The Voices Beyond by Johan Theorin

First Line: The ghost ship came gliding out of the darkness across the black waters of the Sound, giving way to nothing and no one.

It is summer on the beautiful Swedish island of Öland, and visitors are arriving in their thousands to enjoy the sun and the water. Among the visitors is young Jonas Kloss, who's looking forward to staying with his aunt and cousins. But one moonlit night when he takes a small boat out on the water, a ship looms out of the darkness and the horror the young boy finds on board has him fleeing for his life.

Jonas finds himself on the doorstep of elderly Gerlof Davidsson, a man of the sea and native to Öland. Once Gerlof is able to convince Jonas to talk to him, the old man knows that this summer will be like no other. The Homecomer has returned, and he's waited a lifetime to exact his revenge. 

I loved the previous three books in Theorin's Öland Quartet. The man is a master at creating complex characters and building suspense. Unfortunately The Voices Beyond fell flat for me. Gerlof was still his charming curmudgeonly self with his loneliness and painfully aching legs, and young Jonas was wonderfully complex as well. And that setting! Theorin is also a master at building a setting so vivid and detailed that it counts as one of the characters in his books.

Where the book fell flat was in its pacing. The point of view was constantly shifting from Gerlof to Jonas to a young musician named Lisa to the Homecomer himself who spoke both from the present day and from the time of Stalin's reign of terror. The constant shifting didn't confuse me at all, but the very short chapters moving from one character to the next actually slowed the pace down to a crawl and made the book a chore to read.

As a whole, would I still recommend the Öland Quartet? Yes, I would. The first three  (Echoes from the Dead, The Darkest Room, and The Quarry) are superb, and who knows? The slow pace of The Voices Beyond may not bother you at all. For anyone with a fondness for Scandinavian crime fiction, evocative settings, and complex characters, Johan Theorin's Öland Quartet should not be missed.
   

The Voices Beyond by Johan Theorin

Translated from the Swedish by Marlaine Delargy

ISBN: 9780857520067

Doubleday © 2015

Paperback, 475 pages

Suspense, #4 Öland Quartet

Rating: C+

Source: Purchased from Waterstones, Cambridge, UK

 

The Quarry by Johan Theorin

First Line: It was March in northern Öland, and the sun was shining on small, dirty-white snowdrifts as they slowly melted on the lawns at the residential home for senior citizens in Marnäs.

Gerlof Davidsson is out of the nursing home and back in his home on Öland. He's decided to read the diaries of his beloved wife who died of cancer several years before, but little does he know that his wife's words may shed some light on the goings-on among his neighbors. 

Per Mörner and his son Jesper are in one nearby house. Per spends a good deal of his time visiting his critically ill daughter in the hospital and trying to avoid his father Jerry, a man that Per has always been deeply ashamed of. In the largest and most expensive home are writer Max Larsson and his wife Vendela, who grew up on the island. Max is filled to the brim with his own self-importance while his lonely wife remembers her childhood and lavishes her affection on their dog Ally. What none of them know is that a fire that kills two strangers is going to bring to light many secrets that they hoped would remain buried.

Johan Theorin is a master at setting a scene, and he brings the natural beauty of  Öland to life. He's also a master of atmosphere, and the feeling in The Quarry is one of slowly building dread. Secrets have remained buried for decades, and they are demanding to be brought out into the light. 

Theorin weaves stories of elves and trolls, of the early days of the Swedish porn industry, and of a long disused quarry into a riveting story of poverty and neglect, love and murder. His characters are so well drawn that you can hear each distinctive voice as you read, and your mind stays busy in an attempt to deduce how these people's lives all intersect. 

Although this book is the third in the Öland Quartet, each one can stand alone. They are only connected by their setting and by the occasional appearance of the elderly Gerlof Davidsson. Feel free to jump in wherever you like.

Johan Theorin is a master storyteller, and I have yet to read one of his books that I did not love. He is my favorite Swedish crime writer.

The Quarry by Johan Theorin

Translated from the Swedish by Marlaine Delargy

ISBN: 9780552777049

Doubleday © 2011

Paperback, 477 pages

Amateur Sleuth, #3 Öland Quartet

Rating: A

Source: Purchased from Book Depository.


 

The Darkest Room by Johan Theorin

Title: The Darkest Room
Author: Johan Theorin
Translated from the Swedish: Marlaine Delargy
ISBN: 9780385342223, Delta, 2009
Genre: Police Procedural
Rating: A+

First Line: Valter Brommesson is sitting in a little stone house at Eel Point, praying to God with his hands clasped together.

Schoolteacher Joakim Westin has finally tied up all loose ends and has made the move from Stockholm to join his wife Katrine and their two small children in their new home on Eel Point on the island of Öland. Katrine has made great strides in remodeling the large home while Joakim was in Stockholm, and he's looking forward to joining with her to finish it up.

One day Joakim comes home to discover that Katrine has drowned in shallow water near Eel Point's twin lighthouses. Although the police proclaim it an accident, Tilda Davidsson, a cop new to the area, isn't convinced and conducts her own investigation in her free time. And while a burglary ring breaks into summer homes and Tilda quietly gathers information, the grieving Joakim and his children feel that Katrine is somehow still with them.

Once again the setting is Öland, an island that the author is very familiar with, having spent many childhood summers there. Theorin's family, sailors and farmers, has lived on the island for generations. His physical knowledge of the area has combined with the stories and the history of the place to make wonderfully atmospheric books. The Darkest Room, in many ways, is even more atmospheric and horripilating than his first book, Echoes From the Dead, which I also loved.

A thin thread links this second book to the first, since Tilda Davidsson is the great niece of Gerlof Davidsson who played such a large role in Echoes From the Dead. Joakim Westin grieves so much for his wife that it's not always certain whether what he's seeing and hearing is really there. The three burglars are unpredictable, and that increases the sense of unease. And then Theorin weaves in the stories and histories of Eel Point from several generations. Each story explains a bit more. Each history illuminates another small dusty corner.

A house built with timber that dying sailors had clung to in despair before the sea took them-- should my mother and I have known better than to move in there at the end of the 1950s? Should you and your family really have moved there thirty-five years later, Katrine?

If you don't believe in spirits or places that are haunted by their histories, you may very well undergo a sea change while reading The Darkest Room. Within the space of two superbly crafted books, Johan Theorin has become one of my favorite writers.

Now if I'd just stop sitting here looking over my shoulder....

[Source: Christmas gift from my husband.]

REVIEW: Echoes From the Dead

Title: Echoes From the Dead
Author: Johan Theorin
Translator: Marlaine Delargy
ISBN: 9780385342216/Bantam Dell
Protagonist(s): Julia Davidsson and her father, Gerlof Davidsson
Setting: sometime in the 1990s, on Oland, an island off the coast of Sweden
Mystery
Rating: A+

First Line: The wall was built of big, rounded stones covered in grayish white lichen, and it was the same height as the boy.

Twenty years ago, five-year-old Jens Davidsson walked out into the alvar on a foggy day and disappeared without a trace. His mother, Julia, has lived in a wine-soaked state of suspended animation ever since...until she receives the phone call from her father, Gerlof, who still lives on Oland. Packing a bag, Julia drives to the nursing home where Gerlof lives, and Gerlof shows her the tiny sandal. Someone has mailed him one of the sandals Jens was wearing on the day he disappeared. Thus begins this investigation conducted by a mother who's never allowed herself to grieve and a crippled old man.

This book moves in a slow, deliberate, almost elegiac pace--shadowing the movements of Gerlof with his cane as he slowly, inexorably visits each person on his list. He's a man who's held himself responsible for his grandson's death. He's a man who wants to give his daughter the answers that will make her want to live again.

I felt myself being sucked into this book as if I'd stepped into quicksand. The further I sank, the more I wanted to know, the more I wanted to lose myself in the landscape of this Swedish island that plays as big a part in the plot as Gerlof and Julia. I won this book through LibraryThing's Early Reviewer program. All I knew was that the synopsis made me think I'd enjoy the book. I had no idea that Echoes From the Dead has been receiving rave reviews from people in the UK. Now I know why. I'm already looking for Theorin's next book. Wow....