To the Top of the Mountain

If you already know about Arne Dahl then you probably met the author’s ensemble detective series courtesy of the BBC4 Swedish TV drama which holds its head high among the very best Nordic noir. The books in the Intercrime series are even better…

Although this is the third novel in the series you can skip the preceding two and cut to the chase: the opening chapters deftly explain the salient points of the back story. The team was disbanded after everything spiralled a little too wildly out of control at the end of the last book – but now an explosion in a prison, a killing in a pub, an investigation into hardcore porn and a host of other apparently unconnected threads all lead back to an ominous threat to public safety.

There's more show more detail about the plot and characters over at
http://murdermayhemandmore.wordpress.com/2014/08/07/to-the-top-of-the-mountain-t...

The real pleasure in Arne Dahl’s novels comes not from the intertwined plot threads and his skilful manipulation of time, place and person which draws the reader into an increasingly tense scenario. No, the real reward comes from the characters: half a dozen separate, credible, involving individuals whose interactions are inescapably fascinating.

To The Top Of The Mountain is a complicated and intense novel, punctuated with wry moments of sly wit and graphic savagery. The writing has been skilfully crafted and translated to balance the pace of the investigation with poignant personal moments and gripping action sequences. For some, those more accustomed to American thrillers I suspect, it may take too long to establish the characters and deliver the final punchline. Some readers will be frustrated by the meandering path of the plot which circles ever tighter around the nub of the matter – but for me that’s what makes books like this so interesting.

Recommended for fans of Karin Fossum, Arnaldur Indriðason and Åke Edwardson. Also, if you enjoy TV series like The Protectors or Unit One.

9/10 show less

To the Top of the Mountain is volume 3 of an Intercrime mystery series by Swedish writer Arne Dahl. The elite 7 detective A-Unit is reconstructed in Stockholm to investigate violent international crime after being disbanded due to major errors made in prior cases. This novel can be read by itself, and only a skeleton history of prior cases is presented in the story. Often in other crime series, the reader must wade through details of prior installments to understand later episodes. The story was so good that I want to get volumes 1 and 2, Misterioso and Bad Blood.
This 390 page novel is exciting but not fast-paced. It begins in a popular sports bar in Stockholm that caters to soccer fans. An international cast of characters representing show more ethnic, political, and criminal groups gather in the bar and noisy tension is high. A criminal event occurs that has ramifications for separate investigations involving members of the disbanded A-Unit who are still involved in police work but have been re-assigned to other detective divisions.

The A-Unit comes together when their detective assignments show a common thread. The former leader, Detective Superintendent Jan-Olav Hultin, who was forced into retirement, is visited at his lake-side house by the Head of Division from the National Police Board. Jan-Olav is offered the opportunity to bring his A-Unit back to life and follow the thread that involves cases of murder, international drug dealing, sub rosa internet pornography, violent pedophilia, Neo-Nazi gang activity, Bosnian activism, violence in prison, and an individual detective’s criminal cross-over. The characters involved in these cases are fascinating involving implications about the current social situation in Sweden.

The A-Unit detectives are interesting, and Arne Dahl describes their backgrounds and motivations in a way that integrates personal historical information into the mystery story. A separate tale linked to the revived A-Unit activity emerges involving a young man and woman whose life together gains mythical proportions.

To the Top of the Mountain is a very good mystery/crime novel that is challenging to the reader to understand the intricacies of the plot. The excellent translation from Swedish to English facilitates the reader's understanding. As with most novels that I select to read very carefully, I give this one my highest recommendation. show less

An incident in a Stockholm bar involving rival sports teams results in the death of one of the men involved. A prisoner is killed in explosion in a prison cell at a high-security prison. Five men die on an industrial estate in what looks like a shoot-out between two separate groups, on the one side, members of a drug cartel and on the other, members of a neo-Nazi group. An elite band of police investigators known as the A-Group, once disbanded, is reunited to investigate all of these disparate crimes. They soon begin to suspect that they may all be linked and there may have been a third party at the estate murders and that a suitcase which had been handcuffed to one of the victim’s wrists has been stolen. Like a snowball rolling down show more a hill gathering more and more debris, what starts out as a simple bar fight resulting in what looks like an unfortunate accident becomes so much more as the investigation discovers links to more crimes, victims, and perpetrators and has far-reaching and international implications. But it is only when an investigation into what seems like a separate crime involving a child pornography ring turns up some troubling revelations, that the group may finally be able to discover what is really behind all of this mayhem.

To the Top of the Mountain is the third book in Swedish author Arne Dahl’s Intercrime series and a perfect example of why Swedish crime novels are so addicting. With its intricate and complex plot, it could easily have become very confusing but Dahl manages to keep all of these separate storylines running smoothly even as they converge. There is plenty of action but this is more a police procedural and, as such, much of it deals with the hard work that goes into investigating crimes. Definitely a high recommendation from me for fans of Scandinavian crime fiction.

Trigger Warning: there is some overt racism depicted and the sections dealing with child pornography and sexual assault are disturbing. show less

Sometimes I really dislike wandering in on a series middle of the way through. It’s like entering a party where everyone knows each other and you don’t know a soul. Fortunately, To the Top of the Mountain doesn’t come with the awkward feeling, giving a succinct summary of what’s happened in the first two books involving the Intercrime team. However, I felt that I didn’t know the characters well enough to distinguish between them (particularly the men). This was particularly difficult as the story doesn’t really have a main character, instead focusing on all the members of the team in turn (all six of them, plus their leader) plus some members of the child pornography squad. If you like your crime focused on the criminal show more acts, rather than the relationships and personal affairs of the police, this would be a good book for you.

The book starts off with a murder that has happened in a bar full of football supporters. Was it just a heat of the moment thing, or something more suspicious? Why did a man read through the entire thing? Who was the policeman who escaped the building? This is what Paul and Kerstin are trying to work out after the Intercrime team was disbanded. Arto and Viggo are called to an explosion in prison that killed an inmate – who did this and what is the strange explosive used? Meanwhile, Gunnar is fairly happy working on the discovery of paedophiles and Jorge is off discovering things. When a meeting of two gangs goes horribly wrong, the team are called back together. Could it be that all these things are connected? Only the team can work out who is behind this and why… (trust me, it’s pretty complex).

While I started this book eagerly, it took me some time to finish it. I found the crime parts interesting; Dahl has obviously got a huge talent when it comes to plotting and entwining the threads. I didn’t work out who the culprit was or even the next plot twist. It’s refreshing to have a plot so full of blind twists. On the other hand, I just couldn’t warm to the characters – they weren’t fleshed out enough for me to tell the difference between Arto and Viggo (I had to keep going back to check who was who). I also couldn’t work out their motivation beyond Sara, whose history to work in the child pornography squad was clear, but again, I would have liked to know more detail. Perhaps Kerstin and Paul’s relationship was covered heavily in a previous book, but why would she suddenly say, ‘I love you’ when they’ve been consciously at arm’s length for this book? The characters seemed to me to lack passion and drive, but perhaps I’m missing something and the restraint is more characteristic of the Swedish people.

What I did find surprising in the book is the amount of casual racism. Jorge is often degraded by others for his dark skin and the Serbian and Bosnian refugees are often referred to as ‘wog’ and told to go home. I wasn’t aware of the sentiment the Swedes had towards the refugees at the end of the war (I believe this book was originally published in Sweden in 2000). Jorge cops it even from his fellow police officers, not to mention those he pulls in for questioning.

If you’re interested in the plot and mechanisms of crime, I’d suggest this book. For me, it was too dry and mechanical to really engage with the characters.

Thank you to Random House and The Reading Room for the copy of this book.

http://samstillreading.wordpress.com show less

Despite I usually like Swedish crime novels, I did not really fancy this one. I'm not exactly sure what's the reason for it.

For one, I did not like the style of writing very much. There was a part in the book, where in 3 pages text, 4 times the same lines (about 10 of them) were written. I really wonder why. I'm not senile yet.... This and the fact that I did not really get into the book made me think that it might have been written of a TV-series or a movie. There it would be perfectly logical, to let (more or less simultaneously) 4 people in 4 different places hear or say the same lines. In a book that is a lot more difficult.

Maybe another reason is, that I started off with book #3. Although the salesperson in the shop said, the show more individual books of this series could be read out of order / only one or two. I had no idea who was who, I just plunged in and felt like I forgot how to swim.

For me, this author / this series are books I will not touch again for a while. Maybe later, and then maybe starting with book 1, but not just yet. show less

Kriminalroman. En fodboldfan forbløder efter at have fået smadret et ølkrus i hovedet på en bar i Stockholm. En grov, men triviel forbrydelse, men da et par folk fra A-gruppen begynder at grave i sagen, viser der sig et hændelsesforløb bagved med vide forgreninger, bl.a. til den østeuropæiske narkomafia

Daa A-Team wieder beisammen. Anfangs arbeiten sie alle noch an verschiedenen Fällen und dann werden sie zusammengetrommelt und der blasse Finnlandschwede kommt wieder aus dem Hintergrund mit einem genialen Einfall.
Neonazis, Pädophile, jugoslawische Söldner alles dabei und noch viel mehr.