Inger Frimansson

Titus Bruun, the renowned publisher, is dying. Waiting by his sickbed is his third wife Ingrid, a chubby and pretty ordinary woman, full of low self-esteem and worry. She’s been bullied by Titus’ young daughters ever since she came into their lives, and she’s never quite understood or felt comfortable with the fact that Titus left his previous wife, Rose, for her. It doesn’t help that Titus has always assured her that Rose is so remarkably strong and confident – that she has long show more since moved on. Now, on the death bed, Titus wants to meet Rose one final time, to make sure there are no hard feeling. And since Rose never answers her phone, he begs Ingrid to go to her rural cottage outside Södertälje and personally ask her to come visit him. She does so, reluctantly.

Unfortunately for Ingrid, Titus is very wrong about Rose. She lives alone with a hoard of semi-tame rats, does odd jobs reading correcture – and she has by no means moved on. When Ingrid steps into her life, “destroying it for the second time”, an eerie chain of events is set in motion. Soon the two women are involved in a psychological game of life and death.

This is a pitch perfect thriller, beautifully composed and utterly believable. A reader of, say King’s “Misery” will find themselves in familiar landscapes. But Frimansson manages to vary this theme to create a book that is unpredictable, nail-bitingly suspenseful and full of insight into human pettiness. The small cast is played masterfully, and the ending is a wonderful blend of closure and open ends. A joy also to listen to Gunnel Fred’s audio version, where subtle changes in voice give each character a flavor of their own, without ever over acting.

I like Frimansson a lot, but this still took me by surprise with how good it was. It could well be her masterpiece. I sincerely hope it rides the wave of scandi-crime and meets a broad English speaking audience. show less

Justine Dalvik lives alone with a slightly creepy bird in a big house in a Stockholm suburb. But her house is a nice one, placed on a solitaire beach. She’s lived there all her life. Her father was the maker of a world famous cough drop. Her mother died early, to be replaced by the abusive Flora, who tortured her all through her upbringing. Now Justine lives a quiet middle aged life, having the occasional lover and a few friends. She just came home from a backpacker trip to the Malaysian show more jungle. She still dutifully visits Flora regularly at the nursing home.

Into this little world steps Berit, Justine’s old bully from the school days. Berit is in the middle of a life crisis and desperate to make amends with her life. She sees the chance meeting with Justine as an opportunity to put things right and ask forgiveness. Little does she know that Justine already has crossed a line. Something happened in Malaysia. And now there’s no turning back.

Inger Frimansson is a pretty special voice in the current flora of Swedish crime fiction. Her books are not quite procedurals, not mysteries, not really thrillers (even if they are often pretty creepy). Her perspective is always the killer’s. Her books are stories of pretty ordinary people who commit ugly crimes without really planning to, and then desperately try to manage guilt, shock and the inevitable questions from well-meaning policemen. She’s very good at making this feel authentic, and her books are full of sweaty, claustrophobic accounts of what it might be like when that smiling cop who’s “just asking around about a missing person” rings your doorbell. Admittedly, when you’ve read a few of Frimansson’s books, you kind of know the drill. But a walk on the dark side of the ordinary is usually very worth it anyway. show less

"Good Night, My Darling" by Sweden's Inger Frimansson is an unusual psychological thriller--although I'm not sure "thriller" applies in the usual Mary-Higgens-Clark or James-Patterson sense. I certainly kept reading although I did not sit on the edge of my seat ripping through the pages to discover if Justine Dalvik's prey lived or died. Some of her victims have already died when the book opens and there's a certain inevitability about the others. What holds the reader in thrall are the show more stories behind Justine and her victims. She does not kill randomly but out of deep hurt and anger seated in an adult who has never matured and moved beyond her fractured childhood. Her victims are all people with whom she has had long-term or romantic relationships. Their stories and hers intertwine to form a composite psychological portrait of lives lived and lost for various acts of intentioned and unintentioned cruelty toward Justine. None are quite guiltless, which is what makes this novel such a fascinating read. show less

Beth and Ulf are in the summer house. Things aren’t great between them and haven’t been since the baby twins died. The silence and the frustration is palpable. They drink too much. News come on the radio of two escaped convicts from a nearby prison, considered armed and dangerous. And that’s when they realize someone is sneaking round by the old barn. To her own surprise all the suppressed anger in Beth comes out and she furiously attacks the intruder, striking him with an axe. In the show more aftermath of the shock, after a scared and fragile night with a corpse in the barn, they decide to go to the police. After all, it was self-defense. Wasn’t it? It’s on the drive there they get the news that both the escaped convicts have been captured without drama.

The opening of this nail-biting, nightmarish novel is as good as Inger Frimansson ever was. She varies her theme of murder and aftermath from the perp’s point of view with a steady hand. Don’t go into a book of hers expecting mystery or procedural (as I think a lot of people do). Frimansson is all about investigating the effects of the crime. This time she focuses on the couple, and what a shared secret like this might do to two people. It really is the most claustrophobic experience, with a keen eye for how small things in the everyday take on a new meaning. Like when a child innocently asks Beth the question if she’s ever seen a dead person. If she could have held that suspense all the way, this could be her best book.

But then sadly, she kind of spoils it with some rather silly turns of events, and a strained ending that comes all too suddenly. I wish she would have stuck with the small-scale suffocating psychological horror she does best. As it is, the ending drags the beginning down to a rating just above average. show less