New Swedish Books, Autumn 2017 1
New Swedish Books 74 Viktor Kasparsson: The Horro
rs of Hell When a murder is committed in Malmö, ghost detective Viktor Kasparsson is yet again drawn into a gory and gruesome saga. The case turns out to share many similarities with a massacre that took place forty years earlier, when an entire family was found hacked into small pieces. But the most intriguing detail is that back then, the perpetrator was arrested at the scene and later executed for their crime. Did an innocent person lose their life at the gallows or is there something even more sinister going on? It’s up to Kasparsson to dig through the archives and solve the mystery. With his richly detailed images and keen sense for time and place, Dennis Gustafsson recreates a moment in Swedish history that is often depicted as a sepia-toned dream of a nascent social democratic society. Yes, Gustafsson’s gaze sometimes lingers a little nostalgically on the sign of some café in his hometown Helsingborg. But he is also ruthlessly explicit in his critique of this society's often harsh class structure, where the poor were better off knowing their place. In Kasparsson we get a very human hero who, in this the seventh book, is clearly marked by the experiences of his previous adventures. Chronic back pain and nightmares infiltrate the story in a way that puts Gustafsson’s character in the good company of other burned out detectives in the occult tradition. Dennis Gustafsson (b.1969) Viktor Kasparsson: The Horrors of Hell Publisher/rights Albumförlaget jonas@albumforlaget.se Selected Works Viktor Kasparsson 1: Skräckens ängel 2011 Viktor Kasparsson 2: Spöket på Hotell Vega 2012 Viktor Kasparsson 3: Blodsband 2013 Viktor Kasparsson 4: Syndaätaren 2014 Viktor Kasparsson 5: Vinterbrand 2015 Photo: Patrik Renmark För Sydsvenskan