A widely published author in her native Sweden, Blackwater is Ekman’s first novel translated into English. It won the Swedish Crime Academy’s Award for best crime novel.
The horror, misery and suspicion resulting from an unsolved double murder in the 1970’s are stirred up again when a contemporary crime is committed. Yet this book is so much more than the average thriller. Unrelenting, chilling, psychologically challenging, extraordinarily atmospheric; one reads on with dread.
I had previously read Ekman’s Under the Snow, published much earlier but translated
more recently. Both novels are set in the far north of Sweden near its borders
with Norway and Finland. The cultural mix included the Sami, called ‘Lapps’
as a racial insult. There is constant indecision about language—often, English
becomes the lingua franca. Also, being so far north means much of the lives
of the characters is lived in darkness and almost unbelievable cold. Needless
to say Scandinavian melancholia abounds. If any readers know of other Ekman
books translated into English , please let me know
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Sarah Seeberg