I read a book Dark Angel written by Mari Jungstedt. It was first published in 2008 in Sweden and in 2012 in Great Britain. Mari Jungstedt is a swedish journalist and author. She has written 11 novels and two of them has been filmed for TV. All of her books are about crime fiction and she is said to be one of Scandinavia’s best crime writers’ according to The Times.
The book is a crime novel. I just read another crime novel in Finnish a few months ago and I thought it was great. Comparing it to this book it was nothing. Only the fact that this was written in English made it so much better. The language was much more colourful and interesting, although it was sometimes a bit hard to understand. The story really concentrated on the theme. There was nothing that could have been removed because of it didn’t fit the theme.
There were many main characters in the book. In the beginning the connection between them was unclear. First, there was of course the inspector, Knutas, who tries to solve the murder in question. In the middle of investigation he notices some problems in his own family, that are similar to families he questions. Then, there is a journalist called Johan who reports every move of the investigation, but he isn’t said to have any special connection to Knutas or anyone else. Then there is one unknown man. His story is told from his childhood to adulthood, but I had no clue who he might be. I compared him to every man there was, but he couldn’t be anyone of them. The real victim and her children were of course a crucial part, but they were involved in only about half of the story. She was the mistress of the man who died by accident instead of her.
The plot was a bit complicated. First a wrong person died and the police followed wrong clues. Then one person committed suicide and finally the murderer succeeded to kill the person he was already tried a couple of times. The police had many suspects, but none of them really was capable of murder. The ending was a bit surprising. I had a suspect myself and I was sure it would be him. But I was wrong. I would never have guessed the real murderer.
In my opinion the narration was great. The unknown man told his own story so his personality wouldn’t reveal. Otherwise there was an omniscient narrator. It brought variety while reading. Although i first hated that there was two narrators, but it was still exciting to wait when I would find out who the mystery man is.
I really liked the book. First, when I started I was a bit confused about all the characters and because I didn’t know who the one man was. But when I made progress in the book I realised more and more. Now when I think about it, I wouldn’t even have wanted to know anymore in the beginning. It would probably have ruined the whole reading experience and the surprises. As i already said, I preferred reading in English than in Finnish. I thought it would be more difficult than it really was. I even had a feeling I never want to read in Finnish again, because the language just isn’t as interesting as in books written in English. In conclusion, the book was magnificent. I can recommend it to everyone.