Åsa Larsson

IN A NUTSHELL
The Sins Of Our Fathers' was an excellent conclusion to the six-book Rebecka Martinson series. It went well beyond the remit of a typical crime novel, tackling themes of the damage that anger, greed, and envy do, and the long shadows that they cast across generations. It was a solid mystery, told across two timelines. It also reached a milestone in Rebecka Martinsson. Rebecka was broken at the start of the series, and she remains broken at the end, but she is making the best show more life for herself that she can.

At 600 pages, ‘The Sins Of Our Fathers‘ was a lengthy crime novel, but I was grateful for that, as it gave Åsa Larsson the space to deliver a powerful, complex novel that brought the series to a satisfying conclusion.

The story was immersive, people-centric and trope-free. Emotions, fleeting and or irrepressible, were captured perfectly. The plot was powered as much by anger, envy, guilt and a struggle for hope and purpose, as it was by solving the murders. Telling the story in two timelines within one lifetime showed the long shadows trauma and regret cast over our lives.

I thought this was a wonderful read. It was so much more than a crime novel. It was a book that understood that we all make mistakes and that all of the mistakes have consequences, that life can be crap and people can be awful, that greed and the lust for power breeds predators who hunt us, but that kindness, forgiveness and the ability to find and hold onto the things that matter to us offers, if not salvation, then at least meaning.

One of the most distinctive things about the series was that Rebecka Martinsson, the central character, suffers traumas so severe that she loses her mental health and has to spend time in a psychiatric hospital to help her learn to cope. Despite, or perhaps because of, this, she continues to work hard on the cases that come her way, even when the emotional toll they take is high. She isn't a superhero. She doesn't solve cases single-handedly. She doesn't always know what she wants or what she needs, but she always tries to do the right thing. I liked that, in this final book of the series, Rebecka wasn't suddenly restored to robust mental health so that she could ride off into the sunset for her Happy Ever After ending. She remains broken and she knows that. Yet she has started to understand what she wants and needs and is doing the best she can to make a life for herself.

For me, this book, even more than the five that preceded it, sets the bar for what Nordic Noir can be. show less

When seventeen year old Wilma Persson and her boyfriend Simon go diving in northern Sweden’s Lake Vittangijärvi they’re simply after a bit of adventure. Looking for the wreckage of a German plane rumoured to have crashed into the lake during WWII. But somebody is threatened by the very fact of the dive and so the two are killed; ruthlessly trapped beneath the lake’s frozen surface. Wilma’s body is discovered in a river some months later, though police soon learn she did not die show more where she was found. Rebecka Martinsson, District Prosecutor, immerses herself in the investigation being led by a fragile Police Inspector, Anna-Maria Mella. The two begin to learn that there are decades-old secrets that some people will kill to protect.

One sign you’re in the presence of outstanding crime writing is when you know what crime has been committed, how it was done and soon develop a strong sense of whodunnit but you’re thoroughly enthralled by the story regardless. From a storytelling perspective at least I think this is the best of Larsson’s four novels that have so far been translated into English, striking the perfect balance of thrills and thoughtfulness as it strips away the layers of secrets being kept by a family in the village of Piilijärvi near the lake where the couple died. The once-powerful father, embittered mother and two malicious, adult sons are at the heart of one half of this novel and they are depicted wonderfully though not, for the most part, sympathetically. It is through their eyes though that we learn of the myriad small decisions and choices made over the previous decades that culminated in the murder of Wilma and Simon.

Rebecka Martinsson is at the centre of the other part of the story: former high-flying Stockholm lawyer now satisfied as a country Prosecutor as she rebuilds her life after the harrowing events depicted in earlier novels. Even without reading those earlier books though I think it would be easy to get a sense of Rebecka’s strength as well as her underlying vulnerability. Visited by Wilma’s spirit early on in the story Rebecka is sceptical but prompted to ask a few questions about the recently discovered body and so seems to feel a particularly personal connection to the case. Given that the policewoman assigned to investigate is herself experiencing fallout of actions she took during the third novel in this series, it seems quite reasonable that Rebecka might become more involved than a prosecutor would normally do. The various personal tensions surrounding all the main players are nicely intertwined with the rest of the story and help to flesh out the sensitive and credible characterisations.

My threshold for ‘woo woo’ elements in my fiction is pretty low so I was a little concerned when Wilma’s ghost made an early appearance as the narrator of parts of this novel but Larsson pulled it off with panache. I’m sceptical about the notion of proactive spirits who stomp about the afterlife rattling chains and intervening in affairs but Wilma is not that kind of ghost. She is more a manifestation of the thoughts and feelings of people still living and I can easily believe in that. I’ve had the odd conversation with someone now dead, imagining their responses to my queries, thoughts and fears and it’s that kind of presence that Wilma provides to the people in this story.

Åsa Larsson is one of the names that pops into my head whenever anyone asks about favourite writers and this book is yet more evidence of the reasons why. The writing is assured (ably assisted in this instance by translator Laurie Thompson), the story is engaging and the characters are well-crafted and surprising. Until Thy Wrath be Past has a similar sensibility to the best fairy tales: offering a compellingly dark story with just a hint of the supernatural and containing within it a gentle parable for those who need to learn about the dangers of living a life fuelled by anger and resentment. First class reading.

my rating 4.5/5 stars show less

The Second Deadly Sin‘ (2012) is the fifth book featuring Recka Martisson, a prosecutor working in the far north of Sweden, having abandoned her high-powered job in Stockholm to come back to the village she was raised in.

The cover and the publisher's summary seem determined to represent 'The Second Deadly Sin' as a thriller with a long investigator search for the truth against all odds. It sets the expectation of lots of arctic action and derring-do and completely misrepresents what this show more book is about. The book is filled with violent confrontations and has many moments of high tension but it's not a book that sets out to thrill the reader. The second deadly sin that gives the book its title is greed. It seems to me that what Åsa Larsson sets out to do is to get the reader to experience and consider the ugly actions and emotions that greed generates in people.

This a dark book, even darker than the ones that went before it. It’s set in two timelines, the present day and the early twentieth century when what is now a quiet village was a booming mining town, dominated by a single employer. Larsson pulled no punches in describing the violence, misogyny, and oppression of the poor. Sadly, her descriptions of the present day show only a superficial improvement.

The link between the early twentieth-century timeline and the present day wasn't immediately apparent, except as a likely explanation of the motivation for the present-day killings. At times, I resented being pulled away from the actions of the present-day characters who I know well in order to drop back a few generations into a world where violence, greed, poverty, privilege and misogyny were so prevalent that they were taken for granted. Then, bit by bit, I got wrapped up in the story of the doomed efforts a young school teacher trying to make a life for herself in a raw scar of a town set in the beauty of the far north. It was a depressing story, made more so by being entirely plausible.

The present-day timeline delivered a solid mystery and some very tense action. The plot echoed the themes of greed and a sort of structural misogyny which normalises violence against women. The ending was tense, surprising and satisfying.

What I enjoyed even more than the mystery was watching the relationships grow between Martinsson and the police officers and Martinsson's former boss in Stockholm. I particularly enjoyed the descriptions of the prosecutor who is trying to push Martisson aside. Larsson uses him to give an insight into the self-justifying narrative that an upper-class man with more ambition than ability and with an unassailable belief in his own worth, generates to exonerate himself from all blame.

I immerse myself completely in these books, even when that means being mired in sadness and confronted with ugliness. I think the reason for that is that, in the face of it all, Martinsson manages to retain her empathy and search for a little happiness.

There's only one book left in the series now, 'The Sins Of Our Fathers'. I'm almost reluctant to read it because I know it will be my last visit with Rebecka Martinsson. show less

IN A NUTSHELL
'Until Thy Wrath Be Past' was the best book so far in the Rebecka Martinsson series. The storytelling was accomplished, the mystery was engaging and the development of the core cast of characters was convincing.

The most remarkable thing was Larsson’s ability to generate empathy at a deep level: for the person killed, for the investigators and, most surprisingly, for the killer.

‘Until Thy Wrath Be Past‘ (2008) is the fourth Rebecka Martinsson book and I think it's the best show more one yet. With each book, the writing has become more adventurous and more accomplished. These are novels that are less about a mystery and more about showing the origins of deadly violence and its impact on the people involved.

Åsa Larsson starts to tell this story from the point of view of the spirit of a young woman who has been murdered and is sticking around to see if anyone is going to learn what happened to her and hold her killer(s) to account. This was so skillfully done that it seemed right, rather than strange to be hearing from the young woman's spirit. Who would be better placed to understand what had been taken from her?

The storytelling included many of the things I expect in a police procedural: interviews, evidence gathering, the slow revelation of who did what to whom and moments of violence and threat. Yet it doesn't read as a police procedural. Its focus was less on the puzzle and more on the emotions and experiences of the people involved. The storytelling seamlessly blended action, memory and emotion. Adding the memories and emotions of the dead young women felt like a natural extension of the storytelling style.

The mystery was engaging. I liked that the roots of the violence went all the way back to World War II. I knew, almost from the beginning. how and where the young was killed. The rest of the novel provided the Why and the By Whom in a satisfying way.

Although Rebecka Martinsson is a key character in the series, she is often not centre stage. Her role is less to be an investigator and more to be a sort of empathic interpreter of the meaning of events. In this book, Rebecka again n finds herself at the heart of the action but what places her there is her insight into people rather than a systematic investigation. The traumas inflicted on Rebecka by the events in the previous books have left her mental health a little fragile. Leaving Stockholm and returning to her cottage in the far north where she was raised by her grandmother, has opened up memories and emotions for Rebecka that are reshaping her life. So, having a dead girl appear in her dreams, didn't seem that far away from the rest of her daily life.

Real police investigation isn't ignored in this book. The police team, led by Inspector Anna-Maria Mella, did a thorough job. Anna-Maria and her team are part of the core cast of characters in these books. I liked that they and their relationships with each other keep developing in believable ways.

For me, the most remarkable thing about 'Until Thy Wrath Be Past' was Åsa Larsson’s ability to generate empathy at a deep level: for the person killed, for the investigators and, most surprisingly, for the killer. The vibrancy of the murdered young woman is vivid. The grief of her grandmother felt real and raw. The killer was drawn not as a monster but as someone shaped by all the things that had happened in their life to bring them to the point where they became a killer.

It was a book I was sad to finish. show less