Review of WE KNOW YOU REMEMBER by Tove Alsterdal

4 Stars

I picked up this novel because it was chosen as the 2020 Swedish Crime Novel of the Year and won the 2021 Glass Key Award for Best Nordic Crime Novel.  Tove Alsterdal will definitely be added to my list of Scandinavian crime writers to follow. 

The novel is set in rural northern Sweden.  When Olof Hagström yields to an impulse and visits his childhood home after more than two decades, he finds his father Sven brutally murdered.  Olof becomes a suspect because 23 years earlier, when he was 14, he confessed to raping and murdering a local girl, Lina Stavred, though her body was never found.  As Detective Eira Sjödin investigates Sven’s death, other crimes are uncovered and suspicion even falls on a member of Eira’s family. 

The plot is complex with several layers.  One case is solved but another body is discovered so another investigation is launched.  There are also two cases from the past which come into play.  The ending, though not totally tidy, is logical.  Certainly there are clues throughout so the author does not cheat the reader by withholding information.  We piece together the solution just as Eira does. 

Eira is a very likeable and relatable protagonist.  She has positive qualities like determination.  And her decision to return to her hometown to care for her mother, who is suffering from dementia, is admirable.  She is, however, not perfect:  her choices concerning men are certainly flawed.  Her brother Magnus thinks that she interferes unnecessarily in people’s lives.  Eira’s having grown up in the region complicates her professional life while it also makes her valuable in an investigation:  “Local knowledge.  That was such a superficial phrase . . . It said nothing about the depths of the abyss, or the complications lurking beneath, in which every person was connected to another, memories tricking and deceiving.”

This is the first in the High Coast Series; the second book entitled You Will Never Be Found will be released in January of 2023.  I will definitely be picking it up.  In the meantime, I plan to read The Forgotten Dead, an earlier standalone book which has also been translated into English.

If you enjoy crime fiction that is both entertaining and has depth, check out We Know You Remember.  It’s one of the most satisfying police procedurals I’ve read in a while.