Reviews

• “After Misterioso, Bad Blood and To The Top Of The Mountain (for which Dahl was recently awarded with the German Crime Writing Award (Deutscher Krimi Preis, 2005), The Europe Blues is yet another highpoint in European crime literature: thought-provoking, with ethical speculations, complex and rich in allusions without being know-it-all, and spiced with grand humor.”

• “The Europe Blues is quite simply a brilliant piece of mystery literature. Hardly had it reached the shelves before it shot up on the best-seller lists…. Perhaps his best.”

• “With his ten crime novels, Arne Dahl is writing a chronicle of Europe. And it´s starting well…. And Arne Dahl has now received a number of awards and is one of Sweden´s most well-known and successful mystery authors. It´s about time that with his fourth book he´s now finally catching on for real in Germany. With his decalogue he actually seems to be succeeding in creating a major work.”

• “You already know about Henning Mankell. It´s time that you read something by Arne Dahl…. For Dahl is a brilliant prose stylist.”

• “Thus bit by bit the pieces of the puzzle fall into place and at the end a surprise when a sympathetic — as so often happens in Dahl — perpetrator is presented. This is very classic. Every mystery by Dahl is solid. Dahl is a skillful weaver of plots, who has not only read his Thomas Harris but alsoAgatha Christie and, as a young person, Sjöwall/Wahlöö.”

• “Dahl´s fourth novel about Paul Hjelm and Kerstin Holm of the Intercrime team places itself in the line of classic Swedish mystery literature; he doesn´t need to conceal himself behind his predecessors. The person up for 411 pages will read The Europe Blues in one night. And long for the next case.”

• “In his fourth book, Dahl succeeds, at a breathless tempo, in relating a dark chapter in the recent Swedish past. A sensational thriller.”

• “The Europe Blues is a brilliant work by Arne Dahl. His stylistic command is superb and he has a masterly grasp of plot and composition. His intellectual reach is impressive, and furthermore he has a sensitive ear for the lyrical and humorous. It´s all mixed together, to make the Intercrime series and its heroic hardships a real treat to read. Dahl´s successful combination of grim crime novel with political thriller, serving as a criticism of societies higher services, is according to this critic the best of the four works, up until now published in Danish.”

• “A fantastic crime novel by Dahl.”

• “Arne Dahl is an amazing, even brazen, creator of plot. He guards the purity of poetic logic more than is currently conceived as plausible. The writing of this dark angel is at least twice as good as the others.”

• “Arne Dahl has taken the lead in Sweden within this sub-genre of crime literature – the police novel.”

• “The best crime novel of the year. I give The Europe Blues, by Arne Dahl, the highest mark. Simply a deviously clever construction.”

• “Dahl keeps me glued to his story about the sex-trade industry in modern-day Europe, and its dark history. He creates a set of cops who are more than cliché. Reading his work is stimulating to say the least. He heaves out fact upon fact pertaining to various areas, almost always relevant to the plot and often interesting despite that. Historical clues are mixed with educated glimpses into the past of the race biological institute and the Finnish winter war, reflexions over the modern-day "economism" and the associations it quickly invokes.”

• “The tempo is fast-paced throughout and the ending is both refined as well as stirring. The Europe Blues is well-written and very exciting. The author skillfully ties together the pressing issue of international trafficking with the terrors of WWII – the memory of which still casts its dark shadow over Europe. When making a new acquaintance that´s this good in the crime genre, one can only further recommend it for reading.”

• “Arne Dahl is one of the more interesting among new Swedish crime writers.”

• “If you like detective novels, you'll like Arne Dahl. The Europe Blues was the first work by Dahl that I came across and that truly affected me. I was on vacation in Greece but gave up all the beaches, columns and ancient arenas. I was busy reading a book that at times was so horrific I wanted to throw it right into the sea. The sequel was just as impressive and I am already eagerly awaiting the next, and the next, and yet the next one after that.”

• “Prepare to lose sleep!”

• “Europa Blues is a superlative crime novel: a complex network of narrative rivulets that all flow to a central roiling torrent that deals with the Holocaust, sex trafficking, the Mafia and some very peckish wolverines. In Dahl’s deft hands this potentially overwhelming plot is rendered effortlessly gripping by writing that is in turns simple and evocative – the crime novel as literary fiction. But Dahl’s elegant writing is not above getting its hands dirty. Europa Blues is violent, exciting and satisfying too.”