Translated by Alice Menzies
Published by Faber 3 February 2022
368pp, hardback, £14.99
Reviewed by Alison Burns
Here’s a treat for lovers of Swedish noir, whether on the screen or on the page. In this satisfyingly intricate thriller, the first of Tove Alsterdal’s five to be translated into English, we follow a newly promoted young female police investigator as she unravels a cats’ cradle of connections linking three crimes across forty years. The rural setting, Ådalen, is home territory for the author as well as for the investigator, intensifying the story’s compulsion.
A powerful opening chapter sets the scene, as a delivery-car driver takes a detour to revisit his childhood home in old logging country north of Stockholm. He finds the dead body of his father, a discovery that triggers a slow cascade of revelations about local families and their secrets. This is forested river-valley terrain, full of abandoned buildings but also home to apparently idyllic settlements. Scented wildflowers abound. Escapers from urban life love the peace and fresh air. There are other, longer-term residents, who know a darker side to the dream.
Detective Eira Sjödin, 32, has herself returned home from the capital and is living with her mother, who is descending into dementia. There are a lot of daughters in this story. Some are wayward, some naïve, some devoted: many are victims. The first we hear about is Lina. Twenty years ago, she disappeared. Her body was never found, but a 14-year-old boy confessed to her rape and murder. Too young to be convicted, he was sent away. What Eira learns about the neighbourhood, the place where she grew up, leads her to make connections between the cases where others might not have done. Memories are revived, old guilts stirred up and secrets long hidden brought to light, some of them extremely close to home. As suspicion falls on one person after another, Eira works her way through painful case material redolent of long-lost childhood summers and narrows the search until all three perpetrators are revealed.
This translation by Alice Menzies was first published in the USA in 2021. In 2020, We Know You Remember was named Best Swedish Crime Novel of the year and won the Glass Key Award for Best Crime Novel from all the Scandinavian countries. Given the atmospheric, layered storytelling and psychological insight of this one, we must hope that translations of Alsterdal’s other novels will soon follow.