The author said, "My books deal with life and death, and good and evil. Most Scandinavian crime novels are deeply rooted in a grey kind of realism, almost naturalism. I wanted to change that and bring some magic to the genre...it was also a way for me to put my own stamp on this kind of book as there are so many out there; I wanted my story to be different in an interesting and artistically relevant way. My books are deeply rooted in a dramatic tradition which has its roots in Greek drama. The dead voices in my stories are like the chorus in Greek drama, moving the story along and commenting on it. My style of writing is...literary and poetical."
Midwinter Sacrifice (2011) aka Midwinter Blood is the first book in a Scandinavian police detective series featuring a female heroine and her team. Malin Fors is talented, troubled, with a sixth sense for the truth. Early one morning in the coldest winter in Swedish memory, police detective and single mother Malin Fors is called away from the warm flat she shares with her teenage daughter, Tove. The naked body of an obese man has been found hanging from an oak tree on the most fertile plain outside the town of Linkoping. Initial investigations indicate that it could be an ancient heathen practice of the Great Midwinter Sacrifice where human offerings are made to the gods in exchange for happiness or as penance. From the outset, Malin is confronted with a host of unanswered question: Who is the dead man? How did he end up in a tree? And where did the strange wounds on his body come from?
This is a promising book to kick-start a new four-part Scandinavian crime series by an author who has a distinct voice and a unique way of writing and of putting his story across to his readers. There is a good number of major and minor characters which lends the story its intensity, pace and drama and unusually or, not as unusual as we think, the hung murder victim is given a prominent role throughout the story with his very analytical and revealing albeit sorrowful narrative.
Inasmuch as it is a police procedural, there are also elements of moral psychology and philosophy in the characters' thoughts and actions - especially Malin Fors and the murder victim's - where their innermost thoughts are played out, thought by thought, both on mundane things - for example, in Malin's case, when she reluctantly goes to her father's apartment to water his precious plants - and in their pursuit of a dangerous killer where the weather is as much a hindrance to them as the red herrings they are thrown up against in their investigation.
The strength of the story is in its realistic dialogue and the challenging social issues faced by the old, the young as well as the rejects or pariahs in today's downtrodden societies. In short, this is a very well-written part-police and part-psychological debut set in Linkoping, a city in southern middle Sweden, a complex yet thought-provoking piece of fiction which contains some home truths. Mons Kallentoft is one of the most discerning new authors to emerge in 2012 and I shall look forward to Malin's next case called Summertime Death (10 May 2012), which is now available in paperback and as an eBook, as well as to the third book, Autumn Sonata, which will become available from 25 October 2012 onwards.
Without fail, the translator has done a superb job in bringing out the little nuances in his excellent translation and I have come to regard Neil Smith as a master translator of Swedish novels. He has a deep understanding of the language.
About the author: Mons Kallentoft grew up in the provincial town of Linkoping, Sweden, where the Malin Fors series is set. The series is a massive European bestseller and has been translated into over twenty languages. Before becoming a novelist, Mons worked in journalism; he is also a renowned food critic. He spends every summer in San Sebastian in the Basque region of Spain for its food culture, sophisticated cuisine and endless discussions about gastronomy. His debut novel, Pesetas (paperback, 2011), was awarded the Catapult Prize, the Swedish equivalent of the COSTA First Novel Award. Mons has been married to Karolina for over 20 years, and they live in Stockholm with their daughter and son.
Midwinter Sacrifice is translated from the Swedish into the English by Neil Smith. Neil Smith studied Scandinavian Studies at University College London, and lived in Stockholm for several years. He now lives in Norfolk.
Here is Mons Kallentoft with his introduction to Midvinterblod:
Rating: 5/5
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