The landline rings as Agneta is waving off her grandchildren. Just one word comes out of the receiver: ‘Geiger’.
For decades, Agneta has always known that this moment would come, but she is shaken. She knows what it means.
Retrieving her weapon from its hiding place, she attaches the silencer and creeps up behind her husband before pressing the barrel to his temple.
Then she squeezes the trigger and disappears – leaving behind her wallet and keys.
The extraordinary murder is not Sara Nowak’s case. But she was once close to those affected and, defying regulations, she joins the investigation. What Sara doesn’t know is that the mysterious codeword is just the first piece in the puzzle of an intricate and devastating plot fifty years in the making . . .
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Well, hello there The Reading Closet visitor, welcome to my day on the blog tour for Geiger by Gustaf Skördeman, a pulse racing debut that was published by Zaffre on the 29th of April in a variety of formats. You can purchase a copy here. Thanks to Tracy for the tour invite, as always!
We are immediately drawn into a domestic setting, one that quickly unravels and shakes you – Agneta, mother and grandmother gets a phone call while her family is just leaving after a visit, immediately after she shoots her husband point blank…. Intense, isn’t it? Well, that feeling, tied together with elements of history and politics, creates for a mysterious high octane spy thriller. As Agneta quickly disappears into the world, the storyline unfolds into a nail-gnawing mystery about why she killed her husband and that her story runs deeper than originally expected.
Although, throughout the storyline, the pace began to slow and become slightly wordy at places, I think Geiger was a great spy read with a collective of various characters which created for a multi-layered novel which drew you in chapter by chapter. Our main protagonist Sara injects herself into the investigation, at times I found Sara to be quite likable, she’s striving to piece together the sequence of events leading up to Agneta’s shocking crime.
Geiger is a debut novel that has been translated from Swedish quite well by Ian Giles, you get the full impact of the taut thrilling plotline, along with the creeping sensation under your skin that draws you further into the pages – I was racing through it, it truly is a great written spy thriller, and it is very cleverly written – again the translation allows us so to experience everything, from the setting. I found Geiger to be equally plot and character driven, especially as we become to know Sara more personally as the novel unfolds.
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