Liza Marklund

Annika is a journalist, married to a dull, unpleasant civil servant. Their marriage is in crisis. By chance, Annika is the only person who caught a glimpse of the murderer—or rather, the murderess—of the chairwoman of the Nobel Prize selection committee. From this event branch numerous narrative threads, perhaps far too many: the rivalries and secrets of the Swedish scientific community, a series of heinous crimes committed to eliminate potential Nobel contenders, the abuses perpetrated by European governments to appease the CIA in the war on terror, the attempt to curb civil liberties by legalizing wiretapping, the crisis of journalism and the press, and the strain of a domestic life borne entirely by the woman. Woven into this tangle of events is also an allusion to a sixteenth-century tale (a young woman had brutally killed the father who was sexually abusing her): a story that had fascinated Alfred Nobel in his day, and which has inspired the killer, an ambitious and sadistic scientist. The diverse narrative threads overlap without ever reaching a true resolution—save for the unmasking of the culprit, as in any self-respecting noir. Yet the author manages neither to pace the events nor to create an atmosphere of suspense. The pages drag by, tedious and at times repetitive; the novel's finest moments are reduced to the opening scene—the murder of the committee chair—and the finale, in which the protagonist miraculously escapes an arson attack. Why not read it? It is long and seems written more to induce sleep than to captivate the reader.