Translated by Michael Meigs — Most people associate Swedish author John Ajvide Lindqvist with horror, but he’s finally taken a leap into the world of crime fiction. Our only question is: why didn’t he do it sooner? The writing in the Water is the first of his Bloodstorm series to be translated into English. It’s an entertaining procedural with a fresh take on journalist and hacker characters like those in Stieg Larsson’s Millennium novels. It shouldn’t work, yet it weirdly does.
It’s Midsummer Eve, 2019, and millionaire businessman Olof Helander, his wife, Gabriella, and their four overseas guests are brutally gunned down at their luxury home on a private island. The assailants are two masked gunmen who attack from a boat. Astrid Helander, their 14-year-old daughter, scrambles for cover at the last minute and escapes.
Writer Julia Malmros, 58, is hiding out at her summerhouse on the nearby island of Tärnö. She has spent the past few months writing the next book in the Millennium series after she was commissioned to take over from David Lagercrantz, the writer who continued with Larsson’s series. This is a slightly metafictional trip as Swedish author Karin Smirnoff actually now has the Millennium gig, but we’ll roll with it… Having written four novels about Detective Superintendent Åsa Fors, Julia has achieved some fame and a Millennium novel would catapult her to the next level.
However, her agent delivers some crushing news: the plot needs a complete rewrite. Maybe she could just change the characters around a bit?
During her research, Julia met Kim Ribbing, a white hat hacker who exposes security weaknesses in company systems. Kim is an immediate outlier. With pitch-black hair down to his waist, pale skin and striking blue eyes, he looks like a classic metalhead – until you notice the cartoon character on his black turtleneck. This socially awkward genius, reminiscent of Lisbeth Salander, of course, begins a casual affair with Julia, which gradually settles into an unconventional relationship.
Julia has known Olof Helander since childhood and, hearing the shots fired at his home, she and Kim rush to the scene. They arrive just as the perps speed off, but Kim manages to rescue Astrid from beneath the nearby jetty. Given the nature of the attack, it’s clear this was a professional hit.
With 20 years in the police behind her, Julia is drawn to the case now that the plug has been pulled on her Millennium project. However, there’s a major complication: the lead detective is her ex-husband, Jonny Munther. He handles the investigation alongside his younger partner of three years, Inspector Carmen Sanchez.
When the police and the Julia-Kim duo start digging, they quickly find connections reaching Norway and even as far as China. Around the same time, the body of a Swedish marine biologist working turns up in a trawler’s net. Coincidence? Probably not, considering Helander’s oil involvement, his close relationships with big players in China and the EU, and the payment from famous Norwegian industrialist Frode Moe to a business co-owned by Helander and the murdered guest, Chen Bao.
The plot in The Writing in the Water is less compelling than the characters themselves, particularly regarding how deeply Lindqvist engages in meta commentary by using chargers that parallel Lisbeth Salander and Mikael Blomkvist. Setting aside the reference to Julia’s failed book, the dynamics and characteristics of Julia and Kim are remarkably similar to Stieg Larsson’s, essentially presenting the original duo with reversed genders.
Like Salander, Kim endured a traumatic childhood that included sadistic physical abuse, first by his grandfather and later at a psychiatric institution where he was confined following his parents’ tragic deaths. When Astrid is placed in the care of the same man who once abused Kim, he rushes to her defence, seeing a reflection of himself in the young girl. Kim’s quest to take revenge on Martin Rudbeck, the doctor who abused him, forms a secondary narrative.
Just like Salander, Kim is financially set – he inherited millions and couldn’t care less about material things. Even with these obvious similarities to Larsson’s characters, Lindqvist pulls off a fresh story with characters you want to stick with. His writing style is arguably more enjoyable than Larsson’s, and despite the novel’s length at nearly 500 pages, the narrative never feels unnecessarily slow or drawn out.
Since this is the first in a series, I’m already looking forward to book two, The Room in the Ground, in July. It’s not exactly original, but is a great read, striking a near-perfect balance of action, humour and compelling character development.
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CFL Rating: 4 Stars
