Mari Jungstedt

Unspoken is the second novel in Mari Jungstedt's Inspector Knutas series, set on the island of Gotland. It opens with alcoholic photographer Henry Dahlstrom winning a packet on the races, and subsequently coming to a sticky end. Dahlstrom appears to have been murdered for his winnings; a pretty straightforward case. However there are some loose ends that cause Knutas to look further. As the investigation proceeds, fourteen year old Fanny Jansson is becoming deeply embroiled in a highly dubious relationship.

A warning: Jungstedt peppers her story with back-references to the first Knutas novel, Unseen. Nearly all of the main characters are introduced with a bit of back story from the earlier novel, to the point where you pretty much give up any inclination to read it, as she gives away almost all of its plot. She clearly expects you to read her novels in sequence, as the ending of Unspoken clearly demonstrates.

I found this novel irritating, in part because of its not standing independently of the earlier novel. Jungstedt should read the Martin Beck novels to see how to write a linked series without ruining it for people who come in part-way. I also thought that far too much of what went on was extraneous to the crime and the investigation. I like my detective novels to be more tautly written than this and to me a lot of this book seemed like padding for the sake of continuing story threads in the series. I won't be bothering with any more of these books.… (more)

SWEDISH REVIEW

Jag tycker att serier där man kan utan vidare läsa den senaste boken skriven utan problem är något av det bästa som finns. Mari Jungstedts serie om kommissarie Knutas är en sådan. Trots att detta bok 13 i serien så var det mycket lätt att hänga med i handlingen. Jag kände att Jungstedts på ett bra sätt skrev om förflutna händelser i handlingen så att man fick en bakgrundsbild av vad som har hänt, t.ex. Knutas skilsmässa och Karins våldtäkt vilket resulterade i dottern Hanna.

Själva fallet var intressant och jag älskar verkligen böcker som har två tidslinjer, en dåtid och en nutid och denna bok hade det och både tidslinjerna var intressanta att läsa och det är kul att försöka lista ut vad kopplingen var. Jag gillade att jag inte helt kunde räkna ut allting som pågick, det var först mot slutet när jag började se hur allting låg till.

Jungstedts lyckads skriva en bok där både fallet och den personliga relationen mellan Knutas och Karin var intressant att läsa om. Knutas tampades genom hela boken med motstridiga känslor, hans ex-fru är tillbaka på Gotland och det verkar som om hon ville ha tillbaka honom. Men han är ju i ett förhållande med Karin och det gör att han under bokens gång är smått distraherad och frånvarande. Vilket Karin känner av. Förr eller senare måste Knutas göra ett val...

En mycket bra bok, och jag ser fram emot att läsa fler böcker i serien!

Tack till Albert Bonniers Förlag för recensionsexemplaret!

ENGLISH REVIEW

I like books where one can read the latest one published without having read the any of the previous books. Mari Jungstedt's books about Anders Knutas is a series that works very well, despite the fact that I haven't read any of the previous 12 books. I felt that Jungstedt managed in a good way to write about past events in the story so that one could get a good picture of what had happened previously in the character's life. Like Knutas divorce and that Karin was raped with resulted in her daughter Hanna.

Thre case was interesting and I really love books with two different time frames. One in the past and one present. This book had a setup like that and both time frames were interesting to read. And, I liked trying to figure out the connections. I liked that I couldn't figure it all out, it wasn't until the very end that I started to see how it all was connected.

Jungstedt has managed to write a book where both the case and the personal relationship between Knutas and Karin are interesting to read about. Knutas has throughout the whole book with conflicting feelings, his ex-wife is back on Gotland and it seems that she wants him back. But, he is in a relationship with Karin and that makes him throughout the book both distracted and distant. And, Karin feels that something is wrong and sooner or later he has to make a choice...

This was a very good book and I'm looking forward to reading the other books in the series.

Thanks to Albert Bonniers Förlag for the review copy!… (more)