Customer Reviews

Paradise

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
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2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Another gripping story in the Annika Bengstrom series. Set in Stockholm they give a glimpse not into only Swedish life but also how a newspaper there operates. The fourth book, "The Bomber" was a hit here but I thought the first two were even better. I'm going on to the third, "Primetime" next.

Annika, a young newspaper reporter, deals with resentment from many of the permanent staff at the newspaper as the result of a shocking incident in the first book, "Studio 69", while she tracks down a mysterious organization that seems too good to be true. In the process she is involved with the Yugoslavian Mafia and the dangerous Ratko. A gripping story all the way.

How can one write a review when one has not finished the book in question? I have to because I'm mad at this one. This book comes on the heels of many detective stories, Swedish police procedurals and Travis McGee books I've enjoyed very much. I was on such a good run of books and authors! One good book led to another. I achieved two thirds of this one and just could not go on.

It is a story of the main character's pursuit of knowledge about an organization that sounds too good to be true and is, a sudden stroke of her beloved Grandmother, (Annika just sobbed....again and again and oops! again), a killer (with assumed psychic powers) looking for anybody connected with the theft of a truck of cigarettes from a Serbian crime syndicate and a man who suddenly decides that there just has to be more to life than his rich wife and council meetings.

There was no depth to any of it! This Annika says "I love you" to another character their first night together, beginning this future relationship based on... what? Great sex? How many hospital visits to the sick grandmother can we stand? The clichéd fights with mother..... How much sobbing must we endure? All in the pursuit of... oh, what was the main goal of the story? The Serbian criminals? Where are the cigarettes? The debt ridden faux charity? The heroine's redemption by writing one good newspaper story instead of editing others' pieces? Because of the lack of descriptive depth, and thus the vision in one's own mind's eye; I didn't care for any of it after a while.

Read Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö, Henning Mankell or Håkan Nesser for a glimpse of Swedish procedurals and the society of Sweden itself. This book left me very disappointed.

I thought this was a very realistic intense book. I have enjoyed all of Marklund's book - they provide a birds-eye view of another culture. Even the meals in restaurants were deliciously described.