September 3, 2018
Lapidus’s hard-hitting sequel to 2017’s Stockholm Delete updates the careers of diverse characters caught up in Stockholm’s criminal underworld. Teddy, a Serbian immigrant, can’t get a regular job after spending eight years in prison for kidnapping a money launderer, so he falls back in with his former lover, Emelie. Now a defense lawyer, Emelie needs Teddy’s help after a client is murdered. Nikola, the nephew Teddy adores, abandons a good future as an electrician to seek revenge for the fatal gang shooting of a boyhood friend. After Roksana, a crafty young Iranian, finds someone’s drug stash and parties it away, she ends up enlisting Nikola’s help in dealing with the drug lord to whom she owes thousands of kronor. Meanwhile, police transcripts of tapped phone conversations cast a revealing light on big business corruption. Lapidus overdoes the melodrama at times as the various stories converge on the somewhat contrived ending, but his picture of Swedish social debilitation is powerful stuff.
September 1, 2018
Talk about your star-crossed lovers. When Lapidus reunites Teddy Maksumic, who served eight years for a kidnapping he didn't commit, with newly independent lawyer Emelie Jansson, it's every man, woman, and child for themselves.Tossed out of her white-shoe firm for her part in the earlier case (Stockholm Delete, 2017), Emelie's in a perfect position to take a pleading phone call from a young woman she knows only as Katja, who's survived a long series of sexual abuses beginning when she was 13 only to face a new horror: Chief Inspector Nina Ley's demand that she detail every outrage she suffered so that Ley can bring her abusers to justice. Katja's situation is so harrowing that it's practically a mercy when she's stabbed to death soon after Ley begins interrogating her with Emelie at her side. Meanwhile, Teddy's nephew, Nikola, finds his resolve to avoid his uncle's criminal career complicated by the murder of his best friend, Chamon Hanna--a crime that demands revenge more personal and effective than the legal system can provide. And Iranian party girl Roksana's housewarming party to celebrate her cohabitation with Z, the boyfriend who's moved in with her, turns into a once-in-a-lifetime lark when they discover several kilos of ketamine hidden behind a false wall in their new digs, then into a nightmare when the drug lord from whom it was taken demands an impossible payment for the goods. As in his Stockholm Noir trilogy, Lapidus plots on an epic scale; if you think one plotline is beginning to flag, just wait for new details about his double-crossing gangsters, his two-faced socialites, and his hard-used heroine and her unlikely swain. Even better, he produces a climactic surprise that really does tie many of the strands of this untidy saga together.Part sequel, part rehash of unfinished business from Stockholm Delete. As in Faulkner, the past in Lapidus isn't even past--and although it's not dead, it's more than capable of killing the living.
COPYRIGHT(2018) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
November 15, 2018
Swedish author Lapidus ("Swedish Noir" trilogy) is back with the latest in his jittery, gritty noir thrillers featuring lawyer Emelie Jansson and Serbian investigator and ex-con Teddy Maksumic, who are thrown back together after a previous partnership resulted in the busting of a child sex ring (Stockholm Delete). New evidence around one of the victims surfaces and reunites the two to continue their crusade against the shadowy cabal, which assassinates a major witness. Meanwhile, Teddy's nephew Nikola tries to walk a straight path working as an electrician, but the murder of his best friend, Chamon Hanna, and the discovery of a stash of drugs fuels his descent into the city's bleak underbelly. The two plots collide in a violent, scarring confrontation. VERDICT Lawyer-turned-author Lapidus writes in a paranoid, introspective style of Scandinavian noir that may not have mainstream appeal but will please fans of James Ellroy or Jo Nesb.ø--Gregg Winsor, Johnson Cty. Lib., Overland Park, KS
Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
November 1, 2018
Renegade attorney Emelie Jansson and former gangster Teddy Maksumic haven't spoken since they tangled with a pedophilic cabal in Stockholm Delete (2017), leaving their mutual attraction unexplored after Emelie was unwilling to accept Teddy's underworld ties. But when Emelie agrees to represent a woman who claims that she was victimized by the same cabal, she reaches out for Teddy's help. At the same time, Teddy's nephew Nikolas abandons his efforts to build a law-abiding life and is drawn back into his old gang. After his best friend, Chamon, is murdered, Nikolas gets the green light from Chamon's kingpin boss, Lukas, to launch a vengeance-fueled investigation of Chamon's crew. As Emelie and Teddy close in on the pedophiles one more time, Nikolas' hunt and his deepening relationship with Roksana, a student who has run afoul of ketamine dealers, pulls him into a deadly bargain that could sabotage his uncle's investigation. Lapidus smoothly draws Emelie's, Teddy's, Nikolas', and Roksana's stories together into a riveting plot while drawing sharp parallels between the dangerous loyalties and callousness of Stockholm's elite and gangland worlds.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)
November 15, 2018
Swedish author Lapidus ("Swedish Noir" trilogy) is back with the latest in his jittery, gritty noir thrillers featuring lawyer Emelie Jansson and Serbian investigator and ex-con Teddy Maksumic, who are thrown back together after a previous partnership resulted in the busting of a child sex ring (Stockholm Delete). New evidence around one of the victims surfaces and reunites the two to continue their crusade against the shadowy cabal, which assassinates a major witness. Meanwhile, Teddy's nephew Nikola tries to walk a straight path working as an electrician, but the murder of his best friend, Chamon Hanna, and the discovery of a stash of drugs fuels his descent into the city's bleak underbelly. The two plots collide in a violent, scarring confrontation. VERDICT Lawyer-turned-author Lapidus writes in a paranoid, introspective style of Scandinavian noir that may not have mainstream appeal but will please fans of James Ellroy or Jo Nesb.�--Gregg Winsor, Johnson Cty. Lib., Overland Park, KS
Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.