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A review by danubooks
Blaze Me a Sun by Christoffer Carlsson
5.0
“Evil can take root in the smallest of God’s creatures.”
So says Evy Carlén, a retired police officer in a small town in Sweden’s Halland County. As the book opens, Evy is befriended by a writer who grew up nearby but, unlike the other inhabitants of this area, moved away to Stockholm to pursue his dreams. Recently divorced and struggling with writer’s block, he has moved back to his family’s old home and hopes to reset his life. Moth, a childhood nickname which is the only name we are given for the writer (note: “bookworm” in English translates to “book moth” in Swedish), finds himself looking into the events of 1986, when a killer known as Tiarp Man terrorized this small rural area.
The title is taken from a poem by Swedish poet Elsa Grave: “Blaze me a sun tonight/you who shall bring me the dark”, and that duality is found throughout the novel. There are many layers to this story which unfold gradually, but with a tension to the storytelling that kept me intrigued from the start. The reader hears from Moth the facts that he discovers in the present day, but also from Sven Jörgensson, the police officer who discovered the first victim as she lay dying and led the investigation until he retired from policing…and (unofficially) until he died in 1991. Sven’s son Vidal followed in his father’s footsteps, joining the local police force after his father’s retirement, and ultimately found himself obsessed by the same case that had consumed his father. Moth remembers Sven and Vidal from his childhood; Sven was the embodiment of a capable, confident officer of the law, highly respected by all. Vidal, a few year’s Moth’s senior, was a talented athlete and popular young man, seeming to the young Moth to be serene and comfortable in his life. This was a town and a time when everyone knew everyone else’s business, and neighbors lent one another a hand whenever needed. But the events of 1986 changed all that. In one night, not only is the Prime Minister assassinated in the streets of Stockholm, an unimaginable crime in Sweden; it is that same night that the police receive a phone call from a man claiming to have attacked someone, and promises that he will do it again. The area around the small town of Tiarp is stunned by the violence that has come to visit them…and will visit them twice more before the killings stop.
Christoffer Carlsson brings us an outstanding addition to the many Scandinavian mysteries that have been translated into English in recent years. A comparison to Stieg Larsson is inevitable, as well as other talented authors from that part of northern Europe (Peter Høeg, Jo Nesbø, Henning Mankell, etc.), but there is an emphatic quiet to the book that calls to mind novelists like Kent Haruf and Cormac McCarthy. Intriguing yet relatable characters who are neither all good nor completely evil, a mystery methodically unwrapped, and the backdrop of a quieter, simpler time and place that harbors the best and worst that humans offer one another. I wholeheartedly recommend Blaze Me a Sun to anyone who appreciates a story well told.
So says Evy Carlén, a retired police officer in a small town in Sweden’s Halland County. As the book opens, Evy is befriended by a writer who grew up nearby but, unlike the other inhabitants of this area, moved away to Stockholm to pursue his dreams. Recently divorced and struggling with writer’s block, he has moved back to his family’s old home and hopes to reset his life. Moth, a childhood nickname which is the only name we are given for the writer (note: “bookworm” in English translates to “book moth” in Swedish), finds himself looking into the events of 1986, when a killer known as Tiarp Man terrorized this small rural area.
The title is taken from a poem by Swedish poet Elsa Grave: “Blaze me a sun tonight/you who shall bring me the dark”, and that duality is found throughout the novel. There are many layers to this story which unfold gradually, but with a tension to the storytelling that kept me intrigued from the start. The reader hears from Moth the facts that he discovers in the present day, but also from Sven Jörgensson, the police officer who discovered the first victim as she lay dying and led the investigation until he retired from policing…and (unofficially) until he died in 1991. Sven’s son Vidal followed in his father’s footsteps, joining the local police force after his father’s retirement, and ultimately found himself obsessed by the same case that had consumed his father. Moth remembers Sven and Vidal from his childhood; Sven was the embodiment of a capable, confident officer of the law, highly respected by all. Vidal, a few year’s Moth’s senior, was a talented athlete and popular young man, seeming to the young Moth to be serene and comfortable in his life. This was a town and a time when everyone knew everyone else’s business, and neighbors lent one another a hand whenever needed. But the events of 1986 changed all that. In one night, not only is the Prime Minister assassinated in the streets of Stockholm, an unimaginable crime in Sweden; it is that same night that the police receive a phone call from a man claiming to have attacked someone, and promises that he will do it again. The area around the small town of Tiarp is stunned by the violence that has come to visit them…and will visit them twice more before the killings stop.
Christoffer Carlsson brings us an outstanding addition to the many Scandinavian mysteries that have been translated into English in recent years. A comparison to Stieg Larsson is inevitable, as well as other talented authors from that part of northern Europe (Peter Høeg, Jo Nesbø, Henning Mankell, etc.), but there is an emphatic quiet to the book that calls to mind novelists like Kent Haruf and Cormac McCarthy. Intriguing yet relatable characters who are neither all good nor completely evil, a mystery methodically unwrapped, and the backdrop of a quieter, simpler time and place that harbors the best and worst that humans offer one another. I wholeheartedly recommend Blaze Me a Sun to anyone who appreciates a story well told.