Book Review | Åsa Larsson finishes her detective series handsomely: the gray economy of a mining town links today’s murder to crime fifty years ago

Novel

Åsa Larsson: Bad Deeds of the Fathers (Fädernas missgärningar). Kirsi Kokkonen, Finland. Big Dipper. 567 s.

Åsa Larssonia is his debut detective Solar storm (2003) has been considered one of the leading names in Swedish criminal literature. “A strong personal photographer and a seer of society,” was praised in the HS assessment already after its translation in 2005.

I, too, have watched Larsson’s novels enthusiastically throughout the 21st century – wondering, on the other hand, whether he should stick to his original plan to finish the sixth part of the Rebecka Martinsson series.

At times, it seemed to work ahead of schedule, as in 2014, after the fifth detective, Larsson began writing Harry Potter-style youth fantasy together. Ingela Korsellin and Henrik Jonsson with.

That’s why I was surprised when he finally wrote the sixth part of it, ten years after the previous one. And especially when, in its aftermath, he really says goodbye to Rebecka Martinsson.

All the time in a growing, serialized detective genre, it is an honorable act.

It proves that Larsson takes his works seriously: not just as entertainment products, such as the often identical recurring parts of the detective stories from year to year, but as literature.

It is also indicated by the equally respectable reluctance to portray the blatant violence, mutilation and skinning that are popular nordic Noirissa it’s more a rule than an exception. The spiritual brutality also gives effect, Larsson proves.

Plus, he’s really dedicated to closing the series. The evil deeds of fathers is a 567-page reading novel, the true Rebecka Martinsson series grande finale.

However, it can also be read as a stand-alone work. Even myself had some of the side characters already a little dim in mind, but as the story progressed, the outline became clearer.

Of course the series is all about detectiveigene, and Larsson makes little effort to break with tradition. In the Nordic countries, it is of a high standard both in traditional riddle detective stories and in the more social crime literature.

There are several familiar storytelling formulas. One is the character of a hero who is not only broken in his childhood and difficult to approach, but also left his homeland first and then returned there.

This always creates a nice commotion for the detective, the secrets of the past and the problems that need to be clarified in the present.

This is also the case with Rebecka Martinsson. A daughter of a marginalized family trained as a lawyer has given up a productive career in Stockholm and returned to her home region, in part precisely because early traumas have begun to pop out too much.

During the series, he has worked as a prosecutor in Kiruna, often self-destructively intensively, while solving crimes and his own interpersonal problems.

Larsson’s catalog of a modern crime novel also includes disputes between police over gender roles and attitudes, and, in the northern mining community, religion and class differences.

In the evil deeds of fathers in addition, the common theme of the two crimes is used in modern detective stories, where not only a dead host and two murdered prostitutes can be found around the village of a drunkard, but also a body tens of years old from the freezer. Are the murders articulated or not?

What Åsa Larsson’s series is quite original, there is a milieu and his relationship to it.

The mining town of Kiruna in the 21st century, with its own childhood landscape, has had enough background to draw on crime.

Equally important is the environment, ie Norrbotten, the West Bank and Lapland – or, more broadly, the whole of northern Sweden, which Larsson discusses sharply in his books.

In the evil deeds of fathers For example, police Anna-Maria Mella questions Stockholmers’ perceptions of the north as “beneficiaries” when the state exports both corporate taxes and dividends from its mine, the region’s main employer – according to Mella, more than SEK 30 billion in 2006-2016.

Larsson constantly places such strokes in his text.

It is also clear that the Swedish-speaking inhabitants did not actually enter the area until the founding of the iron mine in the early 20th century.

Before that, Sámi and Finnish were spoken there, and this cultural heritage of the Tornio River Valley, including the Sámi natural faith, is also strongly displayed in the detective stories. The persons have names in Finnish, in the dialogue they speak Finnish.

In addition, everything that happens in the books is surrounded by the overwhelmingly beautiful mountain nature. Larsson knows how to make the most of the seasons, especially winter, landscapes, flora and fauna.

The most unique in the new detective story is how the robe is now being stripped of the hero. It’s as if Larsson really decided to let Rebecka Martinsson go to rest.

In the past, Martinsson has suffered from mental health problems, but has always continued to work as a prosecutor – as an example of another detective story, how a hero rises from the ground, no matter how fisted.

Now it’s different: although Martinsson is heavily involved in the investigation of the old and new criminal torture at the beginning, after midnight he moves to the back left, and the others finish the job.

He simply no longer survives socially, and therefore now has to start clearing his own head.

I think it is not only a realistic but also a valuable solution.

Martinsson to replace him as a true hero Larsson raises In the evil deeds of fathers 66-year-old Ragnhild Pekkarin.

She is a nurse who is comfortable in her own circumstances, estranged from her daughter, with a measure of 180 cents, iron fitness and, as one hobby, rafting.

After nine months of retirement, Ragnhild finds her life pointless and decides that is enough now. I reveal that there is nothing going to be suicide – as shockingly intro as Larsson builds it into its precise design into the novel.

Instead, Ragnhild is assigned a new route as a human being, as the lead star for Rebecka Martinsson. After all, they are almost related: Rebecca’s mother was a foster daughter who was mistreated by Ragnhild’s family.

From the point of view of the crime plot, this is secondary, but it is extremely important for the whole series of novels.

Through Ragnhild, Larsson shows that it is possible to open up, break down, find out the bitter experiences of childhood.

The evil deeds of fathers indeed, there is a bright Larsson in the sense that there are no really bad people in it, only those who are mistaken, failed, and sad. Even a large proportion of crimes are mistakes or damage.

People, no matter how contentious, are also happy for each other if they just agree to interact. Even a soul mate, like Ragnhild’s life-torn ex-boxer, can hit ahead.

This Accompanied by Börje Ström (whose father is missing through the early 1960s), Larsson creates The evil deeds of fathers in actually a completely different novel.

It’s a great story about the rise and fall of an athlete who aspired to win the Olympics from a hurried suburb. Takaum tells the story of applying for a father-longing son to gentle coaches, painful training, wins and losses.

Professionalism is also on the rise in the United States, and its racist brutality is skilfully linked in Larsson’s text to the Swedish colonialism that he experienced in his childhood, and to the attitudes towards both Finns and Sámi.

The relationship between Börje and Ragnhild is The evil deeds of fathers a romantic section and as such overwhelming and exhilarating. The love scene of the athletes in their seventies is a wonderful read.

Crime in the background, Larsson raises the development of a mining town, which has always enabled corruption and grumbling, in a novel set in 2016.

As early as the early 1960s, it was also a matter of international crime. In the current level story, Kiruna is being moved from one mine to another, as has actually been done. The old one disappears in the eyes, but day and night is still accompanied by the soundtrack of underground blasts and screaming ore trains.

According to Larsson, the huge mine and even more huge rebuilding in the city have also enabled huge financial crimes: acquisitions, tightening of construction contracts and companies lost in ashes, the consequences of failing to do so for taxpayers.

In the wake of a millennium of builders, of course, trafficking in women, drugs and money laundering are also moving, and eventually people are being killed.

All this Larsson carefully but at the same time pulls together his twenty-headed personal gallery with interpersonal problems.

In addition to Börje Ström, many police officers or those involved in crime get their own stories. This creates a colorful picture of the change in life in the Kiruna region from the 1960s to the present day.

Even small scenes are vivid, often ironically funny. Mid-range homes feature Ikea, rich Svenskt Tennis products. In the neat rush home, guests are asked to put on blue plastic bags on their shoes, which are stored in a smokehouse on the hallway wall.

Longer stories tell about, among other things, the Lestadian religion, the plight of organic Sámi life, domestic violence and sexual abuse.

However, not everything in Larsson’s North is gloomy and crude.

The male couple has been allowed to live without bullying anyone, and the therapeutic side of religion comes to the fore when Ragnhild is experiencing outright revelation and grace in the church.

That, too, can be a part of human life, despite the evil deeds of fathers. It’s good for the author to stop there.