Walter Elliott, accused of murdering his wife and part belongs to Nils Kant, murderer, psychopath,
her lover. If Haller can win this case, with all its but dead long before Jens disappeared. It’s many-
media attention, it’s his ticket back to the big-time. layered and twists together nicely, but what makes
But the investigating detective, Bosch, of course, is it work is the way the bogey-man figure of Kant is
convinced that Vincent was murdered by one of his
held up as something unusual within the tightly-knit
clients, and therefore, whatever information Haller
but highly suspicious islanders. This will, of course,
now possesses could prove fatal to him as well.
prove to be less true than anyone, least of all Julia,
imagines, as she is slowly drawn from her own
The Lincoln Lawyer was a Richard and Judy
loneliness and despair.
finalist, and the movie rights were sold for a bomb.
The second thing, which is already implied by
This one is even better, more tightly plotted,
the first, is the way Theorin makes Oland part of
and, with Bosch’s presence, more intricate in the
the story. As it happens, my grandmother came
ambiguities of the worlds it portrays. The limits of
from the island, which was not connected to the
Connelly’s invention have not yet been reached,
mainland until 1972, just before my first visit, and
and he seems to have slid into the legal thriller
I have been back a number of times since. It is a
format as easily as he made the move from the
popular summer resort with Swedes, and other
best detective series in America to blockbuster
Baltic people, particularly Germans, but in the
stand-alones. He’s so good he can even throw
winter the alvar dominates everything; it is a bleak,
away titles: part two of this book is called ‘Suitcase
yet quietly beautiful landscape, surrounded by
City’, meaning LA, and damn if that’s not a good
the icy waters of the Baltic. In such a setting, the
enough title for any novel, maybe even a better
normal Swedish reserve is somehow intensified:
title for this one. In this synthesis of his characters
life becomes somehow simpler, more focused on
and his writing styles, Connelly has once again
the core truths and values. In such circumstances,
exhibited the understanding of the genre which
the loss of a child is both unthinkable and also, in
makes his work so engaging, and the writing skill
a way, inevitable, like the coming-true of the fairy
which makes them so good.
tales of trolls or goblins.
MICHAEL CARLSON
That Theorin’s lead investigator is Julia’s elderly
father, unhappy not to be self-reliant as he lives
ECHOES FROM THE DEAD
in his assisted-care home give the tale a further
JOHAN THEORIN
sense of realism, and that Julia herself is far from
Doubleday £10.99 ISBN: 9780385613620
being a perfect heroine helps that. But in the end
More than twenty years ago, Julia Davidsson’s five
it is the way Theorin gradually builds the stories
year old son Jens disappeared
together, until they resolve themselves in that
in the fog on the alvar, the
Oland landscape with a chilling finality, and a twist
lonely flatland that dominates
from the past that seems obvious only in retrospect.
the Baltic island of Oland. She
The Swedish Academy of Crime voted this best
still hasn’t recovered from her
first novel in 2007, and I wouldn’t argue with them.
loss, unable to work in her new
There is a lot of good crime writing coming out of
home of Goteborg, cut off from
Scandinavia today, but Theorin has already stepped
Oland and her father who lives
to the head of the class. The title in Swedish was
there. Until one day her father
Skumtimmen, which would I think would translate
receives one of Jens’ sandals in the post, and Julia
as ‘the hour of froth’ (or sea-spray), which is more
returns home to try and discover what became of
poetical, but as I said about the basic story, Echoes
her son.
From The Dead sounds pretty standard, but it
Two things separate Johan Theorin’s first novel
works, and delivers, and what more can you ask
from that fairly standard sort of synopsis. One is
from a novel.
the gradual unraveling of the story, which in large
MICHAEL CARLSON
Crime time 54 www.crimetime.co.uk 47
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