The Black Path by Asa Larsson, Marlaine Delargy
A grisly torture-murder, a haunting northern Sweden backdrop, and a dark drama of twisted sexuality collide memorably in sa Larsson's masterpiece of suspense-a tale of menace, hope, longing, and darkness beyond imagining. n nThe dead woman was found on a frozen lake, her body riddled with evidence of torture. Instantly, Inspector Anna-Maria Mella knows she needs help. Because the dead woman-found in workout clothes with lacy underwear beneath them-was a key player in a mining company whose tentacles reach across the globe. Anna-Maria needs a lawyer to help explain some things-and she knows one of the best. n nAttorney Rebecka Martinsson is desperate to get back to work, to feel alive again after a case that almost destroyed her. Soon Rebecka is prying into the affairs of the dead woman's boss, the founder of Kallis Mining, whose relationship with his star employee was both complex and ominous. But what Rebecka and Anna-Maria are about to uncover-a tangled drama of secrets, perversion, and criminality-will lay bare a tale as shocking as it is sad...about a man's obsession, a woman's lonely death, and a killer's cold, cold heart. n nEditorial Reviews n nAsa Larsson is as deft at writing heart-stopping scenes ... as she is at getting inside the heads of characters.-Washington Post n- From the Publisher n nIn Swedish author Larsson's superb, gut-wrenching police procedural, Insp. Anna-Maria Mella and her longtime partner, Sven-Erik Stlnacke, investigate the brutal torture-murder of Inna Wattrang, head of information for Kallis Mining, whose body is found in an ark, a small cabin on runners, on a frozen lake. The paucity of clues leads the inspector to take the unconventional step of recruiting a new prosecutor, Rebecka Martinsson, to the team. Martinsson's single-minded devotion to her work is of great benefit to Mella, whose inquiries into the self-made founder of Kallis as well as the victim's brother lead her to believe that the motive for the brutal crime stems from Kallis Mining's unscrupulous business practices. While the plot offers little mystery, this intelligent thriller carries tremendous emotional heft and makes Swedish society easily comprehensible to an American reader. Larsson's debut, Sunstorm(2003), was named Sweden's Best First Crime Novel of the Year. (Aug.)Copyright Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. n n- Publishers Weekly n nStill reeling from her last encounter with evil (The Blood Spilt, 2007), Stockholm attorney Rebecka Martinsson accepts a probationary position as special prosecutor in a third fraught murder case. For someone who was such a big noise when she was alive-she was head of information for the global corporation Kallis Mining-Inna Wattrang certainly met with an ignominious end. When the Kiruna police finally identify her and trace the murder scene from the chilly spot where her body was found back to her own home, they realize that she was methodically tortured before being stabbed to death. Who could have done such a terrible thing to a woman with such deep roots in the community? The events that unfold from here on out-90 percent of them in the past-dramatize the ways roots can go entirely too deep for comfort. Shifting between present and past with disconcerting rapidity, Larsson reveals the intricacies of Inna's past with her brother Diddi, an incompetent who ends up handling Kallis Mining's finances, and Mauri Kallis, a local boy who makes good beyond his wildest dreams. The shifting relationships among this unholy trinity-compounded further by the arrival of Mauri's long-separated sister Ester, a gifted artist-are so baroque and perverse that they eclipse the official investigation and reduce Rebecka and Anna-Maria Mella, the police inspector she's working with, to supporting roles. As Ester reflects shortly before the climactic bloodbath that carries off most of the cast, [W]hile her feet are following the black path, she herself is living in another world. You could call it a memory, but it's happening now. Again.Larsson's attraction to the pathology of psychological and physicalviolence is so baleful and intense that it's almost a relief to see her troubled heroine upstaged by an even more troubled group of suspects. n n- Kirkus Reviews
Publication Details
Title:
Author(s):
Illustrator:
Binding: Paperback
Published by: Random House Publishing Group: , 2010
Edition:
ISBN: 9780385341011 | 0385341016
400 pages.
Book Condition: Good
Cover worn. Ex-library
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