Peter Kadhammar’s new detective story is pleasant and intelligent
Published at 05.00
“Crack eggs” by Peter Kadhammar
If you have to writing a detective story, you do well to begin with the murder: an enigmatic and terrifying event that makes the reader curiously read on for an explanation.
And yes, “Cracking Eggs” begins. There is a corpse in pink espadrilles on an Östermalmsgata.
There is, of course, a prehistory. The main character of the story is Harry Karlsson, an older freelance journalist who used to be able to sell his reporting ideas to the newspapers without any problems. But now? A new media world, where celebrity gossip outweighs investigative journalism and the expense items determine what can be told.
There it should be can get whiny and internal (how many journalists don’t complain about that development?), but Peter Kadhammar just stating the fact. Instead, Harry and his wife Mia go on holiday in the mountains, where one evening they happen to meet an old student friend of Harry’s. Ivar Lilja is a man for our time: he was once finance minister, now he has left politics and runs an AI company that is currently dedicated to team building in the mountains. Or whatever they’re doing. Get drunk and behave badly, anyway.
The next day, when Harry and Mia are out hiking, Mia accidentally falls when a rock tumbles down a cliff. An accident? Or a stone that was intended for a journalist who snooped too much?
Pretty unbelievable, but that always makes journalists snoop all the more. Back in Stockholm, Harry Karlsson begins to find out more about Via Vega, as Ivar Lilja’s company is called. An innovative company with a brain trust of extremely talented individuals if Ivar Lilja can say so himself, because at Via Vega creativity is at the center. Whereupon one of the company’s employees suddenly disappears and the police are called in.
Into Via Vegas modern environment steps commissioner Britt-Inger Magnusson, who is liberatingly plain and square. She was also in Peter Kadhammar’s previous detective story, “Mao’s Hibiscus” (2023), and is a wishful dream for sober detective readers: she lacks both addiction problems and neuropsychiatric diagnoses, and doesn’t even have a crappy childhood with interesting traumas. She is just an ambitious cop who wants to investigate crimes and stop criminals. When the police’s HR department sends single-minded proposals to increase well-being, she sighs disinterestedly and sees it as a temporary distraction. We’re here to solve crimes, right?
“Mao’s Hibiscus” was based on the Swedish far-left’s mingling with communist countries and was basically a serious story. New “Knäcka ägg” is considerably more easygoing, and is actually closer Jan Guillous retired detective in his slightly ironic digressions about this and that. But Peter Kadhammar does not establish any truths, he only shows the present and clearly has fun when he lists today’s clichés.
The detective story is not so impressive, but it doesn’t matter. It’s entertaining and intelligent, and strangely so enjoyable that it’s a little sad when the book ends. Peter Kadhammar can be read just for the style, both when he is engaged in journalism and when he writes detective stories.
Peter Kadhammar is an employee at Aftonbladet. Therefore, the book is reviewed by Lotta Olsson, critic for Vi Läser and member of the Deckarakademin.
DETECTIVE STORY
» Crack eggs
Peter Kadhammar
Nature & Culture
