Echoes from the Dead (Paperback)

by Johan Theorin (Author), Marlaine Delargy (Translator)

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.)
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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

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Product Details

• Paperback: 400 pages
• Publisher: Delta (November 25, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385342217
• ISBN-13: 978-0385342216
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.2 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #29,086 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Echoes from the Dead" by Johan Theorin, November 30, 2008

By	Librarian (USA) - See all my reviews

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.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very satisfying, January 12, 2009

By	Pam Gearhart "auntiepam" (Woolstock, IA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Awash in mysteries, February 10, 2009

By	Patto (Vermont) - See all my reviews

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.