The book gets off to a cracking start. Grandma waves goodbye to her daughters and grandchildren, then gets a one word phone call. Geiger. She fetches her gun, shoots her husband, retrieves a hidden stash from behind the bathroom tiling.... and disappears. It's seem that 30+ years ago granny Agneta was a sleeper agent.
Her husband Stellan was a minor celebrity, a former children's tv presenter, so the murder is big news. At first it's feared that the killer has kidnapped Agneta. Later, discoveries are made about Stellan.... was he the East German spy code named Geiger? And why does he have secretly filmed footage of influential men having sex with young girls?
Translated from it's original Swedish, to a non-Swede it starts to get bogged down with lengthy lists of unpronouncable place names, and cold war politics. Much as I love a spy novel, I'm afraid politics leaves me cold, so I skim read some fairly huge chunks.
The Swedish police do not come across well in this book, and I was bemused by what the German secret service would leap into action 30 years after Germany reunified when the Berlin wall came down. But, as in a lot of novels, not everyone is who they claim to be. IN face, in this one hardly anyone is!
It had a great ending, which I did not see coming. So, to sum up, great opening and end game, but slightly tedious in the mid section
Her husband Stellan was a minor celebrity, a former children's tv presenter, so the murder is big news. At first it's feared that the killer has kidnapped Agneta. Later, discoveries are made about Stellan.... was he the East German spy code named Geiger? And why does he have secretly filmed footage of influential men having sex with young girls?
Translated from it's original Swedish, to a non-Swede it starts to get bogged down with lengthy lists of unpronouncable place names, and cold war politics. Much as I love a spy novel, I'm afraid politics leaves me cold, so I skim read some fairly huge chunks.
The Swedish police do not come across well in this book, and I was bemused by what the German secret service would leap into action 30 years after Germany reunified when the Berlin wall came down. But, as in a lot of novels, not everyone is who they claim to be. IN face, in this one hardly anyone is!
It had a great ending, which I did not see coming. So, to sum up, great opening and end game, but slightly tedious in the mid section