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Echoes From the Dead [Import] [Paperback]

Johan Theorin (Author)
4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)


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Book Description

August 26, 2008
Following in the footsteps of prize-winning authors Arnuldar Indridason and Henning Mankell, comes a chilling new voice in European crime.

On a foggy autumn day in the early 1970s, a little boy disappears without a trace from the island of Öland. He is never found.

Twenty years later his mother, Julia, is living on the Swedish mainland, still struggling to come to terms with her son’s disappearance. Julia receives an unexpected phone call from her father, a retired sea captain still living on the island who tells her that the postman has delivered a package containing the worn and mended shoe of a child. He is pretty sure it belongs to her son.

Reluctantly Julia returns to the island where she grew up and soon she and her father are piecing together a puzzle from the past. They recall stories of a terrifying local man, Nils Kant, who was known to delight in the pain of others but who was killed during World War Two, while the island had been occupied by the Nazis. Recently, however, there have been reports of a man exactly like Nils Kant wandering across the fields as darkness falls.

From the barren sands of Öland to the Caribbean seas and back, Echoes From the Dead is as chilling as it is psychologically acute — a gripping study of loss, sorrow and true evil.

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Set predominantly on the Baltic island of Öland, Theorin's deeply disturbing debut will remind many of Henning Mankell both in its thematic intensity and dark tone. Two decades after the unsolved disappearance of a young boy, Jens Davidsson, who vanished one foggy autumn afternoon in 1972 and was presumed to have drowned, Jens's grandfather, Gerlof, a retired sea captain, receives one of Jens's sandals in the mail. Gerlof enlists his alcoholic daughter, Julia, who's still struggling to come to grips with the loss of her only child, to help solve the mystery. All leads point to infamous thug Nils Kant, who was rumored to have killed numerous people. But Kant allegedly died years before the fateful day that Jens disappeared, so who could've killed the boy? And why? Further investigation leads the unlikely sleuths to some startling revelations about their isolated island community and its much-storied history. (Nov.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

From Booklist

*Starred Review* Another winner of Sweden’s Best First Crime Novel Award, and another excellent crime novel. In the 1970s, on the island of Oland, a small boy disappears in the fog. For 20 years, his mother puts her life on hold until her father calls and says he has a clue. Returning to the island is hard for Julia, and she packs two bottles of red wine for assistance. Arriving at her childhood village, she is quickly drawn into her father’s circle of elderly friends, all interested in helping solve her son’s disappearance, but the solitary (and somewhat endearing) pensioners are not always willing to share clues. Julia’s modern-day search alternates with historical scenes from the life of Nils Kant, the village scapegoat and a suspect in the disappearance. This narrative strategy for drawing in the reader and advancing the story is reminiscent of Jo Nesbo’s outstanding Redbreast (2007), and it works equally well here. Julia finally faces her grief and begins to heal even as she begins to understand the many mysteries buried in the island’s history, giving the novel a hopeful and uplifting ending. The island, though vividly rendered, will not seem particularly foreign to American readers, and the fully fleshed characters and excellent plot should appeal to all crime and thriller readers. Essential for all crime collections. --Jessica Moyer --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

  • Paperback: 256 pages
  • Publisher: Doubleday UK (August 26, 2008)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0385613628
  • ISBN-13: 978-0385613620
  • Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1.3 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
  • Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,635,808 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Throughout his life, Johan Theorin has been a regular visitor to the Baltic island of Oland, where his books are set. His mother's family - sailors, fishermen and farmers - have lived there for centuries, nurturing the island's rich legacy of strange tales and folklore. A journalist by profession, Johan lives in Gothenburg, Sweden.

 

Customer Reviews

22 Reviews
5 star:
 (12)
4 star:
 (8)
3 star:
 (2)
2 star:    (0)
1 star:    (0)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.5 out of 5 stars (22 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

30 of 32 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars "Echoes from the Dead" by Johan Theorin, November 30, 2008
This review is from: Echoes from the Dead (Paperback)
Echoes from the Dead

Review is of a prepublication copy furnished for review through librarything.com by The Bantam Dell Publishing Group, A Division of Random House.

Twenty years ago Julia Davidsson's 5-year-old son Jens disappeared into the fog on the remote Swedish island of Öland and was never found. Everyone except Julia believes Jens wandered down to the shore and drowned. Unable to accept that her son is dead, Julia withdraws from her family and stumbles through life using alcohol and medication to deaden the pain of not knowing. Then, after all these years, her father Gerlof calls to tell her that someone has sent him one of Jens's sandals in the mail; so Julia returns to Öland to try, once again, to find her son.

Johan Theorin's "Echoes from the Dead" is an absorbing mystery that works on several levels: as a classic whodunit that keeps the reader guessing up to the last few pages, as a horror story with scenes that slowly pull the reader reluctantly forward, and as a family story that examines how tragedy cuts at the ties that bind and leaves them hanging by fragile threads. It is a story that unfolds across and between time periods starting with the day Jens disppears, then flowing back and forth between present and past: from Gerlof at the nursing home holding Jens sandal in his hand to before World War II where we pick up the life of Nils Kant, who supposedly died and was buried long before Jens disappeared but who Gerlof suspects is somehow involved in his grandson's disappearance. Above all, the novel is the story of a landscape, the island of Öland, that Theorin presents as a central character with a life and history of its own--a landscape that interacts with all its human inhabitants and drives their behaviors.

"Echoes from the Dead" is, on every level, an immensely satisfying experience no matter how you want to approach it.
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12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Very Worthwhile Read; Fascinating Swedish Setting, July 13, 2009
By 
zorba (Bala Cynwyd, Pa USA) - See all my reviews
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Echoes from the Dead (Paperback)
After reading "Echoes From the Dead", one feels he has lived his life on the once-remote island of Oland, off the east coast of Sweden. Through the eyes of the mostly elderly residents of the foggy, rainy (at least in winter) island, a riveting tale emerges. It starts off simply -- the death of a boy -- but the plot soon twists and turns and becomes more and more complex by the page. In like fashion, the suspense increases exponentially and by the end of the book, the surprises come rolling in like waves off the Baltic Sea. As others have pointed out, this book succeeds on several levels: a whodunit, a travelogue of a mysterious, almost mystical place; and a compelling novel about a community, its people and their blood-deep relationships with each other. The characters are well-drawn and memorable. The plot is (mostly) believeable and not too reliant on coincidence. All in all, a very good book by a promising author.
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11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Very satisfying, January 12, 2009
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Echoes from the Dead (Paperback)
I can't add much to Librarian's insightful review, except "Ditto". What I liked best about the book was the realism of the relationships. Nothing was forced. I also appreciated that the somewhat convoluted mystery actually made sense. That doesn't always happen with a twisty plot.
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