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Echoes from the Dead

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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.

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.

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.

In this beautifully written book everything unfolds so naturally and quietly, you hardly feel you're reading a novel. You are there, on a remote Swedish island where the landscape has a moody beauty unlike anything you know, with so few inhabitants that rarely is another human being visible.

Almost everyone in this small world seems to have secrets, or theories about other people's secrets. What really happened twenty years ago when a little boy disappeared in the fog? What was the fate of the young man who terrorized the island with his violent impulses? And is there any connection between these two mysteries?

The old people on the island are immensely appealing, even though they don't talk much. For our heroine we are given a lackluster middle-aged woman who, though short on romantic qualities, totally engages our sympathy. The ending? A surprise that only a few brooding old men could possibly have foreseen.

I agree with the other reviewers--this is a very well written and enjoyable mystery with a couple of surprising twists.

As one of the other reviewers said, character development, relationships, and plot all flow naturally, without being forced.

I would like to add that I thought the translation was very good-- that is--there aren't any awkward passages or poor choice of words, which one often finds in translations.

Finally, like Henning Mankell, this author's writing transcends the mystery genre and becomes literature. I cant wait for his next book.

Johan Theorin's ECHOES FROM THE DEAD is Swedish noir that builds its story on events from 1936 to the 1940's to 1972 to 1992, periods connected by suspected murders and the memories of the residents of a remote area of Sweden, the island of Oland. On a very foggy morning in September 1972, 6 year-old Jens Davidsson walks out of his home and disappears without a trace. Twenty years later, his mother Julia, depressed and overwhelmed by the disappearance, receives a phone call from her father, still a resident of Oland. After fleeing to Stockholm so many years before, Julia has had little contact with her father, Gerlof, but now he is asking her to come back, to help him renew the search for Jens. For Julia, Orland is the source of her desperation, but when Gerlof tells her that he has received a package containing one sandal, the same sandal Jens had been wearing when he disappeared, Julia is reluctantly pulled back to the island. The book alternates Julia and Gerlof's search for Jens with the story of the drowning of Alex Kant in 1934 and the murders of people during the Nazi occupation of Sweden. Orland has its own myth, the island's own figure of fear, Nils Kant, the older brother of Alex. Did Nils stand-by and watch Alex drown? Did Nils kill the German soldiers in the 1940's? Was Nils Kant responsible for the deaths of some of the residents of Oland? What role did he play in the disappearance of Jens? How could he have played any role? Nils Kant died 40 years ago so who is the dark figure people see wandering the island at night? Back in her childhood home, Julia observes that, "Within the sunlight there was a sense of sorrow that not everything was as beautiful as it seemed to be...." (ECHOES FROM THE DEAD, p. 74). There is a sense of sorrow that permeates this story; a community has lived for 60 years under a cloud that formed with the death of one child and a family is destroyed by the disappearance of another. ECHOES FROM THE DEAD is not light reading but it is a compelling story of damage wrought by loss, fear, and suspicion. Johan Theorin is another master in the circle of Swedish masters of the genre.

I'm an ardent fan of Scandinavian mysteries, and some of my favorite authors are Karin Fossum, Arnaldur Indridasson, Steig Larssen, Yrsa Sigundadottir, Henning Mankell, Asa Larssen, and Johan Theorin. I have read The Darkest Room: A Novel by Johan Theorin and it was a remarkable mystery novel - great characterizations, a gripping plot, and seamless storytelling. "Echoes from the Dead" is also engaging, though I have to admit that it is a bit slow to take off in terms of the plot (which wasn't the case with The Darkest Room - that book grabbed me from the first and the suspense never lets up). However, "Echoes From the dead" is still a strong effort by Theorin - the story's central focus is the disappearance of a young boy Jens, from the island of Oland (which also features in The Darkest Room) more than two decades ago. His body was never found and so his fate remains a mystery. In the present, his still grieving mother, Julia Davidsson, lives on the Swedish mainland, numbing her pain with alcohol, and living on disability. When she receives a call from her estranged father Gerlof (who is living in a nursing home on Oland) that he has received a package with a child's shoes (believed to be Jens'), Julia reluctantly decides that it is time to go back to Oland and see if she can put the past to rest/unearth the truth. A sinister character named Nils Kant, a man believed to be dead since the second World War is a key suspect, and the story weaves between the past and present, from 1936, through WW II, and all the way back to the present.

Although the plot takes some time to gather momentum, the reader's interest is piqued by the narrative technique - especially the details in the past - which paints of portrait of evil, yet also of love, loss, and grief. The pain experienced by Julia is palpable and very credibly drawn, and Theorin has shown his flair for writing character-driven novels, both in "Echoes from the Dead", and "The Darkest Room". The Scandinavian crime authors have shown true talent for writing engaging, suspense-driven novels, and Theorin is fast becoming one of my personal favorites.

This is a fantastic Swedish mystery that has retired seniors as the amateur detectives who aren't the usual clueless types, but very smart and determined to see justice done for the little 5-year old boy named Jens who vanished 20 years ago. One of the seniors is his grandfather and several of the grandfather's friends who start rattling cages after one of the little boy's sandals is sent to the grandfather at the senior home where he now lives.
The story jumps back and forth in time bringing the past and present closer together to reveal what happened to Jens. His mother, a divorced alcoholic who can't go on until she finds out what happened to him, goes back to her hometown after her father calls her about the sandal. They get the local police involved to try and find the killer.
The beginning of the book seems to reveal who the murderer is, and the backstory centers around him, a violent and disturbed man who murdered several people and who is thought to be dead. Many of the local people, though, still believe he is alive and has come back to the town where Jens disappeared.

I will certainly be reading this author's other books. This is my first mystery by a Swedish author and can say that all of the praise that Swedish crime writers are currently receiving is well deserved.

I read The Darkest Room: A Novel by Johan Theorin and it was a remarkable mystery novel - great characterizations, a gripping plot, and seamless storytelling. "Echoes from the Dead" is also engaging, though I have to admit that it is a bit slow to take off in terms of the plot (which wasn't the case with The Darkest Room - that book grabbed me from the first and the suspense never let up). However, "Echoes From the dead" is still a strong effort by Theorin - the story's central focus is the disappearance of a young boy Jens, from the island of Oland (which also features in The Darkest Room) more than two decades ago. His body was never found and so his fate remains a mystery. In the present, his still grieving mother, Julia Davidsson, lives on the Swedish mainland, numbing her pain with alcohol, and living on disability. When she receives a call from her estranged father Gerlof (who is living in a nursing home on Oland) that he has received a package with a child's shoes (believed to be Jens'), Julia reluctantly decides that it is time to go back to Oland and see if she can put the past to rest/unearth the truth. A sinister character named Nils Kant, a man believed to be dead since the second World War is a key suspect, and the story weaves between the past and present, from 1936, through WW II, and all the way back to the present.

Although the plot takes some time to gather momentum, the reader's interest is piqued by the narrative technique - especially the details in the past - which paints of portrait of evil, yet also of love, loss, and grief. The pain experienced by Julia is palpable and very credibly drawn, and Theorin has shown his flair for writing character-driven novels, both in "Echoes from the Dead", and "The Darkest Room". The Scandinavian crime authors have shown true talent for writing engaging, suspense-driven novels, and Theorin is fast becoming one of my personal favorites.

I love Sweden and love Swedish crime novels, so I'm always happy when I find a new author translated to English. My best friend's family has a summer cottage on Öland so I was excited to read a book set on this island.

This is the first book I've read by this author and I have to say, it's a winner. You can picture the way the places he is describing must look, feel the feelings of the characters he has created....it's a rare talent that is a prize to find.

If you like Henning Mankell, you'll like Johann Theorin. They have different writing styles, but they are both talented, compelling writers.