Geiger by Gustaf Skördeman

 

A landline rings, just as Agneta Broman, the wife of Stellan Broman, a post-war Swedish TV celebrity who the Swedish viewing public saw as an “uncle” to the nation, is waving her grandchildren goodbye. She answers the phone only to hear one word: “Geiger”. She immediately digs out a gun she’d kept hidden for years, shoots her husband dead, and disappears.

So starts this absolutely brilliant Swedish crime/espionage thriller.

Sara Novak is a vice cop who grew up a friend of the Broman’s daughters, Lotta and Malin. She was always the poor friend, her mother the Broman’s housekeeper, and as the narrative continues we learn the Broman daughters bullied her somewhat. She’s drawn into the investigation and it soon becomes an obsession. 

The police only know that Stellan is dead, and Agneta is missing, and are unaware that she was the one who murdered her husband. But as the bodies pile up and things point to a motive linked to the cold war and the conflict between the Communist East and that Capitalist West, it isn’t long before a nest of international intrigue is discovered.

The publishers billed Geiger as the most gripping debut since I Am Pilgrim, and I have to say I thought the analogy was apt. This is an ambitious thriller, encompassing big themes, not least, the Cold War and its legacy, establishment sex rings and cover-ups. Sara is an interesting protagonist, while Agneta makes for a brilliant antagonist, reminiscent of the anonymous English assassin in Frederick Forsyth’s The Day of the Jackal. In both novels the police and protagonist are unaware of the identity of who they are after until near the end, and this is a device which works as well in Geiger as it did in Forsyth’s classic.

At the time of writing this review, Geiger is my book of 2021. There’s still a good few months to go, so other titles might well surpass it, though I suspect even if this were to happen Geiger would remain a close contender. Either way, this is a brilliant novel and highly recommended. 

Bullet Train by Kotaro Isaka

 

Korean movie-makers have a long history of producing wacky, violent thrillers - Oldboy and Sympathy for Lady Vengeance being the most obvious examples; their horror movies, too, are renowned, such as the zombies-on-a-train fest which is Train to Busan. But in narrative fiction, too, Korean writers often produce works which are similar; The Plotters by Un-Su Kim, is a notable example. Japanese cinema and narrative fiction has its own tradition of such off-beat mayhem, albeit not as well known as Korea’s. But Kotaro Isaka’s barmy novel, Bullet Train, which is being made into a movie, might well bring the country out of its neighbour’s shadow.

The description on the dust jacket reads: “Satoshi looks like an innocent schoolboy but he is really a viciously cunning psychopath. Kimura's young son is in a coma thanks to him, and Kimura has tracked him onto the bullet train heading from Tokyo to Morioka to exact his revenge. But Kimura soon discovers that they are not the only dangerous passengers onboard. Nanao, the self-proclaimed 'unluckiest assassin in the world', and the deadly partnership of Tangerine and Lemon are also travelling to Morioka. A suitcase full of money leads others to show their hands. Why are they all on the same train, and who will get off alive at the last station?”

But this gives only a taste of the mayhem that is to follow. Bullet Train builds the tension slowly but surely from the first page. It isn’t non-stop action, and neither are the gangsters and assassins mentioned on the dust jacket the only ones on the train, or the only ones to feature in the narrative; soon it feels like every passenger and member of the crew is out to kill someone else. That said, the characters mentioned are the main protagonists, and the author takes the time to flesh them out. My favourites are Tangerine and Lemon, a duo who bicker amongst themselves like an old married couple. 

But it’s Satoshi who steals the show. Frankly, I haven’t read a more chilling character since Hannibal Lecter in Red Dragon and The Silence of the Lambs. In this schoolboy, the author constructs a true psychopath, far worse than many of the schlock versions in your average slasher movie, and I imagine far more realistic too.

Bullet Train is a brilliant novel and is wonderfully cinematic. It reads like a story set for the big screen, so I wasn't surprised to learn an adaptation was in the works. I’ll definitely keep an eye out for anything else written by this author.

Seat 7a by Sebastian Fitzek

 

Mats Krüger is a German psychiatrist living in Argentina. Despite treating phobias and other psychological conditions in his professional life, he ironically suffers from aerophobia, an irrational fear of flying. Mats is estranged from his daughter, Nele, after running out on his wife on her death bed and having an affair. Nele is heavily pregnant and Mats is intent on flying back to Germany to be with her at the birth, with the hope of patching things up. But when she books a taxi to take her to hospital for a caesarean, Nele is kidnapped and taken to a derelict dairy. There her kidnapper ties her up and points a live video camera at her. He rants about the cruelty of the dairy industry and what misery cows have to live through. Meanwhile, a mystery caller contacts Mats on board the now airborne flight and orders him to psychologically destroy an old patient of his, who works as a flight attendant on the plane. The caller wants the woman to become psychotic and homicidal and cause the plane to crash, killing all onboard. The caller tells Mats that if he fails to do this, the kidnapper will torture Nele and the baby and kill them.

Thus we have the setup for another madcap psychological thriller by the German author Sebastian Fitzek. Fitzek has made a name for himself with preposterous plots and over-the-top stories. Seat 7a is no different and takes as its inspiration several disasters which have afflicted aviation over recent years. Most notably the German Wings disaster of 2015, which is mentioned during the narrative, in which a disturbed pilot crashed a jet into a mountainside killing all on board. Equally pertinent might be Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, which though as yet unfound, many believe the pilot or co-pilot to have purposefully crashed into the sea (though I think Seat 7A was published before the MH370 disaster). But regardless, these disasters and others like them have led the European Union and others to debate what they can do to stop them, including mandatory blood testing and psychological screening. 

As with one of Fitzek’s previous titles, Passenger 23, the plot of which took place on a cruise liner, Fitzek has clearly researched air travel extensively. For example, he references the safest places to be on a plane during a crash, and those where you’re guaranteed to die. I haven’t checked these facts out for myself, but I checked out some of his research for Passenger 23 and it all proved correct, and so I wouldn’t be surprised if he was accurate here, too. It all helps him to spin a fiendish web of intrigue.

Factual detail aside, Fitzek’s books are always extremely far-fetched and require a suspension of disbelief. But to be fair to him, that’s all part of the fun. He’s the antithesis of a certain type of police procedural writer, who strenuously strives for believability. Instead, Fitzek offers a rollercoaster ride of plot twists and non-stop tension, and if you accept that and run with it, his books are a very enjoyable read.