The Girl who Takes an Eye for an Eye - David Lagercrantz

My Struggle - Karl Ove Knausgård

My Struggle - Knausgård, Karl Ove

Summary: An autobiographical novel focuses on a young man trying to make sense of his place in the disjointed world that surrounds him.




Booklist Reviews
*Starred Review* Between 2009 and 2011, Norwegian novelist Knausgaard published a six-volume series entitled Min Kamp ("My Struggle"), a chronicle of the narrator's life, from boyhood to fatherhood. Called a "confessional novel," the series garnered critical acclaim, numerous awards, record sales, and a great deal of controversy due to its intensely autobiographical nature (friends and family publicly denounced the books). Clocking in at nearly 500 pages apiece, the first two installments focus on Karl Ove's strained relationship with his dying father, an overbearing schoolteacher, and Karl's fledgling romance with Linda, who would become his second wife. In Book Three, Karl Ove recounts his boyhood years on Tromøy, an island in southern Norway, during the 1970s and 1980s. Young Ove's adventures are extraordinarily humdrum. He and his brother, Yngve, play sports, chase girls, and discover rock music, but the ever-present tension between the boys and their taskmaster father begins to illuminate the dysfunctional family depicted in Book One. Notable for his meticulous attention to the quotidian details of everyday life, Knausgaard's pared-down style and plainspoken narrator manage to propel these long books, concerned less with sustaining plot than with the accumulation of tiny intensities and candid disclosures, which makes for strangely engaging, compulsively page-turning prose

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The Farm - Tom Rob Smith

The Farm - Smith, Tom Rob

Summary: After learning his mother was committed to a mental hospital, Daniel receives a call from her, claiming that his lying father is part of a crime conspiracy.




Publishers Weekly Reviews
At the start of this superior psychological thriller from Thriller Award–winner Smith (Child 44), the narrator, a Londoner known only as Daniel, receives a phone call from his father, who has retired with his wife to a farm in Sweden. The father tells Daniel that his mother is in the hospital. For months, she has been "imagining things—terrible, terrible things." Before Daniel can fly to Sweden, his father calls again to inform him that she persuaded the doctors to authorize her discharge and has disappeared. As Daniel struggles to accept that news, his mother phones to announce that she's flying to Heathrow and that everything his father has told him "is a lie." When she arrives, she offers a complex tale to buttress her conviction that she has been plotted against, leaving Daniel uncertain as to whom and what to believe. Smith keeps the reader guessing up to the powerfully effective resolution that's refreshingly devoid of contrivances.

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My struggle - Karl Ove Knausgaard

My struggle. Book three, Boyhood - Knausgaard, Karl Ove

Summary: "A family of four--mother, father and two boys--move to the South Coast of Norway to a new house on a newly developed site. It is the early 1970s and the family's trajectory, upwardly mobile: the future seems limitless. In painstaking, sometimes self-lacerating detail, Knausgaard paints a world familiar to anyone who can recall the intensity and novelty of childhood experience, one in which children and adults lead parallel lives that never meet. Perhaps the most Proustian in the series, Book Three gives us Knausgaard's vivid, technicolor recollections of childhood, his emerging self-understanding, and the multilayered nature of time's passing, memory, and existence."--Amazon.com

Booklist Reviews
*Starred Review* Between 2009 and 2011, Norwegian novelist Knausgaard published a six-volume series entitled Min Kamp ("My Struggle"), a chronicle of the narrator's life, from boyhood to fatherhood. Called a "confessional novel," the series garnered critical acclaim, numerous awards, record sales, and a great deal of controversy due to its intensely autobiographical nature (friends and family publicly denounced the books). Clocking in at nearly 500 pages apiece, the first two installments focus on Karl Ove's strained relationship with his dying father, an overbearing schoolteacher, and Karl's fledgling romance with Linda, who would become his second wife. In Book Three, Karl Ove recounts his boyhood years on Tromøy, an island in southern Norway, during the 1970s and 1980s. Young Ove's adventures are extraordinarily humdrum. He and his brother, Yngve, play sports, chase girls, and discover rock music, but the ever-present tension between the boys and their taskmaster father begins to illuminate the dysfunctional family depicted in Book One. Notable for his meticulous attention to the quotidian details of everyday life, Knausgaard's pared-down style and plainspoken narrator manage to propel these long books, concerned less with sustaining plot than with the accumulation of tiny intensities and candid disclosures, which makes for strangely engaging, compulsively page-turning prose. Copyright 2014 Booklist Reviews.

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Let the Old Dreams Die - John Ajvide Lindqvist

Let the Old Dreams Die - Ajvide Lindqvist, John

Summary: Called Sweden's Stephen King, the author of the internationally acclaimed Let the Right One In continues the story of Oskar and Eli in this terrifying collection that also includes "Equinox," in which a woman makes a disturbing discovery while taking care of her vacationing neighbor's house.



Booklist Reviews
Lindqvist's short stories pack the same emotional punch as his novels. This collection includes sequels to two of his best-known works, Let the Right One In and Handling the Undead. Both are pleasing, if frightening, epilogues to their respective stories. Aside from those, there are atmospheric tales of people with strange origins and things to hide in The Border, urban monsters in A Village in the Sky, and the terrible thing a woman finds while house-sitting in Equinox. There's also Eternal/Love, which explores the true horror of immortal love. Suffice it to say—this is only a small sampling of the stories presented here—that Lindqvist's short pieces are terribly effective horror fiction, both in the sense of being deeply unnerving and rarely safe to read any night, and also in the sense of exploring the hidden, shadowy facets of human emotional lives. These are excellent examples of the form, and well worth reading—just not alone in a cold, dark house.

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Harbor - John Ajvide Lindqvist

Harbor - Lindqvist, John Ajvide

Summary: "From the author of the international and New York Times bestseller Let the Right One In (Let Me In) comes this stunning and terrifying book which begins when a man's six-year-old daughter vanishes. One ordinary winter afternoon on a snowy island, Anders and Cecilia take their six-year-old daughter Maja across the ice to visit the lighthouse in the middle of the frozen channel. While the couple explore the lighthouse, Maja disappears -- either into thin air or under thin ice -- leaving not even a footprint in the snow. Two years later, alone and more or less permanently drunk, Anders returns to the island to regroup. He slowly realises that people are not telling him all they know; even his own mother, it seems, is keeping secrets. What is happening in Domaro, and what power does the sea have over the town's inhabitants? As he did with Let the Right One In and Handling the Undead, John Ajvide Lindqvist serves up a blockbuster cocktail of suspense in a narrative that barely pauses for breath"-- Provided by publisher.

Booklist Reviews
This eerie, atmospheric tale of desperation and strange bargains with incomprehensible forces begins with the disappearance of seven-year-old Maja. Two years later, her father, Anders, is back on the island, scene of her vanishing, intent on reassembling his life. He spent the interval drunk; his wife, Celia, left him; and he's obsessed with how perfect life with Maja was. His grandmother, Anna-Greta, knows something she's not telling. In fact, most of Domaro's year-round residents know at least something about the town's relationship with the surrounding sea. Anna-Greta's lover Simon, a former stage magician, has his own secrets but slowly discovers the island's secrets as his own becomes harder to keep. Living in the Shack, where he'd lived with Celia and Maja, Anders becomes increasingly convinced that Maja isn't dead and that he must rescue her. He'll go to any length, and eventually, the history of the island becomes clear. The book's long, complex buildup to a particularly satisfying conclusion is shot through with the very best kind of horror—subtle, persistent, finally front-and-center. Copyright 2011 Booklist Reviews.


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The lily pond - Annika Thor

The lily pond - Thor, Annika

Summary: Having left Nazi-occupied Vienna a year ago, thirteen-year-old Jewish refugee Stephie Steiner adapts to life in the cultured Swedish city of Gothenburg, where she attends school, falls in love, and worries about her parents who were not allowed to emigrate.



Booklist Reviews
This sequel to the Batchelder Award–winner A Faraway Island (2009) continues the story of the Steiner sisters, refugees being cared for in Sweden while their parents work to escape Nazi-occupied Austria. Now it's 1940, and 13-year-old Stephie is moving to the cultured city of Göteborg to continue her education and board with the wealthy Soderbergs, who, despite offering her a room, view Stephie as a charity case and convenient server for dinner parties. Resilient in spite of her youth, Stephie copes with making new friends, misunderstandings, an unrequited crush, anti-Semitism from some of her teachers, and worries about her parents' worsening situation in Vienna. Although admirable, Stephie is also a believable teen; readers will sympathize as she debates whether to attend a concert she knows her fundamentalist Christian foster mother would forbid. Stephie justifies going, saying her own parents would approve, but her stronger motive is spending time with a handsome, older boy. A compelling look at World War II–era Sweden, this distinguished Holocaust story will resonate. Two more titles, meanwhile, await translation. Copyright 2011 Booklist Reviews.


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A faraway island - Annika Thor

A faraway island - Thor, Annika

Summary: In 1939 Sweden, two Jewish sisters wait for their parents to join them in fleeing the Nazis in Austria, but while eight-year-old Nellie settles in quickly, twelve-year-old Stephie feels stranded at the end of the world, with a foster mother who is as cold and unforgiving as the island on which they live.


Booklist Reviews
"In 1939, Jewish sisters Stephie and Nellie Steiner are evacuated from their home in Nazi-occupied Vienna to an island off the coast of Sweden, where separate foster families take them in. Eight-year-old Nellie adjusts very quickly—learning Swedish, making friends, and enjoying her new foster siblings. Twelve-year-old Stephie has more difficulties—she is tormented by school bullies, must deal with a cold and critical foster mother, and worries about her parents' safety. Thor successfully captures the feel of small-town Sweden circa 1939-40, with its kindly citizens devoted to Christianity and good works who nevertheless harbor latent anti-Semitic views. The translation is mostly smooth, and the use of third-person present tense narration helps distance readers from Holocaust realities while subtly reminding them that child refugees still exist. The first of four volumes featuring the Steiner sisters, this should be popular with fans of Lois Lowry's Number the Stars (1989) and make a good bridge to more visceral memoirs such as Anita Lobel's No Pretty Pictures: A Child of War (1998)." Copyright 2009 Booklist Reviews.

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Handling the undead - John Ajvide Lindqvist

Handling the undead - Ajvide Lindqvist, John

Summary: Mayhem in the Stockholm power grid gives way to the rise of countless zombies, sparking delight in a grandfather who hopes for his grandson's return and horror in a husband who witnesses disturbing changes in his revived wife.



Publishers Weekly Reviews
Swedish horror author Lindqvist moves from vampires (Let the Right One In) to zombies in this gripping, subtle tale. Stockholm is overtaken by the undead after a period of strange weather, and the uprising has surprising consequences for several people, including David, a comedian whose dead wife comes back to life; self-harming psychic teenagers Flora and Elvy; and journalist Gustav Mahler, whose only hope of saving his daughter and himself from grief lies in exhuming his young grandson and hoping the boy will be reanimated. Lindqvist's character-driven narrative is at times slow and confusing, but pop culture references keep the story relevant and interesting. This intelligent look into the psychological side of the undead will entice longtime zombie fans eager for a subversive examination of some of the horror genre's most recognizable monsters. (Sept.)

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The man from Beijing - Henning Mankell

 The man from Beijing - Mankell, Henning

Summary: Hudiksvall, January 2006, police find eighteen people massacred in a small village. They think it's the work of a mad man but Birgitta and August believe they were killed by the same person who killed their mother.




Booklist Reviews
Mankell's latest stand-alone thriller lacks the tight focus of his Wallander novels, but it still delivers plenty of suspense and a compelling protagonist. Birgitta Roslin, a district-court judge in the Swedish city of Helsingborg, finds herself involved in the horrific slaughter of 19 people in a small hamlet in rural Sweden. Roslin, who has a family connection to one of the victims, travels to the scene of the crime and makes inquiries with the local police. In two short days, she traces the only clue—a red silk ribbon—to a local Chinese restaurant and to a Chinese man who stayed at a hotel near the restaurant. That small strand of ribbon takes Roslin to Beijing, where she attempts to trace the mystery man, is assaulted, and encounters a government official, Hong Qui, who is conducting her own investigation into corruption at the highest levels of Chinese society. But China is only the beginning of Mankell's narrative globe-trotting. The plot also careens to Mozambique and to London, not to mention lengthy flashbacks to the nineteenth-century U.S., where two Chinese brothers, sold into slavery, are building railroads. The various strains of this massive plot are skillfully interconnected, but there are too many stories—each of which could have been its own novel—and Mankell spends far too much time laying out his position on modern Chinese and African politics. Still, the opening set piece, in which the murders are discovered, is a stunner, and the finale, in a London restaurant, is equally gripping. Yes, Mankell overextends himself here, but he also shows why he remains a must-read for anyone interested in the international crime novel. Copyright 2010 Booklist Reviews.


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The girl with the dragon tattoo, The girl who played with fire, The girl who kicked the hornet’s nest – Steig Larsson

The girl with the dragon tattoo, The girl who played with fire, The girl who kicked the hornet’s nest - Larsson, Steig

Series Title: The Millennium Series


Summary:
The girl with the dragon tattoo
"The disappearance forty years ago of Harriet Vanger, a young scion of one of the wealthiest families in Sweden, gnaws at her octogenarian uncle, Henrik Vanger. He is determined to know the truth about what he believes was her murder. He hires crusading journalist Mikael Blomkvist, recently at the wrong end of a libel case, to get to the bottom of Harriet's disappearance. Lisbeth Salander, a twenty-four-year-old, pierced, tattooed genius hacker, possessed of the hard-earned wisdom of someone twice her age--and a terrifying capacity for ruthlessness--assists Blomkvist with the investigation. This unlikely team discovers a vein of nearly unfathomable iniquity running through the Vanger family, an astonishing corruption at the highest echelon of Swedish industrialism--and a surprising connection between themselves."--From publisher description.

The girl who played with fire
On the eve of publisher Mikael Blomkvist's story about sex trafficking between Eastern Europe and Sweden, two investigating reporters are murdered. And even more shocking for Mikael Blomkvist: the fingerprints found on the murder weapon belong to Lisbeth Salander--the troubled, wise-beyond-her-years genius hacker who came to his aid years before.

The girl who kicked the hornet’s nest
While recovering in the hospital, Lisbeth Salander enlists the aid of journalist Mikael Blomkvist to prove her innocent of three murders and identify the corrupt politicians who have allowed her to suffer, and, on her own, Lisbeth plots revenge against the man who tried to kill her. By the best-selling author of The Girl Who Played With Fire. - (Baker & Taylor)

Library Journal Reviews
Ever since Knopf editor Sonny Mehta bought the U.S. rights last November, the prepublication buzz on this dark, moody crime thriller by a Swedish journalist has grown steadily. A best seller in Europe (it outsold the Bible in Denmark), this first entry in the "Millennium" trilogy finally lands in America. Is the hype justified? Yes. Despite a sometimes plodding translation and a few implausible details, this complex, multilayered tale, which combines an intricate financial thriller with an Agatha Christie-like locked-room mystery set on an island, grabs the reader from the first page. Convicted of libeling a prominent businessman and awaiting imprisonment, financial journalist Mikael Blomkvist agrees to industrialist Henrik Vanger's request to investigate the 40-year-old disappearance of Vanger's 16-year-old niece, Harriet. In return, Vanger will help Blomkvist dig up dirt on the corrupt businessman. Assisting in Blomkvist's investigation is 24-year-old Lisbeth Salander, a brilliant but enigmatic computer hacker. Punkish, tattooed, sullen, antisocial, and emotionally damaged, she is a compelling character, much like Carol O'Connell's Kathy Mallory, and this reviewer looks forward to learning more of her backstory in the next two books (The Girl Who Played with Fire and Castles in the Sky ). Sweden may be the land of blondes, Ikea, and the Midnight Sun, but Larsson, who died in 2004, brilliantly exposes its dark heart: sexual violence against women, a Nazi past, and corporate corruption. Highly recommended. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 5/1/03.]—Wilda Williams, Library Journal

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The laughing policeman: a Martin Beck mystery - Maj Sjöwall

The laughing policeman : a Martin Beck mystery - Sjöwall, Maj

Series: The Martin Beck Mystery Series

Summary: The incredible fourth novel in the Martin Beck mystery series finds Beck heading a major manhunt in pursuit of a mass murderer.

“I've read The Laughing Policeman six or eight times. Each time I reach the final twist on the final page, I shiver afresh.”
—Jonathan Franzen

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