Book Review

By Derryll White

Holmberg, John-Henri, ed. (2014).  A Darker Shade of Sweden.

Everlasting love is fucking bullshit.  So I’ll help myself, get laid, have fun and move on.” –            [Clara in “Something In Her Eyes’] by Dag Ohrlund.

As an introduction to this volume John-Henri Holmberg offers a lengthy essay on the history and future of Swedish crime fiction.  Having read Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo since the early 1970s I found the essay useful and took the names of some other Swedish authors to search out.  I know I was thrilled when Stieg Larsson broached the walls of North American publishing in 2005 and opened the field to Scandinavian crime fiction.

This collection of short stories certainly exposes the North American reader to some new authors.  Ake Edwardson has made a solid entry into North America and his story ‘Never In Real Life’ solidifies that position, illuminating the darkness that is at the root of Sweden’s best offerings.  Eva Gabrielsson is probably not, as the subtitle of the book proclaims, one of Sweden’s greatest crime writers.  ‘Paul’s Last Summer’ is her first published work of fiction.  But she has strong connections as Stieg Larsson’s life partner and her story is an interesting piece.

Anna Jansson is an accomplished writer who, in ‘The Ring,’ brings her policewoman Maria Wern from her published novels into this short story.  She has a nice way of blending fantasy with reality.  Jansson is certainly worth looking for on the bookshelves.

Asa Larsson is a real surprise in ‘The Mail Run’ as she writes a western-style mystery set in Sweden’s far north, 1912.  She is inventive and an exciting storyteller.  This is not what a reader would expect from a noir collection of Sweden’s best, but her work certainly secures her spot in this co0llection.

Stieg Larsson and ‘Brain Power’ is no surprise. The Millennium Trilogy were the best-selling novels in the world in the first decade of the 21st Century.  It is interesting to see how a young Stieg Larsson saw the world.

Like Clara’s quote in Dag Ohrlund’s story, the writers in this collection are straining to break with the past, embrace Sweden’s darker nature, and move on. This is an exciting collection introducing a number of very substantial authors to a North American audience.  It is surprising that Camilla Lackberg is not represented as she has made a definite impression on the North American audience since the appearance of ‘The Ice Princess’ in 2003.

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Excerpts from the book:

CONSERVATIVE RELIGION The Eastern Laestadian preacher Wanhainen was simply dressed in black pants, a black worker’s vest and a woolen coat.  He was a working man, drove water around town on weekdays.  The preachers were not like the priests who lived off the toil of their brethren.  No, a Laestadian preacher supported himself.  He was not superior, was not a burden to his siblings in faith, never leafed through Scripture with tender fingers looking for cloudberry-sweet words as did the state church priests.

CYNICISM? – I sighed.  “I’m afraid they can.  I did my best to get out of here, but I only got a few blocks away before the cops picked me up.”

“But the police are supposed to protect people’s lives.”

“They do exactly as the government tells them.  And in this case, Ziegel’s life is more important than that of an athlete.”

SWEDISH SOCIETY – The first thing that struck her was the ugliness of the building, and she wondered who had thought it up.

Had anyone been thinking?

Roughly 40 years ago, the politicians of a small country called Middle-of-the-Road suddenly realized there weren’t enough homes.

One million apartments.

It took them 10 years to build that million, and here in front of her was one of the results.

It looked awful.

– 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

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