DP54Cover - Deadly Pleasures

12
Deadly Pleasures
becomes involved in her first case when her friend Anna
disappears in suspicious circumstances. Linda is convinced
that the disappearance is connected to a sighting of
Anna’s estranged father, but Wallander is initially sceptical
of his daughter’s suspicions and is pre-occupied by a series
of attacks on domestic animals. He changes his mind,
however, when a violent murder occurs, which seems to
have links to Linda’s disappearance.
BEFORE THE FROST shares the strengths of
Mankell’s earlier books. It is intriguing, occasionally
gripping, socially conscious and sufficiently different from
most British and American crime novels to make it interesting.
Laura Laura The lippman Laura descriptions Lippman of Sweden are also fascinating
and Wallander and the other characters are appealingly
quirky. On the other hand Linda is not as compelling and
brilliant a character as her father and the pacing drags at
times. Nevertheless it is sure to appeal to Mankell’s ever
growing fan base.
Liza Marklund
Series Character: Journalist Annika Bengtzon
� THE BOMBER (Pocket Books, 2001). When a
bomb destroys Stockholm’s new Olympic stadium just
months before the summer games in Sweden, worries
erupt about a terrorist on the loose, but when journalist
Annika Bengtzon begins to investigate, she uncovers a
secret source that could reveal the truth behind the
bombing and put her on the Bomber’s hit list.
� STUDIO 69 (STUDIO SEX– the number six is
“sex” in Swedish) (Simon & Schuster, 2002). The discovery
of a woman’s body in a cemetery leads neophyte
reporter Annika Bengtzon deep into the investigation of
the rape and murder case, which seems to reach into the
halls of power in Sweden.
� PARADISE (Simon & Schuster, 2004). A hurricane
sweeps across southern Sweden, leaving chaos in its
wake. Two men lie dead in Stockholm’s Free Port, shot in
the head at point-blank range. A young Bosnian woman,
Aida, runs for her life. She finds refuge in Paradise, a
foundation dedicated to people whose lives are in danger.
Newspaper sub-editor, Annika Bengtzon, is trying to piece
her life together after the death of her fiance’. Covering
the story of Paradise is the opening she needs to get her
personal life, and her career, back on track. But as Annika
is about to find out, neither Paradise nor Aida are quite
what they appear to be.
� PRIME TIME (Pocket, £6.99, 2006). Thirteen
people are spending the shortest night of the year together
in an isolated manor house. On the morning of Midsummer’s
Eve, the brightest star in Swedish television, Michelle
Carlsson, is found shot to death in a mobile control room.
The murder turns Annika Bengtzon’s world upside down.
One of the suspects is her best friend. Annika’s boyfriend,
Thomas, accuses her of letting the family down. Anders
Schyman, her boss, involves her in a public power struggle.
Meanwhile there’s a killer on the loose -- and a tense
drama about to unfold in the public eye.
I’m surprised that there haven’t been any more
Liza Marklund titles published in the U.S. after THE
BOMBER, considering her huge popularity in Sweden
and the recent interest in good Swedish crime writing. A
publishing opportunity?
Håkan Nesser
Series Character: Chief Inspector Van Veeteren
� BORKMANN’S POINT (Pantheon, $22.95;
Macmillan, £16.99, 2006). Rating: A- [Reviewed by
George Easter]. Swept in on the tide of Scandanavian
crime fiction being introduced into the United States, is this
first of a series by one of Sweden’s top writers.
A serial killer is on the loose seemingly picking his
victims at random. Chief Inspector Van Veeteren is sent
to the small town of Kaalbringen to help the local police
force solve the crimes, but he is as puzzled by the lack of
clues as they are. But eventually he gets there. “Just as
he suspected from the start, it was hardly the result of
laborious routine investigations. Just as he’d thought,
the solution had come to him more or less out of the
blue. It felt a little odd, he had to concede; unfair
almost, although there again, it was hardly the first
time this kind of thing had happened. He’d seen it all
before, and had realized long ago that if there was any
profession in which virtue never got its due reward, it
was that of police officer.”