Published 3rd February by Faber & Faber.
From the cover of the book:
Everyone in Ådalen remembers the summer Lina Stavred went missing. At first, the investigation seemed like a dead end: there was no body, no crime scene, no murder weapon.
The records were sealed.
Then a local boy confessed to Lina's murder. The case opened a wound - one the whole community has spent over two decades trying to heal.
But we know you remember.
Now Lina's murderer has reappeared, and detective Eira Sjödin must face the spectre of his brutal crime. This is her chance to untangle years of well-kept secrets - but the truth is something Ådalen would rather forget.
****************
The Summer of 1996 saw Ådalen bear witness to a crime that has etched itself on the memories of the people of Kramfors, Sweden. Sixteen-year-old Lina Stavred went missing, prompting a police investigation that made little headway until a local boy, fourteen-year-old Olaf Hagström, confessed to raping and murdering Lina, after following her into the forest one night. Her body was never found, but everyone in this community remembers who was responsible for her death, and the tragedy remains just below the surface despite happening over two decades ago.
One eerily bright Midsummer's Eve, another murder is discovered - one that reopens old wounds. Olaf Hagström is back in town, and has rather suspiciously found the body of his father dead in their old family home. He claims that he has not seem him since he was sent away as a boy all those years ago, and that he was already dead when he arrived at the house, but once a murderer, always a murderer surely?
Police investigator Eira Sjödin is just old enough to remember that summer when Lina disappeared, and is also back in town, caring for her mother who is slowly being overtaken by dementia. She now finds herself involved in the investigation of the murder of Olaf's father, but Olaf's association with former crimes is clouding the matter and throwing up all sorts of issues among the local residents. To get to the truth Eira is going to have to untangle years of secrets and lies in this small community... nothing is what it seems...
It's no secret that Scandi noir is one of my favourite genres. There is something about the landscape, the swathes of brooding, isolating forests of great parts of Sweden, steeped in ancient folklore, that makes it such a fabulous back drop for a claustrophobic, small-town crime story. And this book, has everything I love about it in one engaging package. I am not about to tell you the plot, which is breath-taking by the way, but I will tell you what marks this book as such an excellent piece of crime writing - the rest you will have to discover for yourself.
Let's start with the setting... a small-town community, a little on its downers with an aging population with very long memories. Something terrible happened in this place and the people here have never recovered from it, even though someone confessed to the crime. You know right from the start that this is a place that holds secrets about what happened back then, and it is going to take some digging on the part of Eira to discover what really went on. The dark and brooding forest has not yet revealed all that it knows...
This is troll country, and Alsterdal makes good use of the fact by seeding the story with descriptive scenes that evoke the feeling that something menacing is trying to pull the characters beneath the surface to their doom, and you with them, as the weight of sins of the past drag them down. The way she uses the elements of earth and water is delicious, using them in both sensuous and sinister manners to elicit just the right feeling at the perfect moment; and the representations of the interplay between light and shade in a literal and metaphorical way is very clever.
There are glimpses of the truth as Eira goes on her journey, which are mirrored beautifully with Alsterdal's repeated use of scenes where locations significant to the investigation are sighted through the trees, or across the water, giving Eira a different perspective on the case as she puts the pieces of the puzzle together too. Very nicely done indeed!
Everything comes together to bring the perfect pitch and pace to a mystery that keeps you spellbound through all the deftly spun twists, turns and revelations, with the kind of magic that blends all the emotions you want to see in a great crime story, with vivid characters who hold your attention; and it draws on the history of this area in a really interesting way weaving themes of collective and personal recollections together exquisitely. I was able to tick off my wish list with a myriad of plotlines around secrets, lies, jealousy, passion, revenge and redemption which kept me very happy indeed, and I loved investigating crime at the side of Eira.
The translation is just right, with odd moments that pull you up in a way to keep you off balance keeping the unsettling mood going throughout, which marks out the translator Alice Menzies as doing a fine job. There is quite a lot in the text about the history of the area, which Alsterdal's native Swedish audience would be familiar with in a way which I wasn't, but a little light Googling was more than enough to fill in any gaps and did not distract me from the overall excellence of the story - and it took me down some intriguing rabbit holes too.
This book kept me turning the pages into the night, and led me to places I did not see coming. It is one of the finest pieces of Scandi noir crime novels I have had the pleasure to enjoy, and I am delighted to find that this is the first part in a new series entitled The High Coast - I await the next instalment with much excitement.
We Know You Remember is available to buy now in hardback, ebook and audio formats from your favourite book retailer.
Thank you to Faber & Faber for sending me a copy of this book in return for an honest review. I have purchased a hardback copy of my 'Boks of 2022' shelf!
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