Shadow [Paperback]

SHADOW opens in 1975 with the discovery of a four-year old boy who has been abandoned in a park. The boy, Kristoffer, is bought up by foster parents, and when an adult becomes an addict and drifter. The only thing that connects him with his forgotten childhood is his receipt of money every month until he is 18 - a small amount but sufficient to fund his dissolute lifestyle. When the money dries up, he realises that this is a chance for a fresh start. He's obsessed and intensely ashamed by his past, but he determines to clean himself up and become a writer. He befriends another struggling young author, Jesper, and the two provide each other with some mutual support. Kristoffer, however, is too repressed to tell anyone that he was abandoned and rejected, and that he has no idea who he is.

A 92-year-old woman, Gerda, dies in her flat. As she seems to have no relatives or friends, Marianne from the social services department is put in charge of sorting out Gerda's affairs and organising her funeral. During the course of this process, she discovers that Gerda lived for most of her adult life as the maid of Axel Ragnerfeldt, a Nobel laureate for literature, and his family. Axel is now an old man, paralysed by a stroke and unable to communicate except by moving his little finger. Marianne therefore contacts Axel's son, Jan-Erik, who has made a profession of setting up a foundation in his father's name, and who goes around giving lectures and readings from his books. Jan-Erik is trapped in a loveless marriage, which he does not leave because of the terms of his father's will.

As this compelling book progresses, we learn more of the history of four generations of the Ragnerfeldt family, the dynamics and secrets between husbands, wives, parents and children, as well as the professional rivalries between friends. The connection between the Ragnerfeldts and Kristoffer becomes slightly less obscure when we learn of a literary evening in which a younger Axel and his friend and fellow-author Torgny meet a beautiful young woman called Halina. She is a survivor of the Holocaust who has a terrible past. In her first scene, she tells Axel a fable, and asks him which of the five characters in it is the "least wrong". Axel's answer is prophetic; subsequent events play out the fable, with each character in SHADOW taking the role of the people in Halina's story.

One often reads the word "unputdownable" to describe a book - it is certainly a true description of this one. As the novel reaches its climax, I was on the edge of my seat, my heart was pounding, and by the end I felt wrecked. It has strong parallels with Wuthering Heights, in which two "normal" people (Gerda as Nelly Dean and Marianne as Lockwood) are the filter through which the reader experiences elemental, horrifically tragic and passionate events that are beyond the witness-narrators' comprehension.

This superb novel has so many layers and depths, concerning the biological and societal adaptations of consciousness; the experiences and consequences of the process of creative writing, its "success" and "failure"; an empathy and confidence in describing historical events; and the emotions of friendship, betrayal, passion and rage, simmering and erupting in a seemingly placid environment. The characters, whether central or subsidiary, are all rounded, and even the unsympathetic ones are given full opportunity to present their point of view. I was particularly impressed with the depictions of Kristoffer, whose desperate search for the meaning of his life through his past is unbearably tragic; the brave Halina, who struggles to transcend the ineradicable scars of her horrific past life, overcoming one terrible setback but encountering another awful one once she meets Axel; and Jan-Erik's sad wife Louise. The icing on the cake is that the plot is complete, clever, convoluted and convincing - the author does not flinch from following it through to the bitter end.

SHADOW is a brilliant and rich book, which has had a tremendous impact on me. I urge you to read it as soon as you can.

Review first published at the Euro Crime website.

Shadow, by Karin Alvtegen is an example of a book that only a few years ago would have been lost to English speakers, but one good thing about the "Dragon Tattoo" thing is that publishers seem to be queuing up to support translations of other Scandinavians and put them on our shelves and e-readers.

It is very difficult to classify this book. It is not really a "crime novel", although a serious crime is disclosed (but not until towards the end of the book). Its not a family saga either, although the story spans four generations of a family. Neither is it a thriller, for its story is low-key and almost rambling at times. The plotting is complex and draws the reader through many layers of unravelling until it all comes together in the last chapters. From the reviewers point of view its almost impossible to describe without spoiling it (but read on, I won't do that).

There is a strong literary theme to this book. It centres around the life and work of fictional Nobel Prize winner Axel Ragnerfelt, not in his old age and paralysed after a serious stroke, so that he can only communicate by moving the little finger of one hand. The Nobel prize has been given because of Ragnerfelt's message of eternal human values which pervades his work, and this is so unique that his son Jan Erik has made a career out of developing a charitable foundation in his father's name and travelling around the globe delivering inspirational talks which spread a message of tolerance and hope.

But slowly we find that all is not quite as it seems. The Rangernfelt's long-serving house-keeper dies without relatives or friends and a representative of the public trustee is sent to tidy up her affairs. A will is found bequeathing her estate to Kristoffer Sandeblom a man nobody has heard of, a struggling play-wright, who life has run in parallel to Jan Eriks, but without the success.

Karin Alvtegen draws her readers into the connections between all these people, her story moving back and forth from Axel's life and Jan Erik's as we learn that all is not quite as it seems. Drama increases throughout until at the end of the book we are confronted with a page-turning denouement which made this reader at least want to applaud the author for her skill in starting with so many disparate themes and ending up with a startling resolution to all of them, much like the climax to an orchestral symphony.

I don't often enjoy a book quite as much as this one. Its pretty damned good as they say. Its a literate read and the characters are wholly believable and very complex. I kept feeling that the book must have been written by a man for Karin Alvtegen seems to have burrowed deep into the male psyche and understood some typically male aspects of the motivations of ambition, sex, family and wealth. Not to say that men and women can't write about the opposite sex, its just that in Shadow, the male characterisation is totally convincing.

2011 has seen me reading five Scandinavian novels so far and I am yet to be disappointed. Karin Alvtegen is a name I will add Sofi Oksanen, Jo Nesbo, Arnaldur Indridason as writers to watch out for when I want a book to devour in a few sittings.

I'm a big Alvtegen fan. I like her refusal to resort to stunts, explosions, chases or other dramatic ploys to make her point. I like her habit of pursuing the character as they psychologically fall apart. I admire her ability to blend the pressures of society and the reactions of individuals into a convincing mix. All three characteristics are present in this work.

This is not a book for people who like a fast-paced thriller. But stick with it. The revelations will come, but Alvtegen is sure to send you into the minds of the characters first. This is what distinguishes her work from many other thriller writers - the narrative springs out of the character's mind, rather than the characters reacting to action.

Flaws? I loved the whole story of Jesper Falk, and for me that could (and should) have been turned into a book in its own right. Over and above that, I'm a happy reader, although Shame remains my favourite Alvtegen novel.