Geiger

Starred review from March 7, 2022
At the start of Swedish screenwriter and director Skördeman’s excellent debut, a contemporary Stockholm police procedural, Agneta Broman, a 69-year-old grandmother, commits a shocking act. Within moments after her visiting daughters and grandchildren leave, Agneta fatally shoots her 85-year-old husband, Stellan, who was once a beloved television presenter, and vanishes. Sara Nowak, a police detective on the prostitution unit who has anger management problems, used to play with the Bromans’ two daughters as a child and becomes obsessed with finding Stellan’s killer. Gradually, she uncovers a terrorist web spawned by East Germany’s dreaded Stasi, whose tentacles reach into Sweden’s highest political circles, and that threatens “something big” with dire consequences for the entire European Union. In powerful secondary plots, Sara wages a private war against the Swedish government’s refusal to defend prostitutes from exploitation and contends with the guilt she feels for putting her job before her family. Skördeman keeps readers fully engaged right up to the last shattering revelations. This tale of Cold War revenge and familial anguish will resonate with many. Agent: Johanna Gustavsson, Politiken Agency (Sweden).

March 15, 2022
The Cold War threatens to rise from the dead in this fast-paced Swedish spy thriller. Grandparents Stellan and Agneta Broman have been married for almost 50 apparently idyllic years. Stellan is a widely beloved television personality. But one night, Agneta receives a brief phone call, shoots her 80-year-old husband in the back of the head, and disappears into the night. Police think at first that the retired celebrity's murder might simply be a botched burglary, but police officer Sara Nowak believes that Stellan has been targeted. Then, on beginning to learn about his past, investigators think it may be the "beginning of a much bigger chain of events." They fear that the killer or killers may have kidnapped Agneta. Poor Stellan. He'd been "Sweden's playful uncle....It was like someone murdering Santa Claus." Readers learn long before the authorities do that Agneta is on a mission and has waited for decades to receive the signal to kill this man she pretended to love. It's a complex plot wherein a "gang of senile old spies" regret the demise of the Cold War, particularly the fall of East Germany. Lurking in the shadows is the mysterious Abu Rasil, who wants to be remembered as the greatest terrorist ever. As it happens, Stellan had a couple of secret lives unknown to his adoring public. He had once been an informal collaborator for the Stasi, the East German security service. Perhaps Stellan was Geiger, the man who had ruined so many Swedish lives. And to put it delicately, Stellan had disturbing relationships with young girls. Decades ago, Sara's mother used to clean house for the Bromans, and Sara had been the occasional and socially unequal playmate of their daughters. As tension builds, people die in bursts of bombs and profanity. Has the Cold War never really ended? Sara's boss tries to take her off the case, but naturally that doesn't stop her. There is plenty of excitement right up to the end. All seems lost until, like a deus ex machina, the solution appears. Dark, violent, and engrossing but with a contrived ending.

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Starred review from September 9, 2022

DEBUT Sk�rdeman's literary debut following a career in screenwriting is set in modern-day Stockholm, Sweden, where police officer Sara Nowak is assigned to the vice unit and spends her days working prostitution stings. She has anger management issues and is often in conflict with the government over its treatment of exploited sex workers. When she hears of the murder of 85-year-old retired television personality Stellan Broman, Sara feels compelled to help with the investigation. Broman was the father of Sara's childhood friends and a father figure to her. Not everyone is happy to have Sara working on the case, but she is determined. What she uncovers could shatter not only what she knows of her childhood but destabilize the world, as Cold War--era secrets are unearthed and 40-year-old plans are reborn. Throughout the investigation, Sara tries to balance her career, marriage, and family while struggling to find her place in all of it. VERDICT Part police procedural, part spy novel, and entirely captivating as normal life collides with ideology, nostalgia, and a reminder that perhaps the Cold War is not as settled as once believed. This debut will appeal to fans of Karin Slaughter, Kjell Eriksson, and Ragnar J�nasson.--George Lichman

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