Depths
and over 900,000 other books are available for Amazon Kindle .
Learn more
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Visit the Amazon.co.uk Trade-In Store for more details. |
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
More About the Authors
Discover books, learn about writers, and more.
Product Description
The Times
"good at isolation and loneliness"
Guardian
"one of the most impressive crime writers at work in Europe
today"
today"
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Browse and search another edition of this book.
Browse and search another edition of this book.
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An absorbing atmospheric masterpiece.,
By
This review is from: Depths (Mass Market Paperback)
It is now a month since I finished reading this absorbing book, which, despite my best endeavours, has found its way deep inside my mind. The reader will realise from the first sentence that this is no light detective story but a dark and disturbing novel. "They used to say that when there was no wind the cries of the lunatics could be heard on the other side of the lake". I describe it as disturbing, because it makes no attempt to prepare the reader for the shocking depravity of a seriously disturbed mind. At times, shock causes the reader to gasp, to read the paragraph again to confirm what has just been read. There were moments when I had to put the book down and leave it but very soon was drawn back. It is a book that gets under your skin.
I believe that this book is in the top bracket of modern literature.I will re-read it but not for now. I need time to come to terms with it. It is beautifully written. The author is a master storyteller but one who has a grasp on the human psyche. I cannot recommend this book too highly for those who want a novel that is different and thought provoking.
82 of 91 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A superb novel,
By
This review is from: Depths (Hardcover)
Depths is a staggering novel. It's one of those books that sneaks into the lumber-room of your consciousness and entwines itself round whatever stuff you happen to keep in there.
Depths shares some of the qualities of Mankel's detective fiction. At the start of this novel, the protagonist, Lars Tobiasson-Svartman, appears to be a character not unlike Inspector Kurt Wallender - steadfast, disciplined, professional. It is the start of the First World War. Sweden is non-aligned but worried about getting dragged into the conflict. Lars Tobiasson-Svartman is a hydrographer who has the job of carefully checking measurements of the depth of water in straits south of Stockholm. From these unpromising beginnings, the prose builds an understated atmosphere. If you've read and enjoyed other Mankell novels, you'll recognise the stripped-back style. The landscape is haunting (again, like the countryside in the Kurt Wallender books). In the case of Depths, most of the action takes place near an archipelago - and, in particular, on a single rocky outcrop, surrounded either by sea or ice. This setting becomes bewitching, unsettling. The events that unfold in the course of the story are at once ordinary and brutally shocking. This is a novel that made me gasp out loud (which hasn't happened since I read Sarah Waters' Fingersmith, which is a totally different sort of book). You'll have to read it for yourself to find out why. To summarise, this is a disturbing but completely gripping book. It reminded me most of Camus' L'Etranger (The Outsider) and various folk stories, but Depths is its own book - distinctive and haunting.
39 of 43 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An exquisite novel of depth and suspense,
By
This review is from: Depths (Hardcover)
The novel opens with the harrowing scene of a woman called Kristina Tacker as she escapes from a psychiatric asylum. She vaguely remembers that her husband had the rank of Commander in the Swedish army and that he was a hydrographical survey engineer. At this moment, in 1937, Kristina Tacker is fifty-seven and it is twelve years since she has uttered her last word.
The reader is immediately drawn into the suspense created by this opening as he follows the story of the main character, Lars Tobiasson-Svartman, a man obsessed by the depths of the sea and torn between two women, Sara Frederika and his wife Kristina Tacker. We follow his destiny at the beginning of World War I as he slowly loses his grip on his surroundings and becomes entangled in a web of lies and crimes which inexorably leads to his downfall. He ends up by living in a world entirely created by lies. Indeed he becomes an impostor; an impostor lives a life but the deceit involved lives a different life. It is the tragic fate of a man whose life has always been based on lunatic ideas and who has built his existence on distances and depths instead of seeking closeness.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
|
Most Recent Customer Reviews |
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
