Borderline by Liza Marklund

review by Maryom

When a mother is found dead in a Stockholm suburb, Annika Bengtzon, with her journalist's instinct, immediately associates it with other similar murders from the past few months - and is off on the track of a serial killer. She hasn't got far with the story before a much bigger one breaks - her husband Thomas, along with other EU representatives on a fact-finding mission in Kenya, has been kidnapped.

Borderline is a tense two, or even three, storyline thriller following Thomas' suffering with his abductors, Annika's desperate attempts to raise the ransom money to free him, and the background thread as Annika's fellow journalists pursue the serial killer story.
Having read several of this series, I've come to know Annika and Thomas like friends, following their marital ups and downs, their falling-outs and making-ups, over several years. During that time, Annika's had more than her fair share of being kidnapped or held captive. Now it's Thomas' turn, and it's all together more frightening than anything Annika has faced - mainly, I think, because the reader expects the lead character of a series to survive, and Thomas doesn't share that guarantee. Following Annika and Thomas alternately, the author captures Thomas' despair and terror in the hands of his kidnappers, the humiliations and brutality the hostages have to cope with, and Annika's disbelief and helplessness.
A book that truly kept me on the edge of my seat, reading through the night and desperately hoping for a happy ending. Does all end well? For that,you'll need to read it!


translated by Neil Smith


Maryom's review - 5 stars
Publisher - Corgi/Transworld
Genre - adult crime thriller

The Long Shadow by Liza Marklund

review by Maryom

Journalist Annika Bengtzon is uncovering crime and setting wrongs right in an unusual location this time - the Costa del Sol. When Sebastian Soderstrom, a Swedish ex-hockey star, and his family are killed during a robbery in their luxurious villa just outside Marbella, Annika is sent to cover the story for the Evening Post and to do some follow up articles for a series the paper was running about drug smuggling rings operating through Spain and north to Sweden. With the help of a local interpreter, she gets access to the murder scene and discovers something that no one, not even the police, seems aware of - that the family's teenage daughter is missing. In her own inimitable way, Annika decides to investigate, leading her into the murkier side of the Swedish ex-pat community with links to the drug-smuggling world.

I'm sure Annika Bengtzon won't be everybody's favourite crime-busting journalist - after all, she's opinionated, difficult to work with, intolerant of others and their opinions, and as stroppy as a teenager! But despite that, I really warm to her. She does have her good points - she's always ready to follow her leads and instincts fearlessly at considerable personal risk even, or especially, when no one else agrees with her, and she always gets the story in on time. She isn't merely after an exclusive though - it comes across while she's visiting the Soderstrom's home, that she really does care, particularly for the children involved.
With her personal life going through a desperate phase, Annika's investigation is about all she has in life to depend on. The story unfolds over several months, from New Year to Mid-summer, and takes her to Spain and on to Morocco, teasing out links between the idyllic world of luxury villas and golf courses, and the seedier, violent criminal underworld. The Long Shadow isn't as action-packed or dangerous as some thrillers - in fact at one point I even began to wonder if Annika would end up in her normal life-threatening situation at all - but nonetheless is an entertaining read especially if you like trying to put the pieces together and solve a case as you read.

The only slight downside is that The Long Shadow feels very much like the sequel, even the second half, of a story line that started in Lifetime. It definitely gives spoilers for the previous book and although I don't find that too off-putting (I've read other Annika Bengtzon stories out of sequence) I know it will upset some readers.

Maryom's review - 4.5 stars
Publisher - Corgi/Transworld
Genre - crime

Buy The Long Shadow from Amazon

Maryom's Picks of the Year

 I'm starting with a rather obvious sort of choice; Hilary Mantel's Bring Up The Bodies, the 'sequel' to Wolf Hall and the continuing political machinations of Thomas Cromwell. Not everyone's cup of tea but I loved it!








Next - two very atmospheric and very different novels

Archipelago by Monique Roffey  - a hauntingly beautiful story of loss and recovery set against the backdrop of the Caribbean

 and
The Book of Summers by Emylia Hall  - a wonderful evocation of long, hot Hungarian summers mixed with long hidden family secrets









Two historical novels both asking the question How do you define family - by birth or by upbringing?

Ben Elton's family-history inspired Two Brothers


and ML Stedman's The Light Between Oceans










 Two crime novels;
 The Calling by Neil Cross - spin off from BBC's Luther series; hard-hitting and violent, a story that left me reeling.

and the marginally cosier (though not by much) Vanished by Liza Marklund








                                                    


Three books that I'll rather loosely label as 'local'

David Calcutt's re-telling of the traditional tales of Robin Hood




Steven Dunn's rather too close to home thriller, Deity






and Edward Hogan's The Hunger Trace

For teens, YA and anyone really  - Celia Rees' This Is Not Forgiveness 

 a compelling, disturbing read that I couldn't put down 

For younger readers, the magical Wolf Princess by Cathryn Constable -  a wonderful, enthralling delight of a book set in an abandoned Russian palace in the depths of a snowy forest.

Vanished by Liza Marklund

How To Disappear
review by Maryom

A woman is on the run from a killer after two men are shot dead in the container port of Frihamnen near Stockholm. When she contacts the Evening Post newspaper offices, she is put through to copy-editor Annika Bengtzon, who in turn puts her in contact with The Paradise Foundation - an organisation that claims it can make people disappear without trace - offering a lifeline to battered wives or criminals eager to escape their past. Annika's further enquiries into the Foundation start to leave her wondering if it is as altruistic as it first appeared and if referring anyone to them was such a good move. Investigating both the dockside killing and Paradise's credentials leads Annika along a convoluted, dangerous trail and to an encounter that will shape her life.

I read my first Liza Marklund thriller, The Bomber, just before Christmas and was curious to see how Vanished would compare. Some crime/thriller series fall into a repetitive mould with the same-old characters going through the same-old motions time and again. Happily, Marklund has avoided that trap. Vanished is set at an earlier point in time than The Bomber. Annika Bengtzon is down on her luck at this point in her life - leading an almost solitary existence in her crumbling dilapidated flat, working odd hours at the Evening Post, troubled by her family relationships. All in all things are not going well for her. There are hints at her backstory - enough to fill in the gaps but not so much that I wouldn't want to read about it. I was fascinated to see how the Annika Bengtzon character had developed over the time between Vanished and The Bomber. Here she is younger, less confident of herself in both personal and work relationships, but still recognisable as the more mature person she will become. She comes over as a real, living, breathing faults-and-all person and through her Marklund examines issues that affect many lives- difficulties with family, care of the elderly, uncaring work colleagues.
It is, of course, mainly a thriller. Her journalistic instincts for a good story lead Annika into situations that will have you biting your fingernails and reading rapidly to get her out of the fix. Most definitely a book that falls into the 'stay-up-late to find out how it ends' category.

Vanished is published next month - but meanwhile I've seen other Annika Bengtzon thrillers on sale in my local supermarket...

Maryom's review - 5 stars
Publisher - Corgi/Transworld
Genre - thriller

Buy Vanished from Amazon

The Bomber by Liza Marklund

The second in our seasonal series of reviews, The Bomber is set in the week running up to Christmas.


All she wants for Christmas....
review by Maryom

Annika Bengtzon is the newly appointed head of the crime-desk at Stockholm's Evening Post newspaper, stressed out from all sides - pressure from deadlines, hassle from her male colleagues and the everyday chores of family life. Just when she's looking for a quiet week on the run up to Christmas a major story breaks as a massive bomb goes off at the Olympic Stadium, leaving pieces of the victim scattered everywhere. Annika is determined to be first with any news about the killing but her enquiries soon lead her too close to the bomber.

The Bomber is my first Liza Marklund novel and one I thoroughly enjoyed. It's an interesting slant to have the investigation of a murder seen from a journalistic angle - not with Annika playing a Miss Marple type amateur sleuth but merely going about her job and uncovering the victim's private life hidden behind a public façade. There's a lot of well-captured office atmosphere with back-biting and griping from co-workers who wanted her job but the focus is, of course, on who is responsible for the bombing and what is their motivation.
An excellent whodunnit with a totally gripping ending - even though I thought I knew how it would resolve itself.

Maryom's review - 5 stars
Publisher - Corgi/Transworld
Genre - thriller

Buy The Bomber from Amazon