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A little piece of paradise. This is how August viewed his new place on earth.
from: Die Tote im Sturm
(eigene Übersetzung)
no English translation so far!
A Paradise Filled with Violence and Secrets
August Strindberg is a dropout. He worked successfully as an asset manager in Stockholm, had a long lasting relationship with a woman and lived on the bright side of life. Then suddenly … the relationship broke down, his partner started a new life … his parents died … he was mid-forties … mid-life crisis?
August decided to restart … somewhere … a nice little village on Sweden’s western coast filled with memories of early childhood holidays seemed invitingly. No sooner say than done. He quit his life in Stockholm, rented a house at the coast, bought another house for his second-hand shop and moved. His new life evolved out of nothing to a nice new adventure …
However, also in a small village there is crime.
From the start August is amid crime although without knowing about the scenery. The house he rented for living hides a gruesome event from the past, about 30 years ago. A woman was murdered and dismembered, her remains hidden in the cellar of August’s new home.
A woman of the neighborhood disappears soon after August settled in and his new shop which was a funeral parlor before gets into focus. Then there is a fire which unfortunately destroys August’s boat house – a collateral damage because the fire was set in the neighboring boathouse to destroy fatal evidence of a far-reaching crime going back some decades.
Finally a corpse is found, a corpse nobody knows about in August’s village … as it seems at first glance. However, suddenly an old case is raked up, a case which seems solved and buried, but there might have been a miscarriage of justice. Somehow August is always involved …
All crimes seem to be family affairs at the end. There are big families at the coast and many interdependencies among them and their family members. To be silent about some injustice, some crime is commonplace decades ago when families or patriarchs tried to bury anything that might chip away on the reputation of the clan like e. g. incest. So there is always a lot to be investigated when suddenly a new crime happens or a cold case is shaked up. August learns a lot about his neighbors and the dynamics of a small village when he mingles with crime and victims.
Although a single when arriving in his new homeland many a woman around thinks he’s handsome and starts fawning on him. However, rather soon August finds a new love, however, his better half is unfortunately unhappily married to a jealous and violent husband … this will make another episode of brutality and attacks along August’s search for solving a murder cases. At the end they finally live together happily ever after.
By the way his August’s new partner Maria is a police detective mainly concerned with all the missing and murder cases happening along the coast. She is a brilliant detective with extraordinary skills in investigating as well as knowledge about anybody around. So any incident is in good hands with August and Maria.
The life in this small village and its neighborhood is quiet and lovely, no stress at all. When reading about it you’ll wish you were there – at least for some long weeks in summer. The dark side is very dark and violent – there are many psychic abysses where you may get lost. Even if the surface is smooth and amiable people are as cruel as anywhere when their personal life, their success, their reputation is challenged. August and Maria won’t get out-of-work.