Review: THE BLACK PATH, Asa Larsson

• first published in Swedish in 2006
• First published in English 2012 by Maclehose Press
• ISBN 978-0-85705-032-4
• translated from Swedish by Marlaine Delargy
• #3 in the Rebekah Martinsson series
• 395 pages
• source: review copy supplied by Pan Macmillan Australia

Publisher's blurb

A woman’s body is found on a frozen lake, bearing the marks of grisly torture.
Inspector Anna-Maria Mella knows she needs help with the case – the woman was a key player in a mining company whose tentacles reach across the globe.

Lawyer Rebecka Martinsson is desperate to get back to work, to feel alive again after a case that almost destroyed her both physically and emotionally.

Soon she is delving into the affairs of the victim’s boss, the founder of Kallis Mining, whose relationship with the dead woman was complex and obsessive.
Martinsson and Mella are about to uncover a dark and tangled drama of family secrets, twisted sexuality, and corruption on a massive scale.

My Take

There were a number of reasons why this book took me longer than usual to read. Apart from the fact that it is quite long, it also has quite a panoply of characters, and a multiplicity of small intermeshing plots. And characters and scenes are richly described, with details that had me re-reading paragraphs in the hope that I wouldn't forget too much.

There's a reminder at the beginning of the book about what had happened to Rebekah Martinsson at the end of the previous one in the series (#2), and I needed that, as I hadn't read the book. In fact I've read #3 and #4 out of order, which is not to be recommended. During this book however we also learn quite a bit more about Rebekah's childhood and the demons she is currently facing.

There's a global aspect to THE BLACK PATH as Kallis Mining attempts to manipulate the politics in African countries for their own benefit. I thought the scenarios showed Asa Larsson's understanding of and interest in the political and economic forces behind globalisation.

My rating: 4.5

Other Reviews to check

• The Australian Bookshelf
• Reactions to Reading
• EuroCrime (Maxine)

The series (courtesy EuroCrime)
Rebecka Martinsson, Lawyer, Sweden

• Sun Storm (apa The Savage Altar)	2006	1
• The Blood Spilt	2007	2
• The Black Path	2008	3
• Until Thy Wrath be Past	2011	4

Other reviews on MiP
THE SAVAGE ALTAR
4.7, UNTIL THY WRATH BE PAST

Book Review: UNTIL THY WRATH BE PAST, Asa Larsson

• Format: Kindle Edition
• File Size: 478 KB
• Print Length: 288 pages
• Publisher: Quercus (August 4, 2011)
  Originally published in Swedish 2008, translated from Swedish by Laurie Thompson
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services
• Language: English
• ASIN: B005DKRPQO
• Source: I bought Kindle version, but a review hard copy was provided by Pan Macmillan Australia

Product description (Amazon)

In the first thaw of spring the body of a young woman surfaces in the River Thorne. Rebecka Martinsson is working as a prosecutor in nearby Kiruna. Her sleep has been disturbed by haunting visions of a shadowy, accusing figure. Could the body belong to the ghost in her dreams?
Joining forces once again with Police Inspector Anna-Maria Mella, Martinsson is drawn into an investigation that focuses on old rumours about the disappearance of a plane carrying supplies for the Wehrmacht in 1943. Shame and secrecy shroud the locals' memories of the war, with Sweden's early collaboration with the Germans still a raw wound. And on the windswept shore of a frozen lake lurks a killer who will kill again to keep the past buried for ever beneath half a century's silent ice and snow.

My take

I'm really regretful that I have read only 2 of Asa Larsson's four novels, and in particular have missed reading THE BLACK PATH (see Euro crime review by Maxine Clarke), because the impact of the events of the third novel are frequently referred to in UNTIL THY WRATH BE PAST.

The hook that gets the reader into the novel is a powerful one.

I remember how we died. I remember and I know. That's the way it is now.

17-year-old Wilma Persson and her boyfriend are trapped while diving beneath the ice of Lake Vittangijärvi, looking for the wreck of a Nazi transport airplane that crashed there during the War. The story opens with Wilma as the narrator and she continues to make frequent appearances throughout.
When Wilma's body is first discovered in a nearby river, it is assumed her death was an accident. No-one had known where the young couple were diving. When forensic evidence shows that Wilma did not die where her body was found, Rebecka Martinsson decides to take over the investigation herself.

I was never very clear about what the transport plane contained but it was enough to push locals, who are ironically relatives of Wilma's, to make sure it was not discovered.

Wilma ensures Rebekah Martinsson's involvement in the investigation by appearing to her in what seems to be a dream.

I go to visit the prosecutor. She’s the first person to see me since I died. She’s wide awake. Sees me clearly when I sit down on her bed. Her farmor is standing in the bedroom as well. She is the first dead person I’ve seen since I died myself. The first dead person I’ve ever seen, in fact. The grandmother eyes me up and down. You can’t just come and go as you like here, stirring up trouble. The prosecutor has a stern protector. I ask permission to speak to her granddaughter. 

UNTIL THY WRATH BE PAST is about a lot more than a murder mystery. It is also about how local people had behaved 60 years before during the war; about relationships within a particular family; about how Inspector Anna-Maria Mella, mother of four, is coping with her job; and about Rebecka Martinsson trying to maintain her independence in Kiruna when her lover has gone back to Stockholm.

Allowing Wilma to narrate events, and even at times to go back into the past as a character remembers, does feel a little odd, and requires a degree of tolerance from the reader. It introduces a paranormal element into the book which perhaps we could have done without.

Hjalmar is skiing through the forest. The afternoon sun is warming everything. There are big balls of new snow in the trees, but it has started to melt and drip. I’m sitting in the birch trees among all the watery pearls, watching him. Moving from tree to tree. Being weightless, I can perch on the thinnest of twigs. In winter they are black and the frost makes them straggly.

My rating: 4.7

Other reviews

• Nordic Bookblog
• Winstonsdad's Blog
• Beauty & Lace

Also reviewed on this blog: THE SAVAGE ALTAR

THE SAVAGE ALTAR, Asa Larsson

First published in Swedish 2003
Translated by Marlaine Delargy, 2007, 307 pages
Originally published as SUN STORM in the USA

A body lies on the floor of the Crystal Church in Kiruna in Northern Sweden. The church is the home of the pentecostal cult The Source of All Our Strength, and the handless, sightless body is that of its principal inspiration, the Paradise Boy, Viktor Strandgard.

Stockholm tax lawyer Rebecka Martinsson gets a pleading phone call from the victim's sister Sanna, and she hurries home to Kiruna. Rebecka is very familiar with The Source of All Our Strength: she was once a member, and knew Viktor well. Rebecka's boss is not best pleased by her decision to fly to Sanna's help, but she has misunderstood his motives.

The police investigating team consists of the newly appointed Inspector Sven-Erik Stalnacke, the woman he is replacing, the very heavily pregnant, near-term Anna-Maria Mella, and pompous Assistant Chief Prosecutor Carl van Post.

Rebecka Martinnson left Kiruna under a cloud, the reasons for which are gradually revealed as the investigation unfolds. The management of the pentecostal church is not all it should be, and the dynamics that brought it growth and fame are also part of the factors undermining it.

I enjoyed this book immensely. There are many things that I could mention: excellent characterisation, and feeling of place; the human interest element provided by Mella's approaching confinement; a skilful interlacing of back-story and story advancement.

My rating: 4.6

Read an extract and an interview on the Penguin site.

On the final page of the book the author promises that "Rebecka Martinsson will be back, she's not that easy to get rid of. Just give her time." THE SAVAGE ALTAR has been announced as the first of a series of six, featuring Martinsson.

Due out on 1 May 2008 THE BLOOD SPILT.
Synopsis from the Penguin site:
It is midsummer in Sweden - when the light lingers through dawn and the long winter comes to an end. Now, in this magical time, a brutal killer has chosen to strike, and the murder of a female priest sends shockwaves through the community. It has been almost two years since attorney Rebecka Martinsson returned to her birthplace, Kiruna, in order to stop an eerily similar murder spree. Now she is back in Kiruna, where a determined policewoman works on the case and the people who loved or loathed the victim mourn or revel in her demise. As Rebecka is drawn into a mystery that soon will claim another victim, the dead woman's world consumes her: a world of hurt and healing, sin and sexuality, and above all, of lethal sacrifice.

I'll be looking for it.