In late 1700s Stockholm, a drunken watchman and a dying police detective team up to find the perpetrator of an especially grisly murder in Niklas Natt och Dag's dark debut The Wolf and the Watchman.
Even by the gloomy standards of Scandinavian noir, this one is especially bleak; there are many scenes of torture, murder, and rape played out against a background of the disenfranchised being ground down by the squalor of late-century Stockholm. Brutal and somewhat unrelenting in its depictions of the underbelly of life, I actually felt a little queasy a few times.
But the writing is great, the storytelling vivid, the protagonists compelling.
This was one of the most interesting reads of the year thus far for me, but can be recommended only to discerning readers.
I checked this out from the New Castle-Henry County Public Library in New Castle, Indiana.
Even by the gloomy standards of Scandinavian noir, this one is especially bleak; there are many scenes of torture, murder, and rape played out against a background of the disenfranchised being ground down by the squalor of late-century Stockholm. Brutal and somewhat unrelenting in its depictions of the underbelly of life, I actually felt a little queasy a few times.
But the writing is great, the storytelling vivid, the protagonists compelling.
This was one of the most interesting reads of the year thus far for me, but can be recommended only to discerning readers.
I checked this out from the New Castle-Henry County Public Library in New Castle, Indiana.
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