Another Time, Another Life
The Story of a Crime (2)
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- $199.00
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- $199.00
Descripción editorial
In 1975, six young people stormed the West German embassy in Stockholm, taking the entire staff hostage. They demanded the immediate release of members of the Baader- Meinhof group being held as prisoners in West Germany, but twelve hours into the siege, the embassy was blown up, two hostages were dead, and many others were injured, including the captors. Thus begins Leif GW Persson’s Another Time, Another Life.
The story, based on real events linked to the still-unsolved assassination of Swedish prime minister Olof Palme, p icks up in 1989, as the seemingly unrelated stabbing death of a civil servant is investigated by officers Bo Jarnebring and Anna Holt. Under the supervision of their cantankerous, prejudiced, and corrupt superior, Evert Bäckström, the case gets surreptitiously swept under the rug, and the victim is tied to a string of sex-related crimes, despite evidence to the contrary.
Another ten years pass before the confounding truth about the murder victim is unearthed. Just as Lars Martin Johansson, a friend of Jarnebring’s, begins his tenure as the head of the Swedish Security Police, he inherits two files from his predecessor, one of which is on the murder victim—who turns out to have been a collaborator in the 1975 embassy takeover. Revealed now are not only the identities of the other collaborators but also the identity of the murderer: an intelligent, capable lawyer a heartbeat away from the top position in Sweden’s Ministry of Defense. With masterfully interlaced plotlines pulled from the darkest corners of political power and corruption, Another Time, Another Life bristles with wit, insight, and intensity.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The real-life 1975 siege of the West German embassy in Stockholm by six young terrorists drives Persson's ambitious second installment in his crime trilogy focused on Swedish politics (after 2010's Between Summer's Longing and Winter's End). In 1989, inspector Anna Holt and assistant detective Bo Jarnebring investigate a Swedish civil servant's murder, but their corrupt boss thwarts their efforts. In 2000, Lars Johansson, newly appointed to the Swedish Security Police (aka SePo), reopens both cases and uncovers a link. The author's straightforward journalistic approach makes the historical events seem remote and unapproachable, akin to a documentary-style police procedural. But the look at the fictional individual detectives and their fates through the years enriches the story. Good cops continue to be honest; some bad cops get their comeuppance, while other dishonest cops are promoted. In the end, politics trumps justice.
