Years before I started this blog when I was working as a public library cataloguer, a book crossed my desk that caught my eye.  With an adorable little boy on the cover, it immediately piqued my interest.My review of “Shadow”

The blurb from Goodreads:

In a nondescript apartment block in Stockholm, most of the residents are elderly. Usually a death is a sad but straightforward event. But sometimes a resident will die and there are no friends or family to contact. This is when Marianne Folkesson arrives, employed by the state to close up a life with dignity and respect. Gerda Persson has lain dead in her apartment for three days before Marianne is called. When she arrives, she finds the apartment tidy and ordered. Gerda’s life seems to have been quite ordinary. Until Marianne opens the freezer and finds it full of books, neatly stacked and wrapped in clingfilm, a thick layer of ice covering them. They are all by Axel Ragnerfeldt, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, with handwritten dedications to Gerda from the author. What story do these books have to tell, about Gerda, and more importantly about Ragnerfeldt, a man whose fame is without precedent in the nation’s cultural life, but seldom gives interviews?

Then, a few months later, I read another novel by this author that I enjoyed just as well!
Eva, a dynamic, successful young mother, is forced to reassess her marriage when her husband’s apathy can no longer be ignored. Then she discovers he’s been having an affair with her young son’s day-care teacher and her grief and rage drive her into vengeful action. Fatefully, she comes across Jonas, an isolated young man who for the past two years has been keeping vigil beside his obstinately comatose girlfriend. Burdened with his own sinister history of betrayal and his quest for acceptance, he sees a chance to start afresh with Eva. When Jonas and Eva react to redress their wrongs, the combination proves lethal…

Karin Alvtegen is like a Swedish Ruth Rendell!
Coming from me, that is high praise indeed.
I gave both of these stand-alone titles 5 stars!

(Just two of the treasures available at your local library – LOL)

These are psychological Swedish crime thrillers that I highly recommend!

She has several other titles that I have not yet read, but definitely plan to as soon as I get my TBR under control.

Have YOU read anything by Karin Alvtegen?  If so, which one is YOUR favorite?  Folks who like Ruth Rendell, Minette Walters, and the like will adore this author.

Karin Alvtegen, b. 1965, is one of Scandinavia’s most widely read and appreciated authors. She is grandniece of the children’s novelist Astrid Lindgren.  Recognized for her artful characters and psychological thrillers, Alvtegen has with Guilt 1998, Missing 2000, Betrayal 2003, Shame 2005 and Shadow 2007, established herself as a celebrated bestseller worldwide. Translation rights have been sold to 30 countries and each novel has sold several hundred thousands copies. Missing has been made into a praised British mini series for TV, and international producers are in the process of making adaptations of some of her other books.
Alvtegen has recieved a number of literary awards, including The Glass Key for Best Nordic Crime Novel, The Swedish Academy of Crime Writer’s Award for Best Crime Novel of the Year, The Danish Academy of Crime Writer’s Palle Rosenkrantz Award for Best Foreign Crime Novel of the Year. She has also been nominated for two of the most prestigious crime novel’s awards in the world: The CWA International Dagger and The Edgar Allan Poe Award.