The Living and the Dead in Rave Review from BTJ

Christoffer Carlsson’s latest novel, The Living and the Dead, has received a rave review from BTJ:

“Skavböke in Halland, 1999. A party with many of the town’s teenagers ends with one of them being murdered. When another death occurs just a few days later, suspicion, lies, fabrications, and rumors are flying. At the epicenter are the inseparable friends Sander and Killian. They try, in their own separate ways, to deal with the trauma. The Living and the Dead is the third part of author and criminologist Christoffer Carlsson’s Halland Suite. The two first ones, Under the Storm, Blaze Me a Sun and this one are connected by the fact that they are all set in Halland, but apart from that they can be read independently. The Living and the Dead, which is told in two different timelines, is a low-key novel, where drama and action give way for internal ruminations and slow, but methodical, police work. However, this is not saying that it’s not thrilling. Carlsson writes very well, sometimes with an almost poetic sharpness. The tone is earnest, melancholic, and compassionate. […] the author knows his characters well, and he feels for them, even the ones who commit misdeeds. He manages to make his characters come alive and to chisel out authentic people.”

The Living and the Dead was published in Sweden by Albert Bonniers Förlag on April 21st.