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A piercing look at life in Sweden
Book Review
By Derryll White
Larsson, Asa (2006). The Savage Altar.
A free church is any Christian denomination that is intrinsically separate from government. – Wikipedia
This is author Asa Larsson’s first novel and it won Sweden’s Best First Crime Novel award. One of the major characters, Rebecka Martinnson is a tax lawyer, comfortable in the resolute cold of a winter in northern Sweden. The author, herself a former tax lawyer and resident of a small town in northern Sweden, is understandably vested in Rebecka and brings her very much alive on the page. She is pleased to have escaped her cloying lawyer’s office in Stockholm. The author has set the novel in Kiruna, a small northern town embraced by the Aurora Borealis.
There is a feminine triangle of support in this story. Incongruous but believable, the main male characters are domineering and forceful. But lawyers Rebecka Martinnson and Maria Taube work with Inspector Anna-Marie Mella to sort through the posturing and attempts to intimidate to discover the truth behind a startling church murder.
Asa Larsson takes in so much here. There is that endless argument involving the status of women in a man’s world. Rebecka Martinnson stands large, braiding the lions in their own lair, and winning.
There is the status of the church in Sweden and whether religion actually services the people – or not. And there is a marvellous sense of landscape, of both the harshness and the delight of winter in northern Sweden. Threading through all of this is Larsson’s own developed sense of the importance of family.
It is easy to see why Asa Larsson has spawned a very successful TV series based on Rebecka Martinnson and the other characters in this novel. ‘The Savage Altar’ is more than a crime novel. It is a piercing look at life in Sweden. The reader is left looking forward to more from this author.
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Excerpts from the novel:
OUTSIDER – “What about the people though?”
“I don’t know. I don’t feel at home with them, if that’s what you’re asking. It feels as if I’m moving away from simple relationships all the time. You learn to look in the right direction when you drink a toast, and to write and say thank you for inviting me within the accepted time limit, but you can’t hide who you are. So you feel just a little bit like an outsider all the time. And you always feel a little bit resentful of society people, the ones with money. You never really know what they think of you. They’re so bloody nice to everybody, whether they like a person or not. At least up here you know where you are with people.”
RELIGION – Thomas listens and explains. You have to choose, he explains. Either you believe in the whole of the Bible, or you can pick out different bits and just believe those, but what kind of faith would that be? Insipid and toothless, that’s what.
MEMORIES – I should spend more time thinking about my grandmother, she thought. Who was it who decided it was better to concentrate on the present? There are many places in my memory where grandmother lives. But I don’t spend any time there with her. And what does the present have to offer?
CHURCH – “…but in the end he admitted that it was perhaps possibly likely that he might get worse. Bad, even. Do you know what he said when I told him that there was a church that thought people should throw away all their medication?”
Sven-Erik shook his head.
“He said: “Weak people are often drawn to the church. And people who want power over weak people are also drawn there.’”
– Derryll White once wrote books but now chooses to read and write about them. When not reading he writes history for the web at www.basininstitute.org.
