{"id":8591,"date":"2022-02-02T11:55:48","date_gmt":"2022-02-02T11:55:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/?p=8591"},"modified":"2022-02-10T13:34:55","modified_gmt":"2022-02-10T13:34:55","slug":"we-know-you-remember-by-tove-alsterdal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/?p=8591","title":{"rendered":"We Know You Remember by Tove Alsterdal"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Translated by Alice Menzies<\/strong><\/p>\n

Published by Faber 3 February 2022<\/strong><\/p>\n

368pp, hardback, \u00a314.99<\/strong><\/p>\n

Reviewed by Alison Burns<\/strong><\/p>\n

Click here to buy this book<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong>Here\u2019s a treat for lovers of Swedish noir, whether on the screen or on the page.\u00a0 In this satisfyingly intricate thriller, the first of Tove Alsterdal\u2019s five to be translated into English, we follow a newly promoted young female police investigator as she unravels a cats\u2019 cradle of connections linking three crimes across forty years.\u00a0 The rural setting, \u00c5dalen, is home territory for the author as well as for the investigator, intensifying the story\u2019s compulsion.<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Scented wildflowers abound.\u00a0 Escapers from urban life love the peace and fresh air.\u00a0 There are other, longer-term residents, who know a darker side to the dream.\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Detective Eira Sj\u00f6din, 32, has herself returned home from the capital and is living with her mother, who is descending into dementia.\u00a0 There are a lot of daughters in this story.\u00a0 Some are wayward, some na\u00efve, some devoted: many are victims.\u00a0 The first we hear about is Lina.\u00a0 Twenty years ago, she disappeared.\u00a0 Her body was never found, but a 14-year-old boy confessed to her rape and murder.\u00a0 Too young to be convicted, he was sent away.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Memories are revived, old guilts stirred up and secrets long hidden brought to light, some of them extremely close to home.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

This translation by Alice Menzies was first published in the USA in 2021.\u00a0 In 2020, We Know You Remember<\/em> was named Best Swedish Crime Novel of the year and won the Glass Key Award for Best Crime Novel from all the Scandinavian countries. \u00a0Given the atmospheric, layered storytelling and psychological insight of this one, we must hope that translations of Alsterdal\u2019s other novels will soon follow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Alison Burns<\/p>\n

There are a lot of daughters in this story. Some are wayward, some na\u00efve, 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 […] in Reviews<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,19,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8591","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-new-fiction-and-non-fiction","category-notable-books","category-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8591","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8591"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8591\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8603,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8591\/revisions\/8603"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8591"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}