The Swimmer

December 1, 2014
Swedish author Zander’s entertaining first novel owes more to Forsythe and Ludlum than to Larsson and Mankell. An unnamed narrator, who is a retired spy living in Virginia, addresses his late wife in his mind, telling her a convoluted tale that begins with her death and continues across the world over the next 33 years. Meanwhile, Mahmoud Shammosh, who’s in a Ph.D. program at Uppsala University, is working on a book about the privatization of war when he hears from an old friend who has information proving that the CIA and private contractors used torture on captured terrorists. Shammosh ends up with the info and goes on the run with his former lover, Klara Walldéen, an E.U. parliament aide. Given Zander’s literate, descriptive style, it’s easy to see why this thriller has been a bestseller in Europe, though American readers may find it overlong in arriving at the inevitable conclusion. Agents: Astri von Arbin Ahlander and Christine Edhäll, Ahlander Agency (Sweden).

September 1, 2014

Abandoned by her CIA agent father and raised by her grandparents on an archipelago in the Baltic Sea, EU Parliament aide Klara Walldeen has seen something on a laptop she shouldn't, and she's on the run for her life--with her father trying finally to do right by protecting her. A best seller in the author's Sweden, with rights sold to 28 territories to date; that explains the 150,000-copy first printing.

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 15, 2015

Billed as Homeland meets Stieg Larsson and already an international best seller, this Swedish thriller from debut author Zander lives up to the hype. Klara Walldeen was raised by her grandparents on a remote archipelago in the Baltic Sea and is now an EU Parliament aide in Brussels. Ex-boyfriend Mahmoud, a graduate student writing his dissertation on the privatization of war, arrives in Brussels to give a presentation and then reaches out to Klara when he ends up in a dangerous situation. They're soon tracking down a laptop full of classified information and being chased across Europe by someone intent on killing them. Meanwhile, an American spy finds his past catching up with him and tries to make it right by helping Klara. Back in Sweden, truths finally begin to emerge after a brutal convergence of the hunters and the hunted. VERDICT The chapters alternate between different and not always named characters and jumps from one decade and locale to another, which makes the novel's beginning both intriguing and disorienting. Despite the potential for some initial confusion, the book rewards with a suspenseful story of international espionage and political misdeeds. [See Prepub Alert, 8/11/14; library marketing.]--Melissa DeWild, Kent District Lib., Comstock Park, MI

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.