Reviews

• “The end of a magnum opus. /…/ All in all, Arne Dahl’s decalogy does not only appear to be one of the most ambitious projects ever within Swedish crime writing, but also one of the most fun and most meaningful. /…/ There are many things to enjoy as a reader – the long threads that are spun from one book to the next, the sense of detail, the good humor, the enormous span of time and space, the characterization, all the exciting action, the impetuous plots, the attention to style and form. And the Intercrime Team itself – I will miss it.”

• “Arne Dahl is a skilled artisan, one of the best among Swedish crime writers. In fact, everything in Eye in the Sky is elegantly linked together. /…/ Like older crime colleagues such as Ian Rankin and Henning Mankell, Arne Dahl portrays a world where things can no longer be understood from the limited perspective of the backwaters. Globalization also – and perhaps particularly – concerns criminal activity.”

• “Arnald’s prose, on the other hand, is ripe with the plain philosophy of day-to-day living, a laconic sense of humor and understatements. /…/ A post-modern author has unbuttoned his shirt, played around with the low-brow genre, and it has done him good.”

• “Eye in the Sky meets all my expectations. As usual, Dahl writes intelligently and with a great deal of humor, tying the loose ends together by providing several flashbacks to the cases of the Intercrime Team throughout the years. The plot itself is more suspenseful and frightening than ever before, but it is Dahl’s aptitude for characterization that is the true reward.”

• “Arne Dahl has with few exceptions been rightly praised for his brilliant prose, his ambitious plot constructions and the depth of his depiction of the Intercrime Team. I am one of the critics who has joined in with the praise of the others.”

• “Ask me to choose between Larsson’s Salander and Arne Dahl’s Intercrime Team… and I will choose the latter nine times out of ten. Why? Simply because Dahl is more credible than Larsson. /…/ With his ten novels, he has written himself into the history books of Swedish crime fiction.”

• “Under the pen name of Arne Dahl, Jan Arnald has become contemporary Sweden’s most critical chronicler. /…/ Skillfully and with a linguistic playfulness and a genre-crushing ruthlessness, Jan Arnald guides his reader… /…/ Meanwhile, it is quite clear he means business: this is not simple entertainment, even if Arne Dahl also provides suspense and nail-biting plots. Where Sjöwall-Wahlöö were political and perhaps too staunch in their leftism, Jan Arnald’s novels have grown into social criticism of the most advanced kind.”

• “Please, Jan Arnald, don’t stop – we want more! /…/ Jan Arnald belongs without doubt to the elite of Swedish crime writers. With one book after the other, he has returned with top-rate plots spun around burning hot topics, a fast pace and excellent rendering of setting and characters. /…/ His prose is effective and straight, liberated from the sentimental and banal; there is compassion, and there is a sense of humor. It simply doesn’t get much better than this!”

• “Dahl has never been better, and I for one think the saying "to stop while you’re at your best" is slightly overrated. No doubt Arne Dahl is part of the absolute elite of Sweden’s crime writers. He always delivers high-charged suspense and an immensely rich prose: detailed, modulated and very, very, funny. With the typically Dahlian irony and in an unforgettable meta-discussion on the last pages, he promises his readers that this is not the end. I can only hope that is true, even if it's just the matter of an epilogue.”

• “In his new crime novel, Eye in the Sky, Arne Dahl outdoes himself as far as the introduction is concerned. And where a lot of other things are concerned, too. /…/ One of Swedish crime writing’s very best and most original series – without a doubt on a par with Sjöwall & Wahlöö’s groundbreaking Martin Beck series, for example.”

• “Eye in the Sky has an infernally suspenseful denouement. And as always, it is utterly well-written. /…/ His tenth and last (?) novel about the Intercrime Team dazzles with its clever construction and constantly increasing suspense.”

• “It is splendidly well-done…and this time transfixed with a sophisticated search for clues, worthy of a classic whodunit. /…/ This series is much too interesting to be allowed to end after only ten novels.”

• “I cannot recall when I last read an intro as magnificent as the one Arne Dahl serves up in the tenth novel of the Intercrime Team. /…/ Arne Dahl is a phenomenal storyteller, skillfully mixing humor and great solemnity. /…/ Read for yourselves and enjoy a writer who, from 1998 to 2007, has given us something lasting within the crime genre.”

• “Arne Dahl… definitely occupies a spot among the masters of the genre.”

• “Dahl cements his position as a king of crime. /…/ Once again, Arne Dahl succeeds in mirroring our contemporary society through a crime novel that throws the reader forward towards a brutal climax. /…/ Eye in the Sky yet again shows that Dahl is one of Sweden’s foremost crime writers; and nobody has managed to write about a group of people the way he has.”

• “As usual, it is fascinating to be subjected to the Arne Dahlian state of mind.”

• “One of the best Swedish crime writers has once again crafted a well-written case /…/ Dahl is simply a brilliant storyteller and elegant constructor of plot.”

• “Eye in the Sky is astonishingly well crafted /…/ Readers that prefer talented writing can relax – Arne Dahl continues to set the scene in the premier league of contemporary literature.”

• “A masterpiece of Scandinavian crime fiction.”