The third in her series featuring heroine Annika Bengtzon, a reporter on a Swedish newspaper, is The Bomber (Bantam Press, pbk) and this was my introduction to this writer. I found it an entertaining tale.
Marklund has the advantage of having been a journalist, news editor and editor in newspapers and TV, so she accurately portrays the media, their drives, sources, methods and ethical quandaries. This is an intelligent and riveting tale about Annika getting "scoops" covering a bombing at the Olympic Stadium in Stockholm, dealing with jealous colleagues and office politics, and finally herself becoming the target for a deranged killer.
I found myself comparing very favourably Marklund's portrayal of journalism with Patricia Cornwell and Kathy Reichs' detailed book on forensic pathology.
Obviously it helps a fictional plot a great deal when the writer has herself been an expert practising in the particular worlds which are being dramatised!
The ending of the plot was rather predictable but the journey towards it was clever, intriguing and obviously nicely translated into English. I shall have to read her two earlier books: Red Wolf and Exposed.
- Geoff Adams is a former ODT editor.
