Customer Reviews

Box 21: A Novel

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

With its unassuming title and Swedish origin, North American readers might be tempted to let Box 21 slide into the "maybe later" category of books. This would be a mistake for readers that have a serious interest in any of the following: crime thrillers, anthropology, social justice, women's rights, ethical conundrums, or, absent any of the above, fresh, potent, and innovative contemporary literature.

Like a kayaker or river rafter putting in on an unknown river, the reader of Box 21 will experience maximum excitement and tension if he or she dips their oar without much knowledge of the rocks, rapids, waterfalls, and vortexes that wait downstream. A skeletal outline of the plot: Set in contemporary Stockholm, Box 21 pits two detectives, one cynical and bitter, one idealistic and philosophical, against two plot strands that are only loosely intertwined: a death related to heroin addiction, and two deaths related to sexual slavery. In the unfolding of the plot, the reader is deeply immersed in the graphically portrayed worlds of drug addiction, and the world of kidnapping women from developing nations and inducting them into the sexual slavery of prostitution. The story is told in almost excruciatingly sharp focus, authors Anders Roslund and Borge Hellstrom disdain the use of the use of any literary airbrushing that might lessen the impact on the reader.

The gritty adherence to realism in this novel is not accidental. Borge Hellstrom is a recovering drug addict that has done jail time for his drug-related crimes. Currently working to rehabilitate young criminals and/or drug addicts, there is a soul-scalding immediacy to his descriptions of an addicted young man teetering on the edge of catastrophe. Anders Roslund developed the Swedish TV show Culture News. While some authors of fiction might introduce the topic of sexual slavery with overtones of salaciousness, sensationalism, or (shiver) even romance, Roslund approaches the topic with all the delicacy and subtlety of a hard swung baseball bat impacting on the body of the victim. The Roslund-Hellstrom team writes, I'm guessing, not simply to entertain, but to engage and to enrage the reader. Intentionally or not, they succeed. They have a message, and they want it heard at high volume and with clarity. We all love a book that is written well enough to make us laugh out loud, or to cry. At one point in the book, I seriously frightened my wife by leaping off the couch where I was reading and shouting "NO, God damn it!" It was the first time I've ever reacted to a book that way, and after a slightly heated reaction by my wife, a promised last time.

A centerpiece of the book, done masterfully by Roslund/Hellstrom, is ethical dilemma. No spoilers here, just a promise: Box 21 will twist your conscience into pretzels and Mobius strips. It will indirectly raise the question of whether it is appropriate to have men (as a gender) involved in the prosecution of sex crimes.

Three yellow flags: First, Jane Jakeman, in reviewing a previous Roslund/Hellstrom collaboration called The Beast, says "The reader will need a strong stomach". Heed her words. Second, either through the effects of translation, or cultural differences between Sweden and the U.S, or maybe both, the cadence of the novel takes a bit of adaptation. The sensation for me was similar to the first ten minutes of a Shakespeare play or a movie with subtitles: mild irritation, which then rapidly becomes unnoticeable. Finally, the stylistic elements of Box 21 are rough-edged, and often raw. Guernica, Picasso's painting commissioned to show the horrors of the Spanish Civil War, had similar elements. Think Stockholm instead of the Spanish town of Guernica, and sexual slavery and drug-related crime instead of civil war: the blunt and graphic images of both Guernica and Box 21 are deeply effective at achieving their goals. And both are truly art.

BOX 21 is an exemplary crime novel. But it sure doesn't tempt me to visit Stockholm.

The hero, if there is one, is Ewert Grens, a grizzled, insufferably rude investigator of the Stockholm PD who's only tolerated because he's also the best. Twenty-five years previously, the love of his life, fellow officer Anni, received severe skull injuries while trying to apprehend the notorious thug, Jochum Lang. Anni now hangs on in a long-term care facility, and Lang is about to be released from prison. Loneliness and bitterness control Ewert's life.

Lydia Grajauskas, along with Alena Sljusareva, are two young women who've been confined, humiliated and sexually debauched for the past three years after having been lured to Sweden from Lithuania. Now, Lydia is hospitalized unconscious after being severely flogged and her arm broken by her pimp. The noise alerted the neighbors who called the police, including Grens. While recovering, Lydia vows it will not happen again; she implements an ingenious plan for vengeance.

Hilding Oldéus is a drug addict who's hit bottom. He's hospitalized after overdosing in a photo booth of the central train station, but not before selling heroin he's cut with washing detergent to the niece of his supplier. She dies, and the brutal enforcer Lang is sent to teach Oldéus a meaningful lesson.

The paths of Ewert, Hilding, Jochum and Lydia all intersect at Söder Hospital.

BOX 21 is a forceful and original psychological sortie into Stockholm's underbelly. The reader who prefers a happy ending, or at least one in which justice universally prevails, may find this atypical novel depressing. On the other hand, BOX 21 is perhaps more reflective of real life, in which wrongs are only haphazardly made right, heinous crime sometimes goes unpunished, the guilt from failed family relationships can destroy the psyche, friendship's obligations can corrupt, and life's disappointments can be as corrosive as acid.

I liked BOX 21 very much, but it wasn't - and isn't - a feel-good read.

I really think approaching this novel as simply a crime story, thriller, or detective novel is too shallow. Granted, all of those elements are present, but they aren't the heart of the book. Its heart is in its multidimensional characters, living their sloppy, imperfect lives just as we all do, against a backdrop of grim police work and the international sex slave trade. I can only hope that some of the readers who found it too graphic and violent have seen some of the real-life news coverage about sex slaves, young women tempted with promises of high-paying jobs in other countries who find themselves trapped with no hope of escape. The author seems to have gotten this exactly right.

Granted, this is a bleak novel. No one is saved in the end, no one is better for their experience. It poses many questions and offers no answers. However, like all good art, it will command your attention, extract an emotional response, and remain with you long after you read it.

This book arrived with all kinds of promise . . . ."Best crime novel of the year" . . ."a mind blowing psychological drama" and "suspenseful, gripping and intelligently written".

Somehow, I missed the party. The book starts out by slowly and awkwardly introducing its characters who never get beyond flat and characterless. Even after 100 pages of descriptions of activities of these uninteresting people, I never really cared about them because the authors never bothered to give them any depth.

For instance, the authors introduce police officer Ewert Grens and let us know that he mourns the loss of Anni because he relives her life-changing accident over and over and over and over. But, the readers aren't given real insight into Anni and Ewert's relationship in order to grieve with him or to understand him. The closest we come to really getting to know a character is the prostitute, Lydia Grajauskas, but the authors arranged their narrative so that we don't know much about Lydia until the end of the book, and, unfortunately, by then we have lost interest.

And, the ending. So very predictable.

This book has potential - the bones are there. A better narrative and three dimensional characters could have made the book a winner.

Maybe it's the translation. Maybe not. I love a good thriller, but this book just never gripped me so that I didn't want to put it down. I cannot recommend it.

The grisly lives of innocent, sixteen- and seventeen-year-old Lithuanian girls, tricked into leaving their homeland on the promise of good jobs, unfold in tawdry detail as Anders Roslund and Borge Hellstrom focus on the sex trade, its clientele, the financial syndicates which profit from it, the enforcers who protect it, and the police and others who allow it to flourish. Lydia Grajauskas, a "pro" with three years of experience by the age of twenty, serves twelve customers a day, earning almost no income except what she can negotiate with her customers for "extras." Living in an apartment which a Russian with a diplomatic passport claims as Lithuanian territory, exempt from Swedish laws, Lydia can expect little help from the local police. Until she is beaten within an inch of her life.

Ewert Grens, a veteran police inspector in charge of the investigation, has several other issues to deal with. Twenty-five years ago, Jochum Lang, a sadistic drug dealer and Mafia hitman, dragged Ewert's partner and lover Anni out of the back of the police van Ewert was driving, and she suffered catastrophic injuries. Lang is about to be released from prison, and Ewert still seeks vengeance against him. The two plot lines converge when Lang appears at the hospital where Lydia is recuperating. Before long, the hospital is in lockdown.

Roslund and Hellstrom humanize this drama by alternating the focus between the two stories, giving background information about all the key characters. Ewert Grens lives the life of a hermit, his only friend being fellow-officer Bengt Nordwall and his wife Lena. Lydia's friend Alena still pines for Janoz, her lover back home, and both girls are hoping to escape their bondage and return to Lithuania. Hilding Oldeus, a drug addict who was protected by Jochum Lang when he was in jail, shares the torments of addiction and its effects on his family members, becoming a focus of the novel when Lang is released from jail. Sven Sundkvist, Ewert Grens's current partner, a truly ethical man, is the conscience of the novel.

Though the novel describes the sadistic sexual practices of the prostitutes' handlers and their customers, it is otherwise a traditional mystery/thriller. The focus is on the drama and the plot, with little attention to deep themes and no suggestion that the issues at the heart of the novel are being addressed in any organized fashion by the government. The problems of witness intimidation, police corruption, and the police bending of the truth to get a conviction, standard complications of most police procedurals, appear here. The novel is sometimes marred by clichés, both in its plot and in its ponderous observations. Statements like "This must never happen again," and "Truth is the only thing people can bear to live with in the long run," state the obvious and add nothing to the drama or to any thematic development. The novel's fully described sexual crimes against minors show the authors' clear empathy with these girls, creating a novel which has the feel of a shocking, journalistic expose. Mary Whipple

If you prefer to read books which are basically positive and all turns out right in the end, you shouldn't touch Box 21 with the proverbial barge pole. However, if you like reading a book that gets its hooks in you from the very start and doesn't turn you loose until days after you've turned the last page, this is the book for you.

I am a fan of Scandinavian crime fiction, so there was very little doubt that I'd be reading this book once I learned of its existence. Anders Roslund is the founder and former head of Culture News on Swedish Television, and co-author Börge Hellström is an ex-criminal who helps rehabilitate young offenders and drug addicts. They have turned what would be a few sound bites and appropriate facial expressions on the evening news into a gritty, hard-hitting and ultimately heart-breaking look into the world of sex slavery, drugs and revenge.

Lydia Grajauskas and Alena Sljusareva are two young Lithuanian women lured into sex slavery by the promise of good jobs in Sweden. Ewert Grens is a tough, hardened Swedish detective who's determined to put Jochum Lang behind bars for the rest of his life. (Twenty-five years ago Lang was responsible for the accident which caused permanent brain damage to Grens' wife.) Bengt Nordwall is Grens' mentor, and Sven Sundkvist is Grens' partner in the Stockholm police. Added to this mix is Hilding Oldéus, a desperate drug addict. All these characters converge at Söder Hospital.

There is so much going on in Box 21 that it's difficult to talk about the book without giving too much away. I'm going to try my best to leave the plot as something for you to discover on your own. Halfway through the book, the action comes to an explosive climax, and I was puzzled. What in the world could the last half of the book be about? After the first half, it was bound to be a tremendous letdown.

When I am wrong, I am spectacularly wrong.

Within a very few pages, the subplots are being explored, and many more layers of character are revealed in each of the players. The book zigzags through the past and the present. The suspense continues to build as do nuance and detail. Although the plot of Box 21 settles down, more or less, into a straight line, the ending is one that's going to shock many readers.

As I read this book, I couldn't help but be reminded of Stieg Larsson's Millennium series. Here, too, the abuse of women is a fundamental theme. But where Larsson's series gives the reader a glimmer of hope for the future because of characters who continue to fight for right against the odds, Box 21 seems to hold no hope. All the characters seem shrouded in the perpetual gloom of bad choices, cynicism and evil.

I found Box 21 to be totally engrossing in plot, pacing, characterization, setting, detail-- many times I felt as though I were a passenger in a plane that was about to crash-- and only two small details kept it from being a "Wow!" book for me. The first fifty pages or so read awkwardly, and it took me a while to become familiar with the cadence and phrasing. (No translator is listed for the book.) The other small detail? The end didn't shock me. Sometimes I'm more cynical than I'd like to be.

Box 21 is grim. It's brutal. It certainly isn't pretty. It is compulsive reading, and the cynical side of my nature has the feeling that its story is much closer to truth than fiction in the worlds of addiction, victimization and revenge.

If you're looking for a novel in which everything is nicely wound up and justice served, this isn't it. It is, however, a decidedly realistic and depressing slice of noir which had me flipping pages to see what was going to happen next.

There were no big surprises, the style is a bit too stark for my liking and I wish the characters had been given more depth. That said, Roslund, a journalist, and Hellstrom, a reformed criminal, have penned a fast-paced, gripping story which makes up for some of the novel's defects.

It's a tale of shame, desire for revenge, the self-delusion and lies people will stoop to in order to protect those they care about. It's an interwoven tale of characters whose lives converge in one place with devastating results for all.

Box 21 begins with two young Lithuanian women lured to Sweden with promises of good paying jobs only to become sex slaves of the pimp Dmitri. They escape from their apartment when police show up to investigate the neighbors' report of violence. Dmitri is arrested and deported, the badly beaten Lydia is taken to hospital and Alena makes plans to return to Lithuania. At the same time, a junkie who has just been released from prison and in desperate need of money, cuts cocaine with soap powder, sells it to the wrong person and dies.

The story that follows is beyond dark and twisted as it follows the policemen who are investigating Lydia's surprising and violent attempt to focus attention on her plight and at the same time are looking into the death of the junkie. Of course, the two investigations turn out to be related, though neither is neatly tied up. Without giving spoilers, it's difficult to relate the events of the rest of the book, but rest assured, it IS a thriller in dramatic shades of gray. Though the characters' names can difficult to follow (one is Lena, another is Alena for example) their struggles are not, and both betray and are betrayed on a regular basis. It's heartrending. Few characters are as they seem to be, even fewer are likeable, and the final outrageous twist is a jaw-dropper and for me, a book-flinger.

If you're looking for an uplifting, nicely wrapped up HEA, this book is definitely not for you, but if you like gritty realism, moral dilemmas and helplessness in the face of evil, you'll love it. It's a credit to the authors that their message comes through loud and clear though this book is disguised and advertised as a thriller. I usually look to thrillers as a fine form of escapism, but Box 21 left me angry, disgusted and in dire need of brain bleach. For that, this book deserves four stars. If there had been any redemption, it would have earned five stars, but I also understand how the real world works.

I'm a fan of Scandinavian mysteries, especially Mankell's, so wanted to get acquainted with this latest writing team of Roslund and Hellstrom. So far, besides "Box 21," I've also read "Three Seconds." If you like "CSI" or "Law and Order: Special Victims Unit" you might enjoy these novels. They don't have the rich local color of Mankell or the quirky characterizations of Steig Larson, but they have plenty of clinical and technical details regarding drugs and prostitution. An odd twist, noticeable especially in "Box 21," is that the male characters seem more emotional than the female ones. Sven goes around for much of "Box 21" with a sharp pain in his stomach caused by his discovery that his boss, Ewert, is lying about evidence he has found. And Ewert spends a lot of time agonizing over an accident which happened years ago to his wife, whom he visits regularly in a nursing home, even though she can't recognize him because of the brain damage she has suffered. The two Lithuanian prostitutes, on the other hand, show little overt emotion in spite of being brutalized daily. A similarity to other Swedish mystery writers is the part foreign immigrants play in the crimes that are committed. More often than not, the criminals come from what was once the Soviet empire.

This is not an easy novel to read, but it is well worth it because it is quite different from the usual crime-cum-thriller novels from Scandinavia. It really is a psychological study of the conflicts facing detectives in their moral and ethical judgments. It is the story of how they not only solve cases, but deal with personal relationships and crime.

There are two plots running through the book, each posing a separate question for the main protagonist, Detective Superintendent Ewert Grens, while only one of them presents itself to his sidekick, Sven Sundkvist. In the end, they both have to face up to reality.

The crimes are gruesome enough, one involving young Baltic women forced into prostitution and enduring humiliating circumstances instead of the promised `good jobs' in Sweden. The other deals with a sadistic enforcer for a drug lord who breaks bones at stated prices, so much for a finger or a knee, a higher price for murder. In short, in riveting alternating chapters, the stories come together and the two detectives have to resolve the questions facing them as they relate to the crimes involved. Recommended.