Sunday, June 20, 2010

Missing, Karin Alvtegen (Swedish)

The complications of going off the 'grid':  Sybillia is a homeless women whose entire life is anonymous and low key.  Avoiding using her Swedish national ID card, she lives off her wits and a small sum her mother deposits in the bank each month.

For fun, she sneaks into fancy hotels, enjoying a plush bath and a warm bed before she returns to the street.  However, after one such trip she finds herself accused of murdering a man staying in the same hotel.  She has no defense, as she was there illegally, so she flees.  She's identified by fingerprints and the manhunt is on:  as she runs, other people are killed in similar ways.  The national database provides her photo and life story, which is flashed on to the news. 

In true The Fugitive style, she has to now find the actual killer in order to defend herself.  This portion is the only weak area in the novel:  it's almost too easy for her to solve it while the police haven't really investigated it once they found her as a suspect.  The ending is only slightly surprising, but the fast pace and witty narrator makes this a pleasant read.  Lightweight and fun...a nice break from the more depressing Scandinavian crime noir.
Purchased by me...not a review copy.

1 comment:

  1. I read this last year and thought it was just okay... I wonder how much of it was due to the translation? I don't remember a whole lot about it since I didn't blog reviews then.

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