The dead

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The dead said is a crime novel by the Swedish writer Camilla Läckberg . The original edition of Olycksfågeln was published by Forum in Stockholm in 2006 ; the German translation was published in 2009 by Ullstein Verlag . The novel is about the search for a serial killer in a small community that is currently receiving increased media attention through a reality show.

action

Patrik Hedström from the Tanum Police , whose wedding to the crime writer Erica Falck is planned for the Saturday before Pentecost , investigates a car accident with his new colleague Hanna Kruse. At the same time the mayor Erling W. Larson presented his council after the model of Big Brother conceived reality show Get out of Tanum he wants to move the place in spite of all moral concerns at the center of media attention, with the. Erica not only has to look after her own little daughter Maja and the children of her sick sister Anna, she also has to prepare the wedding at the same time. The police chief Bertil Mellberg falls in love with his new girlfriend Rose-Marie.

The accident victim Marit Kaspersen is heavily drunk and has serious injuries to the mouth. Shortly before her death, there was an argument with her lesbian partner Kerstin. Kerstin swears to Patrik and his colleague Martin Molin that Marit never drank alcohol. Marit lived separately from her husband Ola and her 15-year-old daughter Sofie, who knew about her mother's sexual orientation, visited the two women regularly. Kerstin reports threatening letters and nasty calls. Ola, who lives in Fjällbacka and claims Sofie for himself, openly shows his hatred of lesbians. Anna is well again after a long walk with her boyfriend Dan and supports her sister in the arduous wedding preparations.

The producer Frederik Rehn assures that Raus aus Tanum will be a great success. The participants have to work part-time jobs and are psychologically looked after by Hanna's husband Lars. Lillemor Persson especially likes to take advantage of this help. The participant, who mutated from foster child to sex bomb Barbie, receives more public attention than would-be pop star Tina or Jonna, who suffers from self-harming behavior . During a disco there is a heated argument, which Hanna and Martin watch, and the next morning Lillemor is found murdered in a garbage can. The show continues, but the investigation is stalling. When Tina passes a diary to the press in which Lillemor describes how she recognized a man, the police cause great unrest when Tanum is out of town .

Previously, Patrik had already tracked down a case in Borås based on old notes from a conference in Halmstad that is similar to the murder of Marit. Rasmus Olsson is said to have jumped off a bridge intoxicated, although he had been abstinent since a traffic accident. Both Marit and Rasmus found a page torn from the fairy tale book Hansel and Gretel . A request to other police departments reveals two further murders in Lund and Nyköping , which also have parallels. Börje Knudsen, the victim from Lund, was a convicted alcoholic who supposedly drunk himself to death. Elsa Forsell, the victim from Nyköping, had a normal attitude towards alcohol. She had asked for forgiveness from the Catholic priest Silvio Mancini, but the confessional secret initially prevented further revelations. With the help of a librarian, Patrik finds that the sorting of the pages from Hansel and Gretel corresponds to the order of the murders. In the second place, however, a leaf is missing, so there must be another victim.

Sofie provides a crucial clue with an old newspaper article. Thus, her mother was twenty years ago in the influence of alcohol in a traffic accident with fatal consequences involved. It turns out that the other murder victims also once caused fatal car accidents under the influence of alcohol. Rasmus's co-driver died, Börje's a five-year-old girl and Elsa drove someone to death in Uddevalla . The serial killer's crime scenes are widely scattered, which is why the Tanum police are at a loss until their colleagues from Ortboda belatedly report another case. Jan-Olov Persson ran over a young couple and then became abstinent. He is the father of Lillemor, who recognized the murderer before she died. The actually work-shy Gösta Flygare discovers the name Sigrid Jansson on a page from the fairy tale book. She is the victim of Elsa's accident and had two strange children with her who survived.

After Patrik sent Hanna home, who was not feeling well, Gösta remembers Hedda Kjellander, who lives on Kalvö , who reported a long time ago that her two children had drowned, which not everyone believed at the time. Patrik and Gösta visit the alcoholic in their completely neglected house, where she talks about a fine lady who took her children away from her. Back at the station, Gösta discovers that the name Tore Sjöqvist has been deleted from Tollarp on a list of Galgo Español dog owners whose hair had been found on Lillemor's body . Patrik recognizes on the map that the crime scenes are near Hanna's offices, and Martin has discovered that Hanna phoned Lars on the disco night at three o'clock. Hanna and Lars are Hedda's missing twins, who were locked up by Sigrid. Lars provoked the argument when he got out of Tanum to kill Lillemor. Since Hanna has learned of the new findings, Patrik, Martin and Gösta rush to Kalvö, but Lars and Hanna have already killed Hedda with alcohol. On the way to the boat, the siblings tell us that Sigrid read them from Hansel and Gretel . Finally they shoot each other in the boat.

Nothing stands in the way of Patrik and Erica's wedding. Meanwhile, Mellberg discovers that Rose-Marie, for whom he bought an apartment, is a fraud. When Patrik and Erica are looking for memories of Erica's mother in the attic after their wedding, they discover, in addition to children's drawings, a swastika medal wrapped in a bloody children's shirt .

background

The protagonists Patrik Hedström and Erica Falck already played the leading roles in Läckberg's earlier novels. The private stories that are told in parallel with the police investigations develop over the course of the novels. The murderer remembers his childhood in italicized texts. The name of the reality show Raus aus Tanum ( called Fucking Tanum in the Swedish original ) is based on the title of the Swedish youth film Raus aus Åmål , which is explicitly mentioned in Läckberg's novel.

Reviews

Bernd Neumann from krimi-couch.de praises the “tension kept at a high level”. The author succeeds in linking the complex storylines “ever closer together and yet leaving us as readers in the dark for a long time”. He also positively mentions the italic texts and the social criticism based on the reality show. Silke Schröder from hallo-buch.de sees in the novel, despite the seemingly constructed ending, “another piece of jewelery from the crime-loving Sweden. It also ends with a promising cliffhanger that gives us hope for further exciting cases. "

Judith Hammer from the cover culture magazine recognizes familiar patterns in the novel, which in her opinion is more like "reading for the evening, not for the literary circle", with Läckberg offering "insights into current topics from borderline syndrome to talent shows". Katja Perret from schwedenkrimi.de also mentions that the crime thriller "points to interpersonal and psychological abysses", who misses the tension because "one can deduce the murderer a little too early". Barbara Allebrodt from the Westfälische Rundschau also has this idea; nevertheless it is an "exciting story with many nuances, told in a simple, clear language".

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Reading sample at vorablesen.de ( Memento of the original from December 11, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF, 391 kB)  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.vorablesen.de
  2. ↑ Bernd Neumann: The dead said . krimi-couch.de, July 2009, accessed on November 24, 2009 .
  3. ↑ Inga Busch: Camilla Läckberg: The dead said. hallo-buch.de, April 14, 2009, accessed November 24, 2009 .
  4. ↑ Judith Hammer: News from the crime spaceship . Cover culture magazine , June 27, 2009, accessed on July 25, 2018.
  5. ↑ Katja Perret: "Hansel and Gretel got lost in the forest ..." schwedenkrimi.de, May 2009, accessed on November 24, 2009 .
  6. ↑ Barbara Allebrodt: Terrible deaths in the Swedish town. Westfälische Rundschau, June 17, 2009, accessed on July 1, 2015 .