Thursday, October 15, 2009

The Successors to Stieg Larsson?

“What is it with Scandinavians and great crime writing?” asks Simon Lewis, the author of Bad Traffic, in his recommendation of the new novel Box 21, by Swedes Anders Roslund and Börge Hellström. “Something to do with the long nights, I guess. Box 21, with its sharply drawn cast of jaded cops, junkies, thugs, and victims, is a gripping tale of modern-day slavery, damage, and revenge, shocking and compelling in equal measure.”

Roslund and Hellström’s thrilling yarn is about two girls from Lithuania, Lydia Grajauskas and Alena Sljusareva, who have become sex slaves in Stockholm, after being lured to Sweden with bogus promises of better employment and then confined to a brothel. There, the teenagers are forced to work off their “debt.” But suddenly, they are given a shot at freedom--and the opportunity to exact revenge on the folks who lashed them to a life on their backs. How will veteran police detective Ewert Grens deal with this situation, at the same time as he must address the release of the criminal responsible for making his wife an invalid 25 years ago?

Fans of Stieg Larsson and Henning Mankel should eat up Box 21.

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