This was a welcome journey for me back in time and across the world to a 1990s Sweden where our middle-aged cop suffering from weltschmerz and lost idealism of his youth must do battle with a crazed killer who fancies himself a wrong-righting Geronimo, all the while our hero has to deal with his own problems of (unrequited) love for his ex-wife, problems with his feckle daughter and Alzheimer-diagnosed father. I remember a time when crime writers used to complain that the advent of the smartphone and internet made it harder to add suspense to a mystery, but here it seems so dated and tedious to have to wait while characters copy down people’s phone numbers and run out to bookstores to buy atlases to keep track of where suspects come from. Oh yeah, there’s also a sex-trafficking subplot. Ah, the good old days of 500-page doorstopper crime fiction.
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No. 2 of 50 books I intend to read and review in 2023. (This can’t be right, it’s bloody August already — ed.)
I’m Patrick Sherriff, an Englishman who survived 13 years working for newspapers in the US, UK and Japan. Between teaching English lessons at my conversation school in Abiko, Japan, I write and illustrate textbooks for non-native speakers of English, release Hana Walker mystery novels, short stories, paint, sketch and write essays and a monthly newsletter highlighting good writing in English, often about about Japan, art, crime fiction and teaching.
Patrick Sherriff 