Easy Money: A Novel [Hardcover]

If I may be permitted to invent a word, this is less a policier -a police procedural --than it is a villainier, the same process as seen from the side of the bad guys. While there is a police action in process throughout this crime thriller, it's the villains who get the lion's share of the attention.

In successive chapters -1, 2, 3, over again and again up to the end of the book, four hundred eighty pages in--we follow inside the heads of three very different thugs. JW doesn't see himself as a crook at all. He's in college -been making near straight As but his grades start slipping as the narrative proceeds. JW envies the life of his privileged friends; he wants to be rich too. In the meantime, he drives a gypsy cab at night to earn the money he throws away on designer clothing and nights partying at the most chi chi of clubs. When he's offered the chance to get into the C (cocaine) game, he takes it -the profits are enormous. Jorge is originally from Venezuela. A low echelon drug dealer, he was abandoned by his bosses when the police nabbed him. He escapes from prison and all he wants is revenge, plus more money of course. Mrado is the Number Two Man in Stockholm's Yugoslavian Mafia. He bears a grudge against his boss Rado: the profits he earns with his hard work seem to flow heavily to Rado and not at all to him.

The cocaine business -organized crime in Stockholm in general- is getting riskier all the time. The police have set up a special operation, Project Nova, to coordinate efforts to bring the criminals down. Soon, Jorge, Mrado and JW are on a collision course with each other as well as with the police. Their life is dangerous and dirty and they can't trust anyone.

The story, eloquently translated by Astri von Arbin Ahlander, unfolds in rapid-fire sequence. The prose is muscular, clipped, electric, strongly reminiscent of James Ellroy's no-holds-barred style in his American thrillers. There are no good guys in this high-tension novel. The real question is: will anyone at all make it through unscathed?

First off, I like this book, this author, the story and the characters. However, I find the reality split between what seems to be Sweden and its culture and what sounds like an American criminal subculture populated by non-Americans to make me uneasy. The police and the rest of the Swedish legal system appear to act and sound like what I expect them to sound like--nothing like what you might find in an American context. The book is even peppered with "legal documents" to lend a Swedish legal flavor. Organizationally and even temperamentally, the Swedish police seem to think about things differently than American police--their approach is different. They are more objective in a bureaucratic sense and trying to figure a plan to optimize Swedish order, law and sensitivity. In other books by Swedish mystery writers, I've found the same kind of operational workings by the police. They sound better controlled, organized, and less emotional than their American counterparts.

The criminals, on the other hand, sound just like American criminals. The two key "good criminals," JW (an upwardly mobile kid who sells dope) and Jorge, a Swede by birth and Latino by ethnicity, are actually likable. I was rooting for Jorge's escape from prison and hoping that JW would meet his aspirations. However, the other criminals with whom they move as well as they themselves sound exactly like American criminals. The bad, bad criminal, Mrado is a Serb crime boss who sounds like the kinds of heavies in the US--in speech and manner. It's an odd combination of Ghetto thug, Aryan prison monster, and Brighton Beach (NY) Russian mobster and maybe a little Godfather bent nose. However, it certainly does not sound Swede. Therein lies the schizoid split--a very Swedish criminal justice system fighting non-Swedish criminals.

While the author (who is an attorney himself) captures the Swedish voice of the system of justice and police, I somehow don't think he captures the voice of the native criminals. It sounds like someone (perhaps his translator) is plugged into American criminal argot. With perhaps a few missteps in conveying that sound of (American) criminals, they story forges ahead with lots of actions and cliff hanging. I did get used to the sound of the American criminal jargon and the Swedish police, and ultimately it did not hurt my enjoyment of the story. It's possible that American criminal argot has become the lingua franca of criminals everywhere, but I'd like to believe that Swedish criminals are as unique as their country's legal system.

As in other Swedish mysteries, I'm surprised by the non-Swedish criminals. For some reason Yugoslavians play a major role. I've always wondered why a Yugoslav would relocate to Sweden and freeze his Jelek off. Russians make sense as do other denizens of the former Soviet Union, but given that the Balkans are more in line with Italian latitudes, a trek to the land of long winters and short summers is a bit of a mystery in and of itself.

Rarely do we read a novel from the point of view of a criminal. Where in most of the other thrillers, the bad guys usually seem to unusual superman powers that the heroes try to overcome, this book portrays the bad guy's point of view in which they're human. Interesting enough of a story to keep a reader interested for at least the first half of the book. I did get tired of the style of writing after a while. Not a bad read.