Reviews

• “Arne Dahl has written one of the best crime novels of our time.”

• “A novel that keeps on accelerating – all the way to the spectacular climax.”

• “An incredibly exciting crime novel. /…/ Truly first-rate.””

• “Arne Dahl is one of the few Swedish crime novelists truly worth reading. /…/ Arne Dahl radically differs from other Swedish authors of crime literature in one regard: he can write!”

• “A captivating book? Yes. Exciting? Definitely. And yet in essence so deviant from all the norms. Arne Dahl is a clever and knowledgable author. /…/ There is a mindset à la Graham Greene in Arne Dahl´s prose, which is dynamic and has a poetic luster about it. /…/ Hard to beat.”

• “A shrewd murder plot. Arne Dahl takes many liberties in bending the traditional rules of fiction. /…/ The plot is intricate and more clever than ever. /…/ What we see in A Midsummer Night's Dream is a completely unencumbered author. /…/ It´s great to see the liberties he takes, how he plays with various identities and complications, how he steps beyond the norms of fiction and approaches the edge of the stage to speak directly to the reader. He is experimenting, but also showing off.”

• “Arne Dahl is the author of a fantastic series of crime novels about the Intercrime team.”

• “Long live Dahl's detective novels! /…/ Arne Dahl is better than ever. /…/ Arne Dahl has claimed a leading position among Swedish crime novelists. /…/ Some day the Dahl novels will most certainly be subject to literary study, in search of mythical allusions and intertextual correlatives. /…/ Arne Dahl is clearly the most entertaining of all the Swedish crime novelists. Not only is he an exceptional master of intrigue, he also has a sense of humor otherwise rare in this genre – a humor that doesn´t exclude serious social satire.”

• “Arne Dahl is unrelenting in his criticism, and gazes over the Swedish society with the penetrating eyes of a hawk. He accurately picks up on the tendencies of social blight that currently haunt our deteriorating welfare state. It is done strongly and convincingly. /…/ Arne Dahl handles the traditional elements associated with the crime novel, with a steady hand. It´s exciting and suspenseful. In A Midsummer Night's Dream it even becomes excruciatingly suspenseful. /…/ When it comes to his literary technique, Arne Dahl beats an author like Henning Mankell by a long shot. /…/ Personally, I´m deeply impressed.”

• “The ongoing story about the Intercrime team is just getting better. /…/ Arne Dahl is now in on his sixth book… in this brilliant series of detective novels. InA Midsummer Night's Dream we are, as usual, presented with an ingeniously constructed plot composed of caustic social criticism. /…/ When Arne Dahl later frames this story with one of the world literatures most captivating dramas, and furthermore ties it to the enchanting Swedish midsummer night time-wise, the result is one of the best crime novels I´ve ever read.”

• “Now I prefer the Intercrime team to Henning Mankell's Wallander. Arne Dahl has more warmth and that sense of humor, sometimes as dark as the mid-winter night, that Mankell lacks.A Midsummer Night's Dream is truly a magical reading experience.”

• “One of Sweden´s most skillful crime novelists, who furthermore has succeeded in rejuvenating the genre.”

• “The crime novelist Arne Dahl has once again written a masterful work about the Intercrime team. /…/ Arne Dahl maintains both the style and the suspense up until the end, in A Midsummer Night's Dream.”

• “Arne Dahl is the great poet of Swedish crime literature.”

• “The master of police novels.”

• “Arne Dahl just gets better and better. And for those who claim that Swedes are weightier and more thorough than us Danes, that they are a people disguised as Germans, these silly prejudices can be proven incorrect by reading this elegant and sophisticated suspense novel from the beautiful city of Stockholm. Dahl manages to deliver a genuine crime novel without too much sentimental philandering and giggling love-struck couples. Even so, the story has a fine balance of harmony, and shows that even a cop can have a private life; something that to a degree is fundamentally tied into the plot with various methods. Bravo!”

• “He writes like an angel.”