Between Summer’s Longing and Winter’s End Leif G W Persson

Between Summer’s Longing and Winter’s End Leif G W Persson

Overview:

Between Summer's Longing and Winter's End is sub-titled: The Story of a Crime, and that crime is one of the most notorious in Swedish history, the still unresolved Palmemordet -- the 28 February 1986 assassination of then prime minister Olof Palme. The story does lead up to the assassination, but the death at the center of the novel is a different one, the suicide -- or murder -- of a visiting American journalist named John P. Krassner. The novel begins with the young journalist's death -- he falls from the student dormitory apartment he had been living in -- and then fills in the gaps of all the events leading up to that, continuing then to that second death, of the prime minister.

Two very different state institutions -- the police and the Swedish secret police -- have very different agendas here, and the novel follows a large number of actors from both as they try to variously cover and uncover the tracks leading to Kraussner's death. It turns out the secret police were interested in Kraussner before his death, and while the police who investigate the death pretty quickly write it off, more or less, as a suicide, the case does come to the attention of police superintendent -- and head of the National Bureau of Criminal Investigation (a sort of Swedish FBI -- while the secret police is more CIA) -- Lars Martin Johansson and he keeps digging around until he has put together many of the pieces.

Between Summer's Longing and Winter's End is a large-scale conspiracy novel, and an indictment of the secret police in particular. The regular police here are, at worst, incompetent; the secret police are often downright evil and dangerous. They create false enemies to keep their funding coming: the Kurds here are the popular enemy-of-choice, and despite inconveniently usually only killing each other are presented as posing a much greater threat.

It’s a dark novel and a dark journey which not only seems very realistic but also masterfully recreates the blanket of uncertainty, the multiple ways insights get lost in huge and complex organizational environments where most actors have their own agendas. Fortunately there is also sarcasm, black satire, dark humor, mind boggling insights, and dialogues that make you laugh out loud. It is a wonderful novel, a riveting anti-procedure police procedural, a psychological drama, and an adventurous journey into a murky landscape we can perhaps only hope doesn’t exist but most likely does.

ENJOYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!

Sincerelyours

And Blessed Are The Ones Who Care For Their Fellow Men!