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The Black Path, by Asa Larsson

Åsa Larsson

Åsa Larsson

Asa (Åsa) Larsson was born in in 1966 and grew up in Kiruna, Sweden. Åsa Larsson now lives in Mariefred. She studied in Uppsala and lived for some years in Stockholm, but now prefers the rural life with her husband, two children and several chickens.

A former tax lawyer, Asa Larsson now writes full time. She made her debut in 2003 with Sun Storm (also known as The Savage Altar), which was awarded the Swedish Crime Writers’ Association Prize for best debut novel. The sequel, The Blood Spilt, was chosen as Best Swedish Crime Novel of 2004.

The books were an immediate success; they have been sold to ten countries, and are being launched in the United States; the film rights have been sold to Sandrew Metronome.

The Black Path is the third book in Swedish author Asa (Åsa) Larsson's crime book series from Kiruna in Sweden, featuring the lawyer Rebecka Martinsson and police detectives Svein-Erik Stalnacke and Anne-Maria Mella. The Black Path is a police procedural, or perhaps a legal thriller.

The Black Path, by ASA LArsson The action in The Black Path takes place during winter in the North of Sweden. A dead woman is found on a frozen lake, and her body shows evidence of torture. The dead woman, dressed in workout clothes with lacy underwear beneath them, was a key player in an international mining company.

Inspector Anna-Maria Mella knows she needs help. Anna-Maria needs a lawyer to help explain some things and she knows one of the best.

Attorney Rebecka Martinsson is desperate to get back to work, to feel alive again after a case that almost destroyed her. She says yes, not knowing how convoluted and complex the motive for the homicide is and how dangerous trying to prove it will be.

Soon Rebecka is prying into the affairs of the dead woman’s boss, the founder of Kallis Mining, whose relationship with his star employee was both complex and ominous. Rebecka and Anna-Maria are about to uncover what amounts to a tangled drama of secrets, perversion, and criminality. The story in The Black Path is shocking, as well as sad, and cynical as well. Larsson describes a man’s obsession, a woman’s lonely death, and the very cold heart of a killer.

The Black Path is a very dark drama, with twisted sexuality, menace, hope, longing, and darkness beyond imagining. It is also a smart, well written, masterfully crafted book where we observe how the investigation proceeds step by step, at the same time as we learn how the characters involved think and live.

What sets The Black Path apart a little from other crime books is that it really is not the suspense that drove me on from page to page, but rather it was, I think, more curiosity. The story, in a sense, is not action driven. Asa Larsson builds up curiosity - a feeling of a need to understand. A great book, which I strongly recommend!

Order Asa Larsson from amazon UK: The Savage Altar, The Blood Spilt, and/or The Black Path. Or order Asa (Åsa) Larsson's books (in German) from amazon DE: Sonnensturm, Der schwarze Steg, or Weiße Nacht.


The Blood Spilt, by Asa Larsson


In The Blood Spilt we meet again Stockholm tax attorney Rebecka Martinsson, the main character The Blood Spilt, by Asa Larssonin Asa Larsson’s first novel, Sun Storm. She is still recovering from having to kill three men who tried to attack her. Rebecka has formally returned to her law office, but is not really able to work. Also, she finds that her law firm uses her newfound celebrity status to drum up new clients. Life is tough for Rebecka now.

Rebecka welcomes an opportunity to go back to her native Kiruna for her firm to do participate in a metting. However, while there she stumbles into a murder case. A female priest, Mildred Nilsson, has been found murdered in her church. And Mildred, a staunch feminist, had caused a large number of people in the community to dislike her for a number of different reasons.

Thus there are a large number of people with possible motives in The Blood Spilt. And finding out who could have killed her and why is difficult. In this book, that responsibility rests with Anna-Maria Mella, now a part time inspector. And she works hard an works a lot of angles to finally untangle the mystery.

Åsa Larsson has crafted a good novel.The mystery in The Blood Spilt is interesting, but the action is not plot driven, and sometimes the storytelling is a little too distanced. Some parts of the book, like the side story about the lone wolf, did not work all that well by me.

However, The Blood Spilt is a good and very readable book that I recommend, although it is not, to me, quite up there with the best of the Scandinavian crime writers, like Nesbo, Mankell, Stieg Larsson, and Karin Fossum.

You can order The Blood Spilt by Asa Larsson from amazon UK as well.


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