The Hypnotist / Lars Kepler

The latest sensation in the seemingly unending Swedish crime-thriller juggernaut comes in the form of Lars Kepler, a pseudonym for a husband-wife writing team (the new Sjöwall and Wahlöö?). Their debut novel is called The Hypnotist, a nearly 500-page roller-coaster ride that never stops delivering the thrills. When a doctor is asked to hypnotize a crime victim to find out information about the perpetrator, his revelations cause all hell to break loose.

There is violence aplenty within the pages of this book (it makes me shudder to look at the cover image) and there are a couple criminal monsters who seem to have been created in the same mold as Hannibal Lecter, so this book is definitely not for the faint of heart.

In spite of some instances of unexpected switches of narrator, the story flows quite well and there is a good sense of place— most notably Stockholm around Christmas time with lots of glögg, saffron buns, and advent stars in windows.

I like the character of finlandssvensk police detective Joona Linna, though some of his mannerisms and dialectal idiosyncrasies are probably lost in translation. And you get the notion that Finnish and Ume Sami are one and the same, or else Joona has a remarkable linguistic background—it isn’t explained (Ume Sami apparently only has a handful of speakers left).

This is the first novel in a planned eight-book series. If you were disappointed that the Millennium series stopped before it really got started, then stick around for Lars Kepler’s forthcoming titles. The second book Paganinikontraktet has already been published to good reviews in Sweden, so I’m sure we can expect a translation rather soon.

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Here we are / Graham Swift

This short novel offers a nostalgic look at England in the 1940s and 1950s. Evie, having just lost her husband after a long marriage, looks back at the fateful summer when they met up at the pleasure palace at the end of the Brighton pier. Evie was meant to marry someone else, Ronnie Doane, aka “The Great Pablo,” a magician whose talents really pull in the crowds in the days before television kept people in their front rooms (and to whom she serves as the feather-plumed magician’s assistant). The novel tells of Ronnie’s back story as a London child war evacuee, whose second family in Oxford is so nurturing and loving that he is conflicted about going back to his real home when the war is over. But Evie marries Jack instead and is ghosted (quite literally) by Ronnie even in her final years of life. A wonderful story about people and relationships.

Addie Pray / Joe David Brown (more recently published as Paper Moon ) Click here to check for availability at AFPLS This 1971 novel was the inspiration for the Peter Bogdanovich movie Paper Moon . Eleven-year-old Addie and her maybe-father “Long Boy” Moses Pray crisscross the Deep South “ramifying” (scamming) people during the Great Depression. Addie’s street smarts and perceived girlish innocence, along with Long Boy’s cleverness and shrewd business acumen build their operation until they are dealing in millions. The movie remained pretty true to the first half of the book (though it moved the location from Alabama to Kansas), but the adventures continue far beyond where the movie left off. The decades haven’t dimmed the magic of this rollicking adventure, either in the film or the book. ©Ken Vesey, 17 June 2010

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie / Alan Bradley

Pippi Longstocking meets Miss Marple in the character of precocious 11-year-old Flavia de Luce, the youngest of three daughters in a once well-to-do family in early 1950s rural England. This first mystery in an intended series finds Flavia beating the local police inspector at his own game in solving the mystery surrounding the murder of an old school mate of her father's in their back garden (in the cucumber patch no less). Clues include a bird indigenous to Norway, a rare stamp, and a bit of flaky pie crust. This nostalgic and innocent whodunnit will have you at the edge of your seat by its suspenseful climax. I can see BBC/PBS picking up on the popularity of this charming mystery. The second in the series has already been published and the third is soon to follow. And by the way, here's a great library quote from Flavia on page 50: "... it occurred to me that Heaven must be a place where the library is open twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. No

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