Silenced by Kristina Ohlsson

A few months after Stockholm’s Criminal Investigation Division solved the case that exposed some pretty raw emotions, the group is in a lull. Not much is being asked of them. A couple cops are dispatched to an apartment after long time friends arriving for dinner find more than what was expected. Jakob Ahlbin, a local vicar and his wife are found in their bedroom, apparent victims of a murder-suicide. Jakob has a history of depression and seemed despondent and learning that one of his daughters has died of a drug overdose. Shortly afterwards, a middle eastern immigrant with no identification and no reports of being missing, is found dead from a hit and run.

            Friends say no way Jakob could’ve done this, but others aren’t so sure. No one has a clue about the John Doe. And the other Anlbin daughter is missing, sort of marooned in Thailand with no clothes, no hotel, no money, no passport, and unable to get a ticket home. The local cops think she’s involved with drug running and the Swedish Consulate is no help.

So much for boredom. Division leader Alex Recht, his partner Pedr Rydh, and civilian researcher Fredrika Bergman all think this shouldn’t be much. A murder-suicide and a hit-and-run. Check the reports, visit the scenes, study the photos, write the report.

The main question, as always, is the why. Yes, Jakob was depressed, but he was also involved with helping and harboring illegals in Sweden. And there’s still no identification of the Joe Doe. The unit learns of a 2^nd home owned by the Ahlbin’s. Their search shows that one daughter stops appearing in any family photos. Like she split and never returned.

And if work hadn’t become a bit of a circus, each member of the unit has, to put it bluntly, issues. Alex and his wife have grown increasingly distant with each other. Pedr Rydh has separated from his wife and IAD is on his case about some pretty crude comments directed at a hot newbie on the force. Fredrika is pregnant by her lover of nearly 10yrs and 20yrs her senior. Each has to try and keep their personal lives from interfering with the investigations.

Ohlsson weaves the continuing development of the backstories of the unit with the current investigations. What starts out as a murder-suicide turns sideways into an immigration question that is further complicated by whatever it was that happened 15 years ago at the Ahlbin’s vacation home. Multiple stories that shouldn’t intersect may just well tear the unit apart that, in the wink of an eye, becomes all the more twisted at a soul bearing confrontation. 

This makes it 3 for 3 for me by Ohlsson. All three have been intricately designed and expertly presented - everything that the lover of mysteries desires. Something about those Scandinavian mystery writers has struck a cord with the American audience. They have the gift. 

Three down, one to go.

ECD

Unwanted by Kristiana Ohlsson

On an early summer day, the train from Gothenburg to Stockholm stops in Flemingsberg, the last stop before the end of the run. The stop is delayed a few minutes due to a switching problem. Sara Sebastiansson and 6yo daughter Lilian are headed home after a weekend in Sara’s hometown. Lilian has just fallen asleep and Sara needs to phone that they are running late. Cell reception on the train is poor so she steps on the platform just outside the window where Lilian is curled up. A distraught woman with a sick dog grabs Sara to help her . . . and the train starts to pull away. Sara quickly tells the train people what has happened and a call is made to a conductor to watch over the child. Sara grabs a taxi. A ruckus in the next car pulls the conductor away for just a minute as the train pulls into the Stockholm station. When he returns to where Lilian was sleeping, she is gone. The only thing left is her shoes.

The police are called in. Routine missing child case. She’ll turn up. Wandered off lost. Then is a report that the girl was carried out by a tall man. The assumption is that she was taken by her father (Sara and Gabriel are separated). That’s typical. It's usually a family member in a huff over something.

The Stockholm police unit that catches the case is headed by Alex Recht and supported by detective Peder Rydh, unit assistant Ellen Lund, and Fredrika Bergman, a civilian assigned to the unit. Apparently Sweden puts civilians in the police; cops tend to get tunnel vision and the civilian has proven to be a good resource.

The next day, a courier service delivers a box to Sara’s home. It contains Lilian’s hair and clothes. The direction of the case changes rapidly. Around midnight the next day, on the lawn outside the Umea Hospital’s ER, Lilian’s body is found, naked, with the word ‘Unwanted’ written on her forehead.

Within a couple days, a lost child has become murder.

Another child is abducted. An infant, right out of its baby carriage. This child turns up dead in the bathtub in the home of the child’s grandparents. Again, the word 'unwanted' is written on its forehead.

The police are running in circles trying to find information about Sara and her family, about her missing husband Gabriel and his family, about the other child’s parents and grandparents, about any connections with Flemingsberg, Stockholm, Gothenburg, Umea. Extra help is called in to take all the phone calls coming from the public. Who is behind all this? What are the motives? Why have these particular children been targeted? How does the killer know these children? Are more abductions coming?

Were you one of those people who faithfully carried around Steig Larsson’s The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and then The Girl Who Played With Fire and then (were disappointed with) The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest? Or are you a fan of Jo Nesbo or of Thomas Enger? If so, you MUST add Kristian Ohlsson to your list of must-reads.

Translating Scandinavian mysteries has become its own cottage industry and for good reason. I reviewed her 4^th book here just recently, the exceptional Hostage. Appropriately hooked, I started with this, her first effort.

And here is what’s either surprising or impressive. Ohlsson (who works in security for the EU) writes with a maturity of style, plot, and character development that is entirely atypical for first-time novelists, at least to me. Yes, the backstories of each of the police team are carefully presented. Ohlsson, however, continually brings up critical pieces from the background and current issues with which each investigator has to cope and allows those distinctly individual biases to potentially impact how each approach the case.

The story is paced rather slowly at the outset of the investigation, picks up dramatically with an anonymous call, then shifts into overdrive after a brief consultation with an American profiler in town doing a guest lecture at a university. Ohlsson then sends the reader on a sprint in a direction only considered by Fredrika.

And here’s something I learned when I started reading this book. A publicist for Atria Books (within the Simon and Schuster conglomerate) seems to like what were do here at MRB and has been nice enough to send us some books for us to review. He’s turned us on the William Kent Krueger and Thomas Enger to mention a couple notables. Shortly after getting Unwanted from the library, a pre-release copy of a book from a new author (OverWatch by Matthew Betley – next up in my pile) arrived. The note said Betley was ‘discovered’ by an Emily Bestler. The note casually mentioned that Bestler brought Vince Flynn and Brad Thor into the Atria/Simon and Schuster stable of authors. Tent Pole authors for sure both of whom are in my power rotation. And guess what? Kristiana Ohlsson is one of hers, too.

So I googled ‘Emily Bestler’ and find that she, too, has her own imprint under the Simon and Schuster umbrella. My point here is that if you are looking for new authors (and aren’t we all?), you might go to Emily Bestler Books website and check out authors in her catalog. Based on Thor, Flynn, Ohlsson, et al., I’m betting you will find more winners there.

Next up are Silenced and The Disappeared, the next two in Ohlsson's Fredrika Bergman series. Reviews should be posted not too far into the coming weeks.

East Coast Don

Hostage by Kristina Ohlsson

October 10, 2011.

Four phone calls are received at Sabo, the Swedish state security service: a library, a government building, a department store, and the central train station are to be bombed. Sabo's counterterrorism unit is headed by the very intense Eden Lundell, recently hired away from the UK. Alex Recht is a Stockholm detective in the National Bureau of Investigation. Fredrika Bergman used to work for Alex in the police department but has since moved over to the Justice Department form the core of the investigative team; Swedish intelligence agencies know how to cooperate.

Zakaria Khelifi, an Algerian with Swedish residency, has appeared on Sabo's radar for a peripheral association with a known terrorist. The evidence is less than circumstantial, but enough for him to be detained and possibly deported. Bad timing because Parliment is set to debate the immigration issue that afternoon.

Four calls, four bombs to detonate on the quarter hour, disguised female voices, different cell phones, but all from roughly the same area near the airport. Just another gray autumn day in Stockholm . . . four false alarms. Tomorrow shouldn't be so bad.

October 11, 2011
Alex's son Erik is late, rushing to the airport. He is scheduled to be the co-pilot on SAS 573 non-stop Stockholm to New York for 400 Swedes and Americans. The flight captain is Karim Sassi, is a fav of the flight attendants and a highly respected captain, too. Lots of bad weather over New York so Karim asks for an additional five hours of fuel loaded in case they have to circle somewhere over the Atlantic.

Right after takeoff, the purser brings a note found in the 1st class lavatory to the captain. A bomb has been planted. The US government must close the Tennyson Cottage (one of those detention centers in Afghanistan) and the Swedes must release Zakaria Khelifi before the plane lands. Any deviation and the bomb will be detonated. Give the length of the flight plus the five hours of extra fuel, the authorities stil have limited time to figure out what to do.

What neither side will do is negotiate with the terrorists. Both sides must work together, but are hesitant to reveal too much to the other. The best option is for an emergency landing somewhere along the flight path, but Karim has flat out refused to vary from the terrorist's directions.

The investigation jumps from Zakaria's neighbors and acquaintances to Karim to the US security apparatus to the bomb threats to Germany to the note and other minor tidbits that may or may not be important that lead to an ending twist that I dare say no reader will have anticipated.

This is Ohlsson's 4th novel and I am absolutely positive that I will find a way to get #s 1-3. Ohlsson is one talented writer with expert experience in European intelligence units. Hostage is a relentless and breathless sprint over the duration of the flight to find out the who and the why of this horrific act. Start this when you have no pending interruptions. You'll be grabbed by Ohlsson's firm hand, dragged back and forth across the landscape of Stockholm, the escalating tension inside flight 573, and the unyielding pressure of the Americans desparate to avoid a 2nd 9/11. Expect bruises.

In brief . . . this novel kicks serious butt.

ECD