Red Wolf by Liza Marklund

Red Wolf: A Novel by Liza Marklund

The blurb:

Drawn into a small underground world of violence, terrorism, and thwarted passion, Swedish crime reporter Annika Bengtzon realizes that she can trust no one and that the dark past is ever present.

In the middle of a freezing winter, a journalist is murdered in a northern Swedish town.  Annika Bengtzon suspects that the killing is linked to a long-ago attack against an isolated air base.  Against the explicit orders of her boss, she investigates the death, which is soon followed by a series of shocking murders. Annika knows the murders are connected and she also comes to know that some very powerful people do not want that connection made.  At the same time, Annika begins to suspect that her husband is hiding something.  And behind everything lurks the figure of the Red Wolf, a cold-blooded killer with the soul of a lover. In the end, Annika is not only compelled to discover the truth behind the murders but also the lies that are destroying her family.

Review:

New York Times bestselling author Liza Marklund has come up with something very different from her recent collaborative work with James Patterson.  In Red Wolf, Marklund has created a Swedish thriller firmly rooted in the its modern political turmoil and geography.  

Her lead character crime reporter Annika Bengtzon struggles with the aftereffects of her traumatic kidnapping by investigating the roots of Swedish terrorism.  But as Annika digs deeper into an attack on an airforce base from the 1970s, she comes in contact with clues from an unusual serial killer.  As the distinctive attacks are shown to have unusual links to radical Socialists from the 1970s, Annika suddenly finds herself in the middle of a greater mystery and in personal danger. 

Red Wolf is an unusual and engrossing Swedish thriller - highly recommended.

ISBN-10: 1451602065 - Hardcover $24.99

Publisher: Atria (February 15, 2011), 400 pages.

Review copy provided by the publisher.