Innan natten tar oss review

Set in the small town of Skevsta in the early 1970s, this is a multi-layered crime novel in true ‘Scandi-Noir’ style, and yet full of nostalgia for an almost bygone era. The protagonist, Bettan, arrives back in her home town for her father’s funeral, but from there a series of events unfold which will shatter the sleepy community and uncover the ghosts that still haunt the wealthy Palmblad family and its wider circle, proving that the past is never truly dead.

Bettan Hedin, working with the violent crime unit in Stockholm and newly married to Rolf, arrives at her childhood home and is greeted by her bohemian older sister, Karin. But that evening changes the trajectory of her life, as well as that of many other Skevsta residents. Rolf is killed in a tragic accident when his car collides with the minibus carrying nearly half of the town’s football team, including Lars Palmblad and his uncle and team coach, Carl-Henrik Palmblad. But one boy, Tony, is left in a coma. Will he wake up and provide the key to what really happened on that bus?

Joonas, Lars’s friend, discovers the  body of a young man, who turns out to be a journalist, in a ravine in the woods, and a young woman is found frozen beneath the ice in a nearby lake. Bettan and her colleagues set out to discover who they are, why they were there and what connection, if any, they have to recent events.

The story unfolds steadily, with just the right amount of tension, between the 1930s and 70s, with rumours of child cruelty, abuse, unscrupulous business deals and collaboration with the Nazis during WWII; historical acts which lead to present-day tragedies.

Details emerge of a long-standing feud between brothers Carl-Henrik Palmblad, who inherited everything from their father, Johannes, and Wilhelm, who got nothing and only ever wanted his beloved wood, his boyhood refuge from the cruelty at home meted out by his father the town’s revered manufacturer of electrical goods. And then there is Valborg, the boys’ much-loved nanny who sacrificed her own future and happiness to be their protector – but was it ever enough in a time of class deference and things unspoken? Now in a nursing home, what clues does she hold?

Widowed, grieving and unexpectedly pregnant, Bettan takes a temporary job with the local police, and finds herself in the midst of an investigation into the two deaths, despite the local police chief’s eagerness to put them down to misadventure – murders don’t happen in Skevsta. But Bettan is like a dog with a bone and alongside her sidekick Sören she keeps digging, determined to find how the accident and the deaths are connected. 

As we get deeper enmeshed in the story, we learn about the lives of some of those touched by the tragedy. There is Ilse, who survived the persecution of the Jews in Germany and Ulla, who does not know how she will carry on after the loss of her only child, Lars. And there is Joonas, who turns detective to find out what happened to Lars in the months leading up to the accident and who, ultimately, leads Bettan to the perpetrator. 

While Bettan finds refuge in her work, her personal life has been up-ended. With the happy family life she envisaged with Rolf cruelly snatched away, she faces an uncertain future as a single mum. Should she stay in Skevsta with her well-meaning but chaotic sister, and the echoes of an unconventional childhood? Or should she return to Stockholm with a new baby to resume her career there? Readers will be left eager for the next instalment.

The novel perfectly evokes small-town life in the early 1970s, a time almost unrecognisable today, and presents the reader with complex and complete characters which genuinely draw you in; you feel their loss and sorrow, and the ‘if only’s’.

Published to great reviews, fans of Grebe’s previous work will delight in the intrigue of Before the Night Takes Us.