Dark Music by David Lagercrantz (Rekke & Vargas #1)
The launch of a new series inspired by Sherlock Holmes. A murder investigation brings together two unlikely allies in a race to uncover a shadowy international conspiracy.
Professor Hans Rekke: born into a wealthy Stockholm family, world authority on interrogation techniques, capable of vertiginous feats of logic and observation . . . But he might just fall apart when the going gets tough, leading to substance abuse and despair. Micaela Vargas: community police officer, born to Chilean political refugees in a tough suburb, with two brothers on the shady side of the law. Vargas feels she has something to prove. She’s tenacious and uncompromising, but she needs Rekke’s unique mind to help her solve the case. Rekke has it all – wealth, reputation – but also a tendency to throw it all away. He needs Vargas to help him get back on an even keel so he can focus his mind on finding the killer before they’re both silenced for good.
Translated from the Swedish by Ian Giles
Buy links: https://www.hachette.co.uk/titles/david-lagercrantz-5/dark-music/9781529413205/ https://www.waterstones.com/book/dark-music/david-lagercrantz/ian-giles/9781529426397
My Review: I'm not the greatest fan of nordic noir but i was curious to read this story as there's echoes of Sherlock Holmes and Henning Menkel. It's not a fast paced or action packed novel as it's character driven and it takes its sweet time to introduce us to the two main character, Rekke and Vargars, who are from the top and lowest social class. A genius and a woman who needs to prove herself. We know since the first pages that she's also seen as a political extremist and politics and history plays an important role in this story. Rekke is a genius, bipolar and addicted to substances as the Sherlock Holmes. But he's also a well thought and interesting character. Vargas' is on the wrong side of the low and she was born in a very poor area. These two unlikely partners work well together and when the action starts this becomes a gripping and twisty story. The author did a good job in mixing social instances, police procedural, and political thriller. There's a lot of potential in this series. This book requires to be patient and if you can wait ti's an interesting and gripping read. Recommended. Many thanks to MacLehose Press and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine
The Author: David Lagercrantz was born in 1962, and is an acclaimed author and journalist. In 2015 The Girl in the Spider’s Web (2015), his continuation of Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy, became a worldwide bestseller and was made into a film by Sony Pictures (2018). He is the author of the acclaimed and bestselling I am Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Fall of Man in Wilmslow, and the fifth and sixth books in the Millennium series, The Girl Who Takes an Eye for an Eye (2017) and The Girl Who Lived Twice (2019). Dark Music, the first Rekke and Vargas Investigation, will be published in the UK in 2022.
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/242659.David_Lagercrantz http://www.davidlagercrantz.se/Home.htm