Geiger Review

When a beloved Swedish TV personality is found murdered in his house and his elderly wife is declared missing, Sara Nowak, offers her help to the family, despite their strained relationship, stumbling into a fifty-year-old mystery involving several countries.

General Impressions

If like me, you were hooked by the synopsis, let me tell you, that is nothing compared to the first chapter. I couldn't have stopped reading this book if I had tried. This is definitely a book that goes in a different direction than I ever was taken before and the marketing campaign was really smart leaning into that (check the last photo).

This is very much a female-dominated story with some great women on all sides, with most of the book being told from Sara Nowak's perspective. Which was where I stumbled and brought back to reality. It was hard to sympathise with a woman that even though I had reasons to like, I considered to be a very bad cop and a hair-trigger away from committing actual crimes and getting away with it because of her badge. (Apparently even in fiction cops need better training and a truckload of therapy that they refuse to get. )

There are two big themes inside this book. The most obvious was the threat to the public which I thought was incredibly well done. While I'm not familiar with 20th Century Swedish history and politics, the author not only did a good job of explaining it but build a believable and complex plot around it. But after all, he is Swedish. He is not a woman.

Much of this book deals directly or references sexual exploitation in its most various forms and the way different women in different times and circumstances dealt with it. But while it was clear the author had researched these themes, it was even clearer that he was just writing about something that he had heard and read about and so his characters ended up reacting like what a man thought a woman would do and think.

The action scenes were exciting to read and I was satisfied with the way class disparity and resentment were written about - how it felt to suddenly have money when you grew up with nothing or to always have had it and never think about itit. The way immigration, modern slavery and sex work in Sweden were addressed also added a lot to the book and I enjoyed learning about the Swedish perspective into the Cold War, which is something I had never encountered before.

Conclusions

After the magnificent beginning and mixed middle (with the exception of Agneta's chapters which were awesome - now that was a GREAT character), the plot twists and final revelations were absolutely thrilling and left me wanting to be able to read them again for the first time again.

Thank you to Bonnier Zaffre Books for sending me this proof. Look at the back of it! The originality!

Rating 3.4/5