FICTION

The Andalucian Friend

Crown. Mar. 2013. 464p. tr. from Swedish by Neil Smith. ISBN 9780770436056. $26; ebk. ISBN 9780770436063. F
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Sophie Brinkmann loves her teenage son, her nursing job, and her beautiful cottage in the suburbs of Stockholm. But the day Hector Guzman is rushed to the hospital with a broken leg and multiple fractures, her life changes. But is it for the better for Sophie? While she grows increasingly enamored of Hector, fascinated by his hold over her, and curious about his mysterious life, her own life becomes a subject of greater investigation. Cajoled into spying on Hector's business dealings by a subversive police unit, Sophie herself is tailed, bugged, and harassed. Though her son's life is endangered, her job in peril, and her once placid life increasingly threatened, Sophie cannot extricate herself from Hector's world. When a long-lost love reappears within Hector's circuit, Sophie's submersion in a European underworld of guns, drugs, and extortion seems even more rooted.
VERDICT This first volume of a projected trilogy is brimming with characters, subplots, betrayals, and tragedies. Yet Söderberg's decision to weave these facets into each other—each chapter contains multiple narrators, perspectives, and dramatic arcs—leads to an ultimately overwhelming and overwrought tale. What begins as a thrilling adventure through the Swedish criminal underworld gradually becomes an exhausting, cynical trek teeming with extreme violence. Still, some hard-core fans of Scandinavian mysteries may want to try this thriller.
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