may have kidnapped Agneta. Poor Stellan. He'd been "Sweden's playful uncle….It was like someone murdering Santa Claus." Readers learn long before the authorities do that Agneta is on a mission and has waited for decades to receive the signal to kill this man she pretended to love. It's a complex plot wherein a "gang of senile old spies" regret the demise of the Cold War, particularly the fall of East Germany. Lurking in the shadows is the mysterious Abu Rasil, who wants to be remembered as the greatest terrorist ever. As it happens, Stellan had a couple of secret lives unknown to his adoring public. He had once been an informal collaborator for the Stasi, the East German security service. Perhaps Stellan was Geiger, the man who had ruined so many Swedish lives. And to put it delicately, Stellan had disturbing relationships with young girls. Decades ago, Sara's mother used to clean house for the Bromans, and Sara had been the occasional and socially unequal playmate of their daughters. As tension builds, people die in bursts of bombs and profanity. Has the Cold War never really ended? Sara's boss tries to take her off the case, but naturally that doesn't stop her. There is plenty of excitement right up to the end. All seems lost until, like a deus ex machina, the solution appears. Dark, violent, and engrossing but with a contrived ending. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
