Review: THE THIN BLUE LINE, Christoffer Carlsson

• this edition published by Scribe Publications 2018
• translated from Swedish by Michael Gallager
• series: Leo Junker #4
• ISBN 978-1-925322-89-7
• 328 pages
• source: publisher
• 2017 Best Crime Novel of the Year Award (Swedish Crime Writers’ Academy) - Short-listed

Synopsis

Detective Leo Junker thought he’d crossed his last line. But he’s never learned to say no.

So when an escaped criminal he knows all too well hands him a photo of a murdered prostitute, he reopens the cold case as a favour. Everyone’s busy and everyone’s got better things to do, but is there a darker reason that Angelica Reyes’ death has languished unsolved for five years? As Leo’s investigation pushes further into the past — Sweden’s, Angelica’s, his own — he’ll come face to face with the corruption at the heart of things.

Yet the reckoning may come too late — not only for Angelica Reyes, but for everyone.

My Take

At times I floundered a bit in putting the plot of this novel together -  mainly I think because I have not read the three earlier novels in the series and so am missing a bit of background information. Perhaps also too because I am not Swedish.

Detectives Leo Junker and Gabriel Birck are on overnight surveillance in Stockholm watching the comings and goings at a particular address, taking photographs and videos. Stockholm Police have been restructuring for a year, attempting to weed out corruption, and to streamline services.

Junker receives a letter in the post which contains a photo that he recognises - a prostitute who was murdered nearly 5 years before. On the back a phone number and the words "help me". The person who has contacted him is a friend from his adolescence and years ago they rescued this girl, saving her life. As a result of meeting with Grim, who is actually an escaped criminal, Leo gets permission to re-open the case into the girl's murder, for one last look at the evidence. It is the typical can of worms, involving corruption at the highest level.

My rating: 4.4

I've also read
4.4, OCTOBER IS THE COLDEST MONTH

About the author
Christoffer Carlsson has a PhD in criminology, and is a university lecturer in the subject. He has written five crime novels, including the bestselling The Invisible Man from Salem and the Young Adult noir October is the Coldest Month.
In 2012, he was awarded the International European Society of Criminology's Young Criminologist Award. 

Series

Leo Junker
1. The Invisible Man From Salem (2015)
2. The Falling Detective (2016)
3. Master, Liar, Traitor, Friend (2017)
4. The Thin Blue Line (2018)

Review: OCTOBER IS THE COLDEST MONTH, Christopher Carlsson

• this edition a review copy from Scribe Publications 2016
• translated from Swedish by Rachel Willson-Aroyles
• ISBN 978-1-925322-21-7
• 181 pages

Synopsis (Publisher)

Vega Gillberg is 16 years old when the police come knocking on the door looking for her older brother, Jakob.

Vega hasn’t heard from him in days, but she has to find him before the police do. Jakob was involved in a terrible crime. What no one knows is that Vega was there, too.

In the rural Swedish community where the Gillbergs live, life is tough, the people are even tougher, and old feuds never die. As Vega sets out to find her brother, she must survive a series of threatening encounters in a deadly landscape. As if that wasn’t enough, she’s dealing with the longing she feels for a boy that she has sworn to forget, and the mixed-up feelings she has for her brother’s best friend.

During a damp, raw week in October, the door to the adult world swings open, and Vega realises that once she has crossed the threshold there is no turning back.

My take

Several incidents in this novel ensure that the innocence of Vega's childhood has gone forever. She has had a tough childhood anyway but the going from now one threatens to be even tougher. She lives with her mother who works in a bar at night, her uncle Dan sells moonshine, assisted by her brother Jakob who has left home.

Her brother becomes an accessory to a crime that puts the police on his trail, and Vega needs to know what actually happened and why.

I found this a complex and rather bleak novel. In the end I kept thinking that the future for Vega cannot be good. The book blurb says it is the author's first for young adult readers, and there are certainly some provoking "coming of age" elements.

My rating: 4.4

About the author
Christoffer Carlsson was born in 1986 and raised in Halmstad, on the west coast of Sweden. He has a PhD in criminology, and is a university lecturer in the subject. He began writing at a very young age and has, since his debut at twenty-three, written five novels in the crime genre. October is the Coldest Month is his first book for young adults. In 2013, he became the youngest author ever to have won the award for Best Swedish Crime Novel of the Year, which he was awarded for the first book in the celebrated Leo Junker series, The Invisible Man from Salem .