- Hardcover: 480 pages
- Publisher: Pantheon Books (3 April 2012)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0307377482
- ISBN-13: 978-0307377487
- Product Dimensions: 16.5 x 3.8 x 24.2 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (33 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,097,201 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Easy Money
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More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
From one of Sweden’s most successful defense lawyers comes an unflinching look at Stockholm’s underworld, told from the perspective of the mob bosses, the patsies, and the thugs who help operate its twisted justice system.
JW is a student having trouble keeping up appearances in the rich party crowd he has involved himself with. He’s desperate for money, and when he’s offered a job dealing drugs to the very crowd he’s vying for a place in, he accepts it. Meanwhile, Jorge, a young Latino drug dealer, has just broken out of jail and is itching for revenge. When JW’s supplier gets wind of Jorge’s escape, he suggests JW track him down and attempt to win his trust in order to cover more area in the drug circuit. But JW’s not the only one on Jorge’s trail: Mrado, the brutal muscle behind the Yugoslavian mob boss whose goons were the ones who ratted Jorge out to the cops, is also on the hunt. But like everyone else, he’s tired of being a mere pawn in an impossibly risky game, and he’s seeking to carve out a niche of his own. As the paths of these antiheroes intertwine further, they find themselves mercilessly pitted against one another in a world where allegiances are hard-won, revenge is hard-fought, and a way out of it all is even harder to come by.
Fast and intricately paced, and with pitch-perfect dialogue, Easy Money is a raw, dark, and intelligent crime novel that has catapulted Jens Lapidus into the company of Sweden’s most acclaimed crime writers.
Book Description
EASY MONEY - the Swedish bestselling sensation, a dark and brutal account of the Stockholm underworld. Jorge knows one thing – he’s never going back inside. Mrado knows one thing – he’s not going to kill for cash anymore. JW knows nothing – and that’s why he’s in too deep. Their paths are about to cross, but are they on the same side? Whether they’re uneasy conspirators or deadly rivals, they’re all looking for the fastest way to get filthy rich. They’re about to learn the hard way that there’s no such thing as easy money . . . Jens Lapidus is a highly successful criminal defence lawyer. His experiences with some of the country’s most notorious criminals have made this debut novel the fastest-selling and most talked about thriller in Europe in a decade. ‘At last: an epic European thriller to rival the Steig Larsson books. It’s an entirely new criminal world, beautifully rendered – and a wildly thrilling novel’ James Ellroy
--This text refers to the
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Vine™ Review
(What's this?)
This book is about drugs, prostitution, people smuggling, extortion rackets, gangs and violence. There are numerous references to the Balkans war and I wonder if this war bred the violence into the men or maybe the war was so bloody because a lot of violent men took part.
My image of Sweden with its blonde blue eyed Abba types was completely shattered by the violent gangs that seem to rule, certainly in Stockholm. Perhaps it is like it everywhere and I am just naive. The gangs fall into mobs from abroad, motorcycle and some created in prison but they are all extremely violent.
Sweden itself is portrayed as a big brother state where you can't even buy a car without it being flagged by the authorities. One piece refers to metal detectors, at airports, being able to identify large quantities of banknotes by the metal strips.
The other thing that comes through is the racial tensions. As well as on skin colour but also same colour but different nationalities tensions.
However the book made good reading and I really enjoyed it, well thought out and well written. This is one book where you (me) will not feel any empathy with the villains.
Jens Lapidous was a criminal defence lawyer and it is most probable that much of the book comes from his personal experience which makes the book all to believable.
My image of Sweden with its blonde blue eyed Abba types was completely shattered by the violent gangs that seem to rule, certainly in Stockholm. Perhaps it is like it everywhere and I am just naive. The gangs fall into mobs from abroad, motorcycle and some created in prison but they are all extremely violent.
Sweden itself is portrayed as a big brother state where you can't even buy a car without it being flagged by the authorities. One piece refers to metal detectors, at airports, being able to identify large quantities of banknotes by the metal strips.
The other thing that comes through is the racial tensions. As well as on skin colour but also same colour but different nationalities tensions.
However the book made good reading and I really enjoyed it, well thought out and well written. This is one book where you (me) will not feel any empathy with the villains.
Jens Lapidous was a criminal defence lawyer and it is most probable that much of the book comes from his personal experience which makes the book all to believable.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
"Easy Money" is a debut crime novel from Jens Lapidus, billed as one of Sweden's most successful criminal defense lawyers, and, on the basis of this book, one of the best acquainted with Stockholm's underworld. It's a new entry in the sweepstakes to follow the phenomenal international success of Stieg Larsson, the superb Scandinavian thriller author, who gave us The Millennium Trilogy before his untimely death. EASY MONEY has received high praise from various Euro critics and high praise indeed from James Ellroy, one of the deans of hard-boiled American mysteries, who wrote, "At last, an epic European thriller to rival the Stieg Larsson books. It's an entirely new criminal world, beautifully rendered - and a wildly thrilling novel."
Lapidus's novel is set in Stockholm's underworld, where cocaine rules, and is told from the perspective of its mob bosses, patsies and thugs. It centers on three men. JW is of humble rural stock, but has managed to crash a rich, chic party crowd: now, if only he had the money to run freely with them. When he's offered the chance to sell cocaine to this crowd, he grabs it. Jorge, a young drug dealer of Chilean origin, has just succeeded in a celebrated breakout from jail, and wants revenge against those who put him there. JW's boss is anxious to recruit Jorge to widen his territory, and sets JW on the Latino's trail. But so is Mrado, brutal muscle in the high on the food chain Yugoslav gang that put Jorge inside in the first place. These three anti-heroes combine and recombine, all seeking their places in the sun.
The novel is written in a language slangy, fast-paced, and telegraphic enough to rival Ellroy's. But, whereas I, like many Americans, have some familiarity with Los Angeles, where Ellroy sets his work, I know very little about Sweden, Yugoslavia, or Chile, and I didn't always know what Lapidus was talking about. Lapidus's writing or perhaps his translator's also has an odd tic: over and over, often several times in a page, he uses a clumsy contraction that I'm not sure exists in English: "Jorge'd,"for, I gather, "Jorge had." This set me into mental gymnastics every time, as I was busy remembering the Latin pronunciation of "Jorge," and then I had to tag the "'d" on its end. A true mental tongue-twister. Furthermore, I found the book to be testosterone-soaked: in its pages, women exist solely for sex and the delivery of children. It often reminded me that the first, Swedish title of Larsson's first book, THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO was MEN WHO HATE WOMEN. It sometimes seemed to me that I kept reading this long book only because it had opened on a woman's abuse, and I was anxious to find out what had become of her; information that wasn't shared until nearly the end of the book's more than 450 pages. However, the book does finally arrive at a fairly exciting, powerful conclusion.
Come to Scandinavian mysteries, I go back beyond the Martin Beck Mystery Series by Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo. Lapidus has got something here, but I'm not sure what. However, I would be willing to give him another try.
Lapidus's novel is set in Stockholm's underworld, where cocaine rules, and is told from the perspective of its mob bosses, patsies and thugs. It centers on three men. JW is of humble rural stock, but has managed to crash a rich, chic party crowd: now, if only he had the money to run freely with them. When he's offered the chance to sell cocaine to this crowd, he grabs it. Jorge, a young drug dealer of Chilean origin, has just succeeded in a celebrated breakout from jail, and wants revenge against those who put him there. JW's boss is anxious to recruit Jorge to widen his territory, and sets JW on the Latino's trail. But so is Mrado, brutal muscle in the high on the food chain Yugoslav gang that put Jorge inside in the first place. These three anti-heroes combine and recombine, all seeking their places in the sun.
The novel is written in a language slangy, fast-paced, and telegraphic enough to rival Ellroy's. But, whereas I, like many Americans, have some familiarity with Los Angeles, where Ellroy sets his work, I know very little about Sweden, Yugoslavia, or Chile, and I didn't always know what Lapidus was talking about. Lapidus's writing or perhaps his translator's also has an odd tic: over and over, often several times in a page, he uses a clumsy contraction that I'm not sure exists in English: "Jorge'd,"for, I gather, "Jorge had." This set me into mental gymnastics every time, as I was busy remembering the Latin pronunciation of "Jorge," and then I had to tag the "'d" on its end. A true mental tongue-twister. Furthermore, I found the book to be testosterone-soaked: in its pages, women exist solely for sex and the delivery of children. It often reminded me that the first, Swedish title of Larsson's first book, THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO was MEN WHO HATE WOMEN. It sometimes seemed to me that I kept reading this long book only because it had opened on a woman's abuse, and I was anxious to find out what had become of her; information that wasn't shared until nearly the end of the book's more than 450 pages. However, the book does finally arrive at a fairly exciting, powerful conclusion.
Come to Scandinavian mysteries, I go back beyond the Martin Beck Mystery Series by Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo. Lapidus has got something here, but I'm not sure what. However, I would be willing to give him another try.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Vine™ Review
(What's this?)
This book, set in Stockholm, has 3 main characters from different layers of society who all in one way or the other have connections to Stockholm's criminal underworld and whose lives interconnects as the story progresses.
JW (or Johan), student, ambitious and although originally from the provinces, he pretends to be from a rich family to gain access to the higher echelons of Stockholm society and to have a chance with the unattainable Sophie. His goal seems to move within his grasp when he starts pushing cocaine to his rich mates and thereby gains a reputation as a player in Stockholm's nightlife. The extra cash comes in handy as well both to keep up his expensive habits as well as to help fund his search for his sister who went missing years earlier.
Mrado is a Serbian bodybuilder and former war veteran who works for the Serbian mob in Stockholm. He's a tough guy and is not afraid to use muscle to get what he wants. On a personal level, he is striving for a higher position in the criminal hierarchy as well as trying to be a good father to his daughter Lovisa.
Jorge is a former drug courier who after being set up by the Serbian mob and sent to prison, seeks revenge over his former employers. He succeeds in breaking out of prison but has to realise that revenge is not easy when on the run from the police as well as the criminal underworld.
Even though the three main characters have different backgrounds and motives for their actions, the desire for success, revenge and money means that their lives become interconnected until their faiths collide in a furious finale.
The actual crime part of the book (where JW tries to find out what happened to his sister) does not take up much of the book, but it is a very informative view on Stockholm's organised crime written by somebody who obviously knows the system (even if we can hope that it's not quite as bad as this!).
The writing style is quite fast and to the point when it comes to sentence structure whereas he spends an inordinate time on describing e.g. people's clothing habits which is part of the reason why this book is more than 450 pages long. He uses different genres (newspaper articles and court case transcripts) to move along the action from time to time which is a good idea.
I found the book very informative and at times very entertaining; unfortunately I did not like or engage with any of the main characters and that mixed with the long descriptive parts made it a bit of a chore to finish the book. It's doubtful I'll be reading the two future instalments in the series.
JW (or Johan), student, ambitious and although originally from the provinces, he pretends to be from a rich family to gain access to the higher echelons of Stockholm society and to have a chance with the unattainable Sophie. His goal seems to move within his grasp when he starts pushing cocaine to his rich mates and thereby gains a reputation as a player in Stockholm's nightlife. The extra cash comes in handy as well both to keep up his expensive habits as well as to help fund his search for his sister who went missing years earlier.
Mrado is a Serbian bodybuilder and former war veteran who works for the Serbian mob in Stockholm. He's a tough guy and is not afraid to use muscle to get what he wants. On a personal level, he is striving for a higher position in the criminal hierarchy as well as trying to be a good father to his daughter Lovisa.
Jorge is a former drug courier who after being set up by the Serbian mob and sent to prison, seeks revenge over his former employers. He succeeds in breaking out of prison but has to realise that revenge is not easy when on the run from the police as well as the criminal underworld.
Even though the three main characters have different backgrounds and motives for their actions, the desire for success, revenge and money means that their lives become interconnected until their faiths collide in a furious finale.
The actual crime part of the book (where JW tries to find out what happened to his sister) does not take up much of the book, but it is a very informative view on Stockholm's organised crime written by somebody who obviously knows the system (even if we can hope that it's not quite as bad as this!).
The writing style is quite fast and to the point when it comes to sentence structure whereas he spends an inordinate time on describing e.g. people's clothing habits which is part of the reason why this book is more than 450 pages long. He uses different genres (newspaper articles and court case transcripts) to move along the action from time to time which is a good idea.
I found the book very informative and at times very entertaining; unfortunately I did not like or engage with any of the main characters and that mixed with the long descriptive parts made it a bit of a chore to finish the book. It's doubtful I'll be reading the two future instalments in the series.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Gripping......
I really enjoyed this book.
It is an enjoyable read....gripping stuff...
a good new writer to try.....It is hard going at times.... Read more
It is an enjoyable read....gripping stuff...
a good new writer to try.....It is hard going at times.... Read more
Published 12 days ago by mandynolan
Quite a difficult book to enjoy
This wasn't what I expected from Sweden. It's got lots of characters and it written from their perspective. Read more
Published 1 month ago by A. Douglas
Swedish James Ellroy
I would advise anyone thinking of reading it to have a quick skim through it first. The writing style is highly `distinctive. Read more
Published 1 month ago by The Emperor
Thoroughly enjoyed it.
The clue is in the title - Easy Money - and the book revolves around three main characters who are after it. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Zola fan
dark
This book is a look at the dark and brutal stockholm underworld. It really was not for me and I found so many long unpronounceable names at bit much at times. Read more
Published 1 month ago by G. Cook
Did not enjoy
I will definitely not be reading any more books from this Author. It was very difficult to follow the story line of the book. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Tim Roast
Ellroy comes to Stockholm. (sort of).
There's a lot to be critical about with this book and I`m not surprised that there are negative reviews on this page. Read more
Published 1 month ago by J. Mcdonald
It's dark, very dark
This is not a book for the faint hearted, nor those who would prefer that the world didn't include venal, violent career criminals with few, if any saving graces. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Andy Edwards
Money
I did not like this book as I could not get into the plot or take to the characters. I found it very slow and very boring. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Owl
Not very nice - but (probably) well written
Not really my kind of book.
This was really rather nasty - and written in some kind of "gangster-speak" (or is that gangsta-speke? Read more
This was really rather nasty - and written in some kind of "gangster-speak" (or is that gangsta-speke? Read more
Published 2 months ago by M. R. N. Shackelford
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