Reviews

Staffan Bruun's novel, bearing on its cover the description ‘Burt Kobbat on the hunt for a missing Beatles tape’, should find a ready market in the English-reading world, and not only among lovers of contemporary crime fiction.

Per Wästberg’s biographical novel of one of Carl Linné’s most inscrutable apostles.

Bo Carpelan's impressionistic description of the life of a small boy from infancy to 13 years of age in 1930s Finland.

Contrary to the conventional police drama, Jan Guillou's novel raises more questions than it answers, not only about the guilt or otherwise of those eventually convicted, but also about the destruction of aspects of democracy by the very processes that are supposed to protect it.

The protagonist of Malte Persson's historical novel, like a more solemn and scientifically-inclined Mrs. Dalloway, is surrounded by interesting individuals with stories of their own.

Erik Andersson's novel takes the reader on an odyssey through the province of Västergötland, aptly compared by one character to the Iowa corn belt in the United States.

When is an autobiography a novel? The question is relevant because Enquist’s book won the 2008 August Prize – in the fiction category.

Ellen Matsson's inheritance story is part psychological drama, part minutely-observed social history, part poetry.

Robert Åsbacka's novel on the search for art in everyday life, with characters who are ordinary people appreciative of Beckett’s plays and Baroque organ music.

The second volume in Tim Davys’s planned quartet.

Theodor Kallifatides has given us an affectionate portrait of people who are not afraid of opening their hearts. It is a rare and tender novel.

The past, the sense of its presence, is scattered through the present of Eva Runefelt's poems.

Carina Burman’s witty and thoroughly researched pastiche on Victorian detective stories.

Torbjörn Flygt’s novel inspires admiration for his competence and expertise in handling a complicated narrative.

Åsa Moberg has written a remarkable biography of Nightingale that deals with the many aspects of her impressive work, not only her nursing but also her activities as a major feminist.

Together with Mankell and Nesser, Åke Edwardson represents the best in modern Swedish crime fiction.

Sven Olov Karlsson's chronicle of rural Sweden.

Lise Indahl's first novel for young readers is much more than the ghost story it seems at first to be, as the mysteries that unfold all have their explanations in the concrete world and raise serious questions about social reality in contemporary Sweden.