I very much enjoyed Agneta's story and the spies and counter intelligence but unfortunately this was only a small part of the book. From reading the blurb I thought this was a spy type thriller, possible along the lines of the TV show The Americans but the spying was only a (too small) part of the book. The spy stuff was compelling with some great unexpected twists.
A lot of the story was about Sara, a police officer and friend, as a child, of the central family. Her connexions with the family were good and interesting, the descriptions of her adult family life much less so. I was also less than enthralled with the bits about her own police job although maybe this was meant to act as a parallel to the subsequent revelations in the Uncle Stellan story.
There seems quite a lot of padding - a fixation on brand names, descriptions of graduation parties, detailed accounts of journeys across Stockholm although I suppose these might be meaningful to Swedish readers. Also many mini lectures on the relationship between Sweden and the DDR. The ordinary reader can skip these bits of course, but I think it disrupted the flow of the story which was already a bit disjointed.
There are also some scenes relating to sexual abuse which I felt were gratuitously and unpleasantly graphic although kudos to the author/translator for some particularly revolting onomatopoeia.
The title contains a massive clue which passed me by.
A lot of the story was about Sara, a police officer and friend, as a child, of the central family. Her connexions with the family were good and interesting, the descriptions of her adult family life much less so. I was also less than enthralled with the bits about her own police job although maybe this was meant to act as a parallel to the subsequent revelations in the Uncle Stellan story.
There seems quite a lot of padding - a fixation on brand names, descriptions of graduation parties, detailed accounts of journeys across Stockholm although I suppose these might be meaningful to Swedish readers. Also many mini lectures on the relationship between Sweden and the DDR. The ordinary reader can skip these bits of course, but I think it disrupted the flow of the story which was already a bit disjointed.
There are also some scenes relating to sexual abuse which I felt were gratuitously and unpleasantly graphic although kudos to the author/translator for some particularly revolting onomatopoeia.
The title contains a massive clue which passed me by.