A sensation in Sweden, MARKED FOR LIFE by Emelie Schepp,
the first in a trilogy of thrillers about prosecutor Jana
Berzelius, makes its American debut this summer. I'm not
as
familiar with Scandinavian thrillers as many, my only
experience being the Ewert grens series by Roslund-
Hellstrom, and this novel shared many of the
idiosyncrasies
I didn't care for but not the benefits. The synopsis
sounds
enticing and much of the story itself intrigues, but
Schepp
includes far too much extraneous detail of my taste.
A high-ranking member of the immigration board is found
dead in his home. The most peculiar aspect of the murder
scene are a child's fingerprints as the couple has none.
Prosecutor Jana Berzelius, a successful but emotionally
cold woman, leads the investigation. At first she works
with the police, most of them odd and unlikeable, but when
the body of a preteen boy is found on a deserted beach
with
the gun that killed the official, she changes her path.
The boy's body is riddled with track marks, but during
the
autopsy, they also discover letters carved in the back of
the boy's neck. Whether memory or dreams, Berzelius feels
a
pull toward her own past and set out to find out who's
responsible, staying one step ahead of the police. Her
whole career could be in jeopardy.
Schepp's premise is intriguing and the story has numerous
twists and turns, but the plot moved too slowly to easily
keep my attention. Schepp, like Roslund-Hellstrom, uses
different viewpoints as well as flashback to tell her
story. Perhaps the problem is in the translation, but many
of the details don't move the story forward. Also, the
dialog is awkward, and I couldn't find a character to
like
or root for in the bunch of them. I enjoy thrillers, and I
particularly like thrillers with difficult topics at their
core. Out of curiosity, I've read the synopsis of the
sequel, MARKED FOR REVENGE, and it too, sounds intriguing.
Whether or not, I will delve more into this series remains
to be seen.
When a high-ranking head of the migration board is found
shot to death in his living room, there is no shortage of
suspects, including his wife. But no one expects to find the
mysterious child-sized handprint in the childless
home.
Public prosecutor Jana Berzelius steps in
to lead the investigation. Young and brilliant but
emotionally cold, Berzelius, like her famous prosecutor
father, won't be swayed by the hysterical widow or
intimidated by the threatening letters the victim had tried
to hide. Jana is steely, aloof, impenetrable. That is, until
the boy…
A few days later on a nearby deserted
shoreline, the body of a preteen boy is discovered, and
with him, the murder weapon that killed him and the original
victim. Berzelius is drawn more deeply into the case for as
she attends his autopsy, she recognizes something strangely
familiar in his small, scarred, heroin-riddled body. Cut
deep into his flesh are initials that scream child
trafficking and trigger in her a flash of memory of her own
dark, fear-ridden past. Her connection to this boy has been
carved with deliberation and malice that penetrate to her
very core.
Now, to protect her own hidden past,
she must find the suspect behind these murders, before the
police do.
International bestselling author
Emelie Schepp introduces us to the enigmatic, unforgettable
Jana Berzelius in this first novel of a chilling trilogy.
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