The Swedish capital, 1975, two years after the city had given its name to Stockholm Syndrome. Kidnappers have returned, this time targeting the West German embassy. While a work of fiction, the story is built upon a real-life embassy takeover in 1975 by the Holger Meins Commando, an active service unit within the left wing German Red Army Faction. Meins had died on hunger strike in late 1974, leading to left wing protest across Europe.
This was an era when the Italian Red Brigades and the Red Army Faction, more commonly known as Baadar-Meinhoff, were waging urban guerrilla war against their respective states.
For quite some time there had been warnings coming through the intelligence system that “German terrorists were planning some form of action on Swedish soil.” Yet the Swedes failed to step up their game. The press would not let them forget it.
The central demand of the kidnappers was for the release of Red Army Faction prisoners held in Germany. Less than three years after the Black September operation against Israeli Olympians in Munich, the West German government, scorched repeatedly for a softly softly approach, was now taking a hard line. It was a zero sum game which resulted in a shootout, leaving two hostages dead. Hard to think of a less fertile ground for nurturing the Stockholm Syndrome.
Guerrillas injured and captured, the investigation never really made it out of the traps as the kidnappers were sent back to Germany for the authorities there to deal with in Stammheim Prison.
Fourteen years later a civil servant, Kjell Eriksson, is killed and the investigation into his death seems to be sucked down by the quagmire of red tape and corruption. The investigating detectives, Anna Holt and Bo Jarnebring, are instructed to look at the victim’s gay life as the real motive, which seems an evidential red herring. Their superior DI Backstrom as well as being a bent copper is also contemptuous of gays.
This is a familiar theme whereby the Swedish police do not come across as knights in shining armour, being inefficient as well as thick - “the three younger idiots from the uniformed police.” There is room to wonder if at some level Leif Perrson, a former professor in criminology at the Swedish National Police Board, is settling scores. Equally conceivably, he is telling it as it is.
Move on a decade, and Lars Johansson from Between Summer's Longing And Winter's End steps into the breach. Now with the Swedish Security Police, SAPO, the name Helena Stein comes across his desk. She has to be given a security clearance before she can assume a senior ministerial role in the government. Stein is found to be linked to the murdered Kjell Eriksson. Further investigation suggests a link to the embassy incident as well. Like a skimming stone, the leaps are made and the stone is not allowed to sink out of sight. With SAPO involved, the investigation becomes unencumbered by police incompetence or corruption. The ingredients are all there to cook up a good political thriller.
Leif GW Persson writes what are called procedural crime novels. They can be slow but never release their grip on the reader's interest. Another Time, Another Life is a tale that spans a quarter of a century which, moving methodically, is not one of those fast moving thrillers of the Jo Nesbo kind. Unlike Nesbo, Perrson complements police procedure with political intrigue.
Much of Swedish crime fiction is social commentary and too often is moulded from a right wing perspective that has a jaundiced view of the welfare state:
The unemployed are the flotsam whereas the true anchors of society are revealed in the form of an old police chief who is described as:
Immigration is a bugbear also:
In a review of the first in the trilogy I expressed the hope that the same players would be retained into the sequels, given the room for further character development. The biggest disappointment in this book is that one of the most intriguing personalities plays no part. This seemed to be a waste of a central character whose exit was like something that flowed mundanely from a bureaucrat's pen. Perhaps it is this character knowledge that prevents me from agreeing with other readers that this is a stand alone work that can be read without reference to the first in the series.
Much of Swedish crime fiction is social commentary and too often is moulded from a right wing perspective that has a jaundiced view of the welfare state:
Suppose one were to take the opportunity to get the trip to the liquor store over with before lunch, to avoid getting varicose veins by standing around half the afternoon along with all the welfare recipients who don’t have anything better to do.
The unemployed are the flotsam whereas the true anchors of society are revealed in the form of an old police chief who is described as:
the one who had ended his life by his own hand and with the help of his service revolver to save society unnecessary nursing expenses and himself an undignified life.
Immigration is a bugbear also:
Do you remember those days … when you could spell the crook’s name? And understand what he said?
In a review of the first in the trilogy I expressed the hope that the same players would be retained into the sequels, given the room for further character development. The biggest disappointment in this book is that one of the most intriguing personalities plays no part. This seemed to be a waste of a central character whose exit was like something that flowed mundanely from a bureaucrat's pen. Perhaps it is this character knowledge that prevents me from agreeing with other readers that this is a stand alone work that can be read without reference to the first in the series.
Perrson's work has been compared to that of James Elroy’s where the US author used a factual event to write a fictional account. The comparison is limited. Elroy is a much more pacey and colourful novelist, writing in a different environ.
Leif GW Persson, 2012, Another Time, Another Life. Vintage, ASIN: B004Y89SCA.
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⏩Follow on Twitter @AnthonyMcIntyre.
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