Good Night, My Darling [Paperback]

Inger Frimansson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1, 2007

Good Night, My Darling has been named ForeWord Magazine's BOOK OF THE YEAR 2007 for Translations. Translated from the original Swedish, Good Night My Darling is a mystery / thriller about hatred and revenge. Justine is a wealthy woman in her forties, living alone in a big house full of troubled memories of a tortured childhood. Now the memories come back to haunt Justine, but she is prepared. It is time for Justine to take revenge on everyone that has done her wrong…

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

This novel by yet another accomplished Swedish crime writer takes a while to get going, but once it does, readers had better hang on. Originally published in 1998, and available here for the first time, the very atmospheric, somewhat claustrophobic story concerns Justine, a wealthy woman approaching middle age, who, after a tormented childhood and a not-much-better adulthood, figures it's time to free herself of the horrible memories that are beating her down. This involves a considerable amount of revenge against the people who made her life so miserable, but rather than go the traditional slice-and-slash route, the author focuses more on what's happening inside Justine's head, the emotional toll that settling old scores takes on her. It's an interesting approach--we don't exactly root for Justine, but we empathize with her--and the novel is one of those psychological thrillers that settles into a dark corner of your mind and just sits there, hanging around long after you have moved on to other things. David Pitt
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review

This novel by yet another accomplished Swedish crime writer takes a while to get going, but once it does, readers had better hang on. Originally published in 1998, and available here for the first time, the very atmospheric, somewhat claustrophobic story concerns Justine, a wealthy woman approaching middle age, who, after a tormented childhood and a not-much-better adulthood, figures it's time to free herself of the horrible memories that are beating her down. This involves a considerable amount of revenge against the people who made her life so miserable, but rather than go the traditional slice-and-slash route, the author focuses more on what's happening inside Justine's head, the emotional toll that settling old scores takes on her. It's an interesting approach--we don't exactly root for Justine, but we empathize with her--and the novel is one of those psychological thrillers that settles into a dark corner of your mind and just sits there, hanging around long after you have moved on to other things. --David Pitt, Booklist

When it comes to bleakness, it doesn't get bleaker than Inger Frimansson's Good Night, My Darling, set in chilly Sweden. The book follows Justine Dalvig, a sad, middle-aged woman who shares her large house with a pet bird. In this harrowing psychological study, we learn that Justine endured a horrific childhood at the hands of Flora, her sly, sadistic stepmother. Now Flora is a helpless stroke victim, confined to a nursing home where Justine takes frequent visits - but not out of altruism. Flora wasn't the only person who made childhood hell for Justine. So did a schoolmate and an unfaithful lover. Like so many bullying victims, Justine becomes a bully herself, and with chilling prescience we watch her begin to plot vengeance on those who victimized her. Beautifully translated from the original Swedish by Laura Wideburg, Good Night is a peerless exploration into the mind of a dark, lost soul. Inger Frimansson is one of Sweden's premier psychological thriller writers, the winner of theSwedish Academy of Mystery Authors Award for her books - and it's easy to see why. --Betty Webb, Mystery Scene

Justine Dalvik appears to be an ordinary yet eccentric fortysomething Swedish woman living in her childhood home with her pet bird, but below the surface, there is a volcano waiting to erupt. Since her mother's death when she was a toddler, Justine's life has been silently careening out of control. She has endured intense bullying at school, emotional and physical cruelty at the hands of her stepmother, sexual abuse as a teenager, and betrayal by a lover in adulthood. In a story as fragmented and erratic as Justine's own past, Frimansson, one of Scandinavia 's most popular writers, weaves a tale of psychological terror that reveals what happens when a victim decides to take revenge on a world that has made her life a living hell. While this novel received very favorable reviews in Europe and the Swedish Academy of Crime Writer's Award for Best Swedish Crime Novel in 1998 perhaps something has been lost in translation. The disjointed way in which the narrative changes from past to present makes for a difficult read. An optional purchase for public libraries. --Mary Todd Chesnut, Publishers Weekly

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Product Details

• Paperback: 318 pages
• Publisher: Caravel Books (April 1, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1929355378
• ISBN-13: 978-1929355372
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 5.8 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,318,895 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Frimansson is a master storyteller, June 17, 2008

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Good Night, My Darling (Paperback)

Inger Frimansson grew up in and around various locales in Sweden. She presently lives in Södertälje. She is Sweden's most popular author of psychological thrillers. She is known for showing the dark side of seemingly perfect families. She has received the Swedish Academy of Mystery Authors Award for Best Swedish Crime Novel for both

GOOD NIGHT, MY DARLING and THE SHADOW IN THE WATER.

Justine Dalvik lost her mother when she was three. Her father was a businessman who traveled constantly. Like many men who lose their wives, he turned to the closest woman he could find and married her. She turned out to be an evil stepmother who was narcissistic and only wanted to control Justine. Her methods were cruel beyond belief, and Justine became a willing victim for her, a selfish and nasty clique of girls at school who tormented her, and finally, a willing sex slave to an older man who cried because he knew it was wrong. Finally, Justine snapped and the deaths began:

"Nathan was walking along the riverbank in order to find a spot to piss. No one saw her take Madh's blow pipe. No one saw her follow him, follow Nathan. He stood and contemplated the water and the rapids. He stood and rolled a cigarette. He had formed his mouth to whistle, but she didn't hear anything but the thunder of the waterfall. The dart hit him right between the shoulder blades."

The first thing one notices about Inger Frimansson's writing is the sheer power. The reader is right there with the unlikely anti-heroine, feeling her pain as she absorbs one outrage after another. This novel is an excellent psychological thriller, on par with something Alfred Hitchcock would have made into a movie. It is easy to understand Frimansson's popularity in Sweden. Her skill at creating the setting; characters; and plot is on par with a religious experience.

GOOD NIGHT, MY DARLING is not an easy novel to read. But once started, one simply can't put it down. Frimansson is a master storyteller.

Shelley Glodowski
Senior Reviewer

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars good night, my darling, July 3, 2011

By 

maria c. salvat (las cruces, nm, US) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Good Night, My Darling (Paperback)

this was the second book i've read by this author. the book itself, tho used, was in excellent condition. the story was excellent. it was a page turner and superior to it's sequel, shadow in the water. inger frimansson weaves an exciting tale of a dysfunctional family and their impact on their town and the people close to them.

tho this book is the first of a 2-book series, it stands alone, perfectly.

2.0 out of 5 stars "An unimpressive psychological thriller", December 28, 2011

By 

Max Read - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Good Night, My Darling (Kindle Edition)

"Good Night, My Darling" was written by Inger Frimansson. Ms. Frimansson was born in Stockholm Sweden in 1944 and resides today in Sodertalje, a town outside of Stockholm. "Good Night, My Darling" was first published in 1998 and was voted best mystery novel of the year by the Swedish Academy of Mystery Authors. In 2005 Ms. Frimansson was again awarded the best mystery novel of the year award for her novel "The Shadow in the Water"; she was the only female crime author ever to receive the award twice.

"Good Night, My Darling" is a novel in the psychological thriller genre. The story is narrated by the main character. Conversation is assigned to the character speaking. Character dialog is straight forward and the composition is not overly complex although it is plagued, in part, by unnatural scene association.

The story in main is about Justine Dalvik, a psychologically tortured woman who suffered torment at the hand of her step mother, Flora, and several of her school classmates; the memory harbored long and spitefully. Having been left a significant fortune by her wealthy father, Justine does not work and remains living in her childhood home. Because she had been protected and loved by her father, Justine engages in a quest to find her father's essence embodied in the male companions she keeps; only to be ultimately betrayed.

I found the composition somewhat difficult to navigate. The story starts out with a disembodied clip of events that are not clarified until much later in the tale leaving the reader perplexed as to the meaning. Then, the narration would jump suddenly from one set of events and characters to another, without any apparent association. This jumping also involved events in time - the reader was suddenly thrown from the present to the past and back without warning or meaningful connection. As the tale evolved, the writing smoothed out and a lot of the original disconnect seemed to subside, though I would consider that if one did not persist, the novel may well have not been finished. I also was nonplussed by the apparent diversion of the plot in mid novel. The reader is taken on a trip that seemed entirely out of character with the original direction of the composition.

On overview I thought the novel was not particularly inspiring. The characters were forgettable and Justine came across as just plain mundane in spite of her compelling psychosis. Her actions were thoroughly predictable and this simply added to the feeling that the plot lacked energy.

I would recommend this novel only with reservations. I rate it "Forgettable".