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THREE SECONDS (AUDIO)
by Anders Roslund & Börge Hellström, Kari Dickson, trans., read by Christopher Lane
Brilliance Audio, January 2011
Unabridged pages
$39.99
ISBN: 1455807230


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

Unbeknownst to his beloved wife and children, Piet Hoffman isn't running a security firm. Instead, working for the Stockholm police, he has infiltrated one of Poland's organized crime groups that has been selling amphetamines, prostitutes, and arms in Sweden. The crime boss wants him to go back into prison—Piet is a former felon himself—to get rid of competition in order to monopolize the sale of amphetamines. The syndicate will reap profits from those who can pay and force those who cannot to work for them.

The only hitch in the plan is that one of Piet's trigger-happy associates has executed a drug buyer, who happens to be working undercover for the Danish authorities. Inspector Detective Ewert Grens - an implacable bulldog about solving his cases - has been put in charge of the investigation. As in Stieg Larsson's series, one of the main themes is the corruption of police, prison, and government officials, who do everything in their power to stymie the investigation.

Like Inspector Kurt Wallander of Henning Mankell's groundbreaking series, Grens fits the mold of the aging and dour Swedish detective. The eccentric Grens talks to himself, dines from the vending machines, lives on his office couch, and telephones associates and subordinates in the middle of his own sleepless night.

He does have reason to be glum. His wife, made an invalid decades earlier by another crime (BOX 21, Roslund and Hellstrom's first novel), has died, and Grens is unable to come to terms with her death. His loss of the person he loves most is a clever counterpoint to Hoffman's choice to risk the love and security of his own family by posing as a tough gangster.

The novel cuts back and forth between Piet's preparations for and entry into prison and Grens's determination to find the murderer of the Danish police operative. The authors have to abandon Piet's inner monologue in order not to reveal his true plans, and this shift in narrative is the main structural flaw.

Nevertheless, the novel is briskly paced and tightly wound. The details of drug use, organized crime, and prison structures are precise, brutally realistic, and convincing. The novel builds to a suspenseful and satisfying climax. Hellstrom is billed as a former criminal, who clearly knows what he is writing about. In fact, this series by Roslund and Hellstrom has already met with huge success. BOX 21 was a New York Times Notable Crime Book of the Year. THREE SECONDS was the Swedish Crime Novel of the Year in 2009.

Grens may not cheer up, but he'll be back soon, and readers will be glad.

§ Karla Jay is a legally blind audio book addict, who lives in New York City, where she is Distinguished Professor of English and Women's Studies at Pace University.

Reviewed by Karla Jay, February 2011

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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