The Living and the Dead: A Novel About a Crime

The sweeping third entry in Carlsson’s Halland series (after Blaze Me a Sun) follows idealistic Swedish police officer Siri Bengtsson, who’s dispatched to the declining village of Skavböke in the late 1990s after the corpse of Mikael Söderström, troubled teenage heir to the region’s most lucrative farm, is found in a stolen car. Suspicion falls on a group of local teenagers, most notably the brilliant Sander Eriksson and his loyal friend Killian Persson. As Siri and her weary partner, Gerd Pettersson, probe their suspects’ alibis, the looming presence of Mikael’s domineering father, Karl-Henrik, complicates their understanding of who might have killed Mikael and why. Their investigation culminates in a catastrophic landslide that upends the village both literally and figuratively. Then, 20 years later, a retired Siri is drawn back to Skavböke when a second murder reopens old wounds that most thought were long closed. Carlsson’s evocative sense of place keeps the plot at a steady simmer, and his spare, atmospheric prose and nuanced characterizations more than compensate for moments of narrative murkiness. Devotees of Scandinavian noir will relish this. Agent: Christine Edhall, First Edition. (Dec.)