Customer Reviews

Shadow

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The cover blurb described this as a "psychological thriller" but I'm not sure that's entirely apt. In fact, this is the sort of novel that is hard to classify - there are thriller elements, but it's also part family saga and part melodrama.

The novel is set in Sweden, and the narrative switches between the present-day, the 1970s and 1940s-1950s. Kristoffer is abandoned as a four-year-old, and grows up remembering next to nothing of his biological parents. Axel Ragnerfeldt is a Nobel Prize winning author who has been permanently incapacitated by a stroke, and his son's job is basically to travel Europe on the speaking circuit promoting his father's work and ideals. How Kristoffer's and the Ragnerfelts' lives intersect is slowly revealed with each chapter, from varying perspectives, and the catalyst for bringing them together is a bequest to Kristoffer from a woman he has never met.

I'm not going to go into further detail at the risk of spoilers, and I freely admit that I am hopeless at decent plot summaries! This is a very dark novel, which explores the nature of deception and the far-reaching ramifications of one's actions. Most of the characters are thoroughly unlikeable, but are sufficiently well-drawn and distinct to enable the reader to have some sympathy for them at varying points.

I was certainly gripped and fascinated by this novel, which I finished within 24 hours, and which stuck with me for some time afterwards. Did I enjoy it? I'm not sure. It is almost unremittingly bleak, and there were really only one or two characters for whom I could see even a glimmer of hope. The writing is very clever; the most horrifying parts of the book are hinted at or described obliquely, but nonetheless in such a way as to give you a vivid mental image, which makes those moments even more chilling. However, it's one to read only if you're in the right frame of mind. "Shadow" is extremely well-written and interesting, but good grief, it's depressing.

This was my first Kindle purchase, as it was recommended by a friend. SO glad I chose this as my first eBook. Beautifully written - a combination of the author and a very skilled translator, I imagine - and I absolutely couldn't put it down. Twist after compelling twist kept me reading. Recommend it highly.Shadow

If you haven't read Alvtegen but like authors who develop intense psychological suspense, like Ruth Rendell or Patricia Highsmith, then you would like this. Missing and Betrayal are also excellent novels, all quite different. The only hesitation I would have in recommending this is you need to like 'dark' stories, i.e. no happy endings here.

I picked this book up from a "buy two, get one free" table. I finished it quickly -- then went back to read many parts again. It is extremely suspenseful and compelling. I would compare this book's structure and plotting to the best of Minette Walters and Ruth Rendell writing as Barbara Vine. I highly recommend it to fans of psychological suspense and mystery.

I picked this up and the first thing I thought, based on the cover was that it was another book about an abused child.
Not the case. This was a really tight story, weaving seemingly unconnected characters lives through it with skill. As I read I soon realized that what I thought I had all figured out, wasn't quite the case. Some books putter out by the end, this one only gains strength.
Highly reccommended.

Did you ever wonder why you had a particular book in hand? When I finally got down to reading "Shadow" I questioned why and how long it had been on my tattered wish list, and why I had past it over for so long. Now I ask myself why I waited so long to read it.

The novel is a psychological crime thriller about dark secrets, the price of fame and how the search for public approval can drive some to make unsound decisions that have lasting or tragic repercussions. It also touches the impact our childhood has on the rest of our life.

One often describes a book as hot and hard to put aside, this is surely a true description of this one. The story is one with depth, many layers and full of secrets and rivalries between the characters. As this dynamic book progresses we are plunged deep into the history of four generations of the Ragnerfeldt family and we learn more about their connection with Kristopher, the little boy abandoned yes ago. "Shadow" is a literary closet filled with skeletons of the past...

The novel begins with a brief flashback to 1975 when a boy was discovered abandoned at an amusement park with a short note seeking a better life for him. Fast forward to the present day and the plot tightens with the death of an old woman - Gerda Persson, the former housekeeper of the highly respected Nobel Laureate Axel Ragnerfeldt. With Gerda's passing a door opens into the real life of the Ragnerfeldt family, a life full of infidelity and dark secrets.....

The plot builds slowly with multiple story threads that go back and forth in time, skillfully creating a suspense that is lively and thought provoking. Each player is introduced one by one, each with their own theme and their own story building a page-turning drama only a gifted storyteller could master.

Although "Shadow" is a gripping and absorbing tale of murder, I was nevertheless disappointed with the ending, it left the fate of many characters in limbo and I wonder if the author has something up her sleeve for the future.

A great exhalation of breath escaped me when I finished Karin Alvtegen's tour de force, Shadow. I was quite literally exhausted. I could not put my Kindle down for the last three hours, my shoulders were tense with concentration, there was relief that there was just a little promise that retribution would finally strike the protagonists of this deep, dark story. Those that escaped, at least. And I was left wondering what was the greatest crime committed in this tale...

So many characters asking for help, do we always pass them by? Are we really all self-serving, selfish and unloving? Certainly there was no person in this book that I could identify with or admire. And again, as so often in Scandinavian literature, there are so many alcohol dependent people - it must be the climate and the months of semi-night that lead to this darkness of spirit. Why do we never see an equivalent brightness of spirit when the months brighten to the twenty-two hour days that must follow? I suppose that does not appeal to the writers - and when the hours are light, perhaps that is not when they knuckle down to their manuscripts.

But, it was a wonderful book, one that I recommend to anyone who want to re-examine their own life and desires and also one I recommend to those who enjoy tense fiction of the highest calibre. A compelling psychological study of what lengths people go to in order to achieve fame and how this insidiously affects those who share or maybe merely touch their lives.

The prose was remarkable. Surely written in English, not translated? And then I found that it was, indeed, translated by McKinley Burnett and he deserves a special mention for this flawless rendering of, at times, very poetic prose.

My only gripe - the Kindle edition was written in italic script, which I found very hard to read quickly.

I agree with all the previous reviews. I'd just like to insist on how well written this book is, a quality which is becoming harder and harder to find nowadays.
When I read someone comparing Karin Alvtegen to Ruth Rendell, I just had to read something by her. First I read 'Missing' and I must say that, though I liked it, I was a bit disappointed: the comparison didn't hold... but in 'Shadow' is like Ruth Rendell(or Barbara Vine)at her best! Dark family stories, fatal destiny, angst, self-destructive behaviour... and at the same time, feelings quite familiar to everybody (what middle-aged woman has never felt like Louise Ragnerfeldt sometimes?)
I strongly recommend it!

Shadow is a well plotted psychologically driven novel, her characters are well defined and the plot builds smoothly to an unexpected and surprising end.

I thought it was much better written than Missing, which won the Glass Key in 2000.

I would compare this to Henning Mankell's insightful novel, The Italian Shoes, although not a murder mystery, was also a brilliantly written character study.