The plot sounded promising to me because it involved a main character from China, Xin Zhu, who sent his son to Sudan, hoping he would be killed so he could marry his son's wife. Xin Zhu is on borrowed time with the Chinese equivalent of the United States spy service after wiping out an off-the-books unit of deep cover agents.
Milo Weaver, one of handful of survivors from that unit, comes into contact with Xin through fair means, but mainly foul.
There are plenty of twists and turns in the plot to keep you turning the pages wondering who is double-crossing whom.
Particularly enjoyable were the different chapters about the same event, but seen through different eyes. However, overall, many of the characters lacked any depth.
Readers should prepare themselves for lots of back-stabbing - in every possible way - and bloody endings of spies and their families before sighing deeply as the last page disappoints.
Surely it would be better for the author to stand on his or her own merits.
In this case, Easy Money (Macmillan), by Jens Lapidus, does stand on its own as a book worth reading.
It really does plumb the depth's of Sweden's drug trade, the rivalry of the gangs in Stockholm as they each try to carve out a suburb in which to ply their evil trade.
In between the ingenious methods of shipping cocaine around the world, the "hero", JW, is looking for his sister. JW is ambitious well beyond any of his so-called contemporaries. He shamelessly exploits connections at a private school at which he studies to climb the social ladder but becomes truly rich when he stumbles across a chance to shift serious amounts of cocaine.
His path crosses the gangs of Stockholm, particularly the Yugos and the Arabs. At the back of your mind you feel as you read the book that a surprise awaits but this reviewer could not pick it until it stared him straight in the face as the book reached its violent conclusion.
Looking back, you realise that family and coincidences have been at play throughout the book. But then, with a twist, a strange set of coincidences provides an excellent closing to what had been a long journey to publication in English. The book was first published in Swedish in 2006. I suspect the success of Larrson has meant other authors rushing to print to capitalise on his name.
In this case, the book is a worthy read on its own quality.
• Dene Mackenzie is a Dunedin writer.
