In an interview with crime writer Michael Dibdin, he spoke about his Aurelio Zen mysteries and how they weren't necessarily whodunnits or even whydunnits. He compared the stories with lifting up a rock in a garden and looking at all the activity that goes on beneath it that no one is aware of. A murder or some other crime is an excuse to lift up that rock and see what's going on. Dibdin mentioned that one of his daughters had read a recent novel and noted that she had guessed the ending, and he laughingly replied, 'but that wasn't the point'. Although I love the puzzle aspect of mysteries and crime novels, the piecing together of clues to solve the crime, I also like the social and psychological aspects of seeing how a society ticks and what makes a member of that society commit murder.
Camilla Ceder's debut novel, Frozen Moment, reminded me of Zen's comments. While not without flaws, I thought she made a very respectable showing in her first Christian Tell novel. The denouement was not especially surprising, and the ending was even a little anticlimactic, but what I found impressive for a first time author was her handling of a fairly large cast of interesting characters and the presentation of motive behind the crime. She lifted the rock in one little part of Sweden and showed the reader all the nastiness that goes on underneath.
Inspector Christian Tell is called to attend to the murder of an unknown man at a service station in a small community outside Gothenburg. Not only was the man shot in the head but the killer, in a moment of apparent rage, ran over the body with a heavy vehicle. The discovery is made by an older man on his way to work who is experiencing car trouble. The scene of the crime is so horrific that he flees and calls a neighbor to come pick him up and wait with him for the police to arrive. Seja Lundberg would rather remain in bed on this cold, snowy morning, but Åke Melkersson is so distraught she agrees to go pick him up. Seja is a journalism student with hopes of becoming a successful writer, so her peculiar behavior at the crime scene and desire to see the body seems somewhat plausible.
Running parallel to the murder investigation but set some dozen years prior is a second storyline. Maya Granith, only seventeen, has left home to attend a folk high school in rural Sweden. Life at home is difficult with a mother who is not only manic-depressive but controlling. Although she is one of the youngest students at the school and feels very much a loner, but she connects up with another student and begins an all-consuming affair. When Maya returns home for a brief stay, a tragedy occurs that will cause repercussions far into the future. The two storylines, of course, will meld into one, but not before a second man is murdered. The victim is again shot at close range and run over with by a car, but Tell and his team of detectives are unable to find any other link between the two cases. It would seem as if the paths of the two men never crossed, and the line of questioning the detectives are following yield no good results.
The paths of Christian and Seja have crossed before, however, without either realizing it initially. Christian takes an interest in Seja, but not just due to her inexplicable behavior at the first murder scene. The two begin a clandestine affair, one that would surely be frowned upon by his superiors were they to know Christian were sleeping with a witness to a crime. Both are alone after failed relationships, and both are under a great deal of stress--Christian is leading a difficult investigation while trying to keep his affair secret, and Seja because she is doing a little investigating on the side and hiding the fact from Christian which will of course ruffle many feathers when this is discovered.
I think the most successful aspect of the story is the development of the characters and their relationships with each other, and this was also my favorite part of the book. Most interesting are Seja and Christian but the other detectives each has their own backstory, which I can imagine Ceder fleshing out in later instalments. Christian has an especially close relationship with his boss, and the team includes a very young detective of Spanish ancestry. It's interesting to see Swedish society through the eyes of an immigrant family. The characters are varied and not always in agreement with each other, which only makes things more interesting.
Despite an occasional wrinkle in the telling of the story, Camilla Ceder is definitely someone worth watching. Thanks to Maxine for recommending Frozen Moment. You can read her thoughts on the book here. Marlaine Delargy gives a very smooth translation from Swedish. I found an interesting interview with Delargy here. She has also written about Ceder's next Christian Tell novel, Babylon, in the Swedish Book Review. Do check it out as the magazine is available to read free online (lots of Scandinavian fiction in general--though sadly not all translated into English). Unfortunately Camilla Ceder has not yet been published in the US (my copy came via interlibrary loan), but you can find it at The Book Depository. Babylon is due out in 2012.