The Disappeared

Starred review from January 6, 2014
Credible characters whose heartaches are all too close for comfort populate Ohlsson’s outstanding third Fredrika Bergman crime novel (after 2012’s Silenced). Fredrika, a Stockholm detective who has returned from maternity leave too soon, lives with an emotionally fragile, much older partner, who’s being targeted by a vengeful student. Recently widowed Alex Recht, a colleague of Fredrika’s who became obsessed with the disappearance of Rebecca Trolle two years earlier, must contend with the discovery of Rebecca’s dismembered body. That Rebecca had been investigating a possible snuff film suggests the darkest of motivations for her murder. While the main characters often lapse into self-doubt, self-deprecation, and self-disgust, they never abandon their essential humanity. Alex finds the stirrings of new love with Rebecca’s grieving mother, and Fredrika confronts the reality of life with the aging partner she still loves—fitful glimpses of redemption in Ohlsson’s stark landscape of moral turpitude. Agent: Niclas Salomonsson, Salomonsson Agency (Sweden).