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| The Intruder |
After having read with much interest Stieg Larsson's
Millenium trilogy, Jo Nesbø's Harry Hole crime thrillers, a couple of Henning Mankell's police procedurals, and last but not least Tom Rob Smith's mind-boggling
The Farm, I have been forever on the lookout for a good Scandinavian mystery. I do believe they embrace a strong sense of atmosphere and underlying dread that's hard to miss, although I am not sure if it has anything to do with the locations (Oslo and Stockholm) themselves. Which is perhaps why I was more than happy to pick up Håkan Östlundh's 2011 novel
The Intruder (aka
Inkräktaren), translated by Paul Norlén and published in the United States last year. At its heart, it's a story about a photographer husband and a food blogger wife trying to eke the best out of the circumstances post recession, who are confronted with a series of strange threats that escalates into a double murder, prompting the police to piece together the couple's messy history to reveal the identity of
the intruder responsible for wrecking their lives. Slow-paced and a little
Gone Girl'ish (but the Gillian Flynn novel wasn't out until an year later), but nevertheless intriguing as it is compelling a tale of betrayal, guilt and psychological madness.
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