A posh lawyer with criminal ties who becomes Minister of Justice.
An Iraqi cop who comes to Sweden to bury his half brother.
A scam artist desperate to get her life back.
And a detective with profound memory loss after surviving a car crash.
These are a few of the characters that populate this spooky, intricate police procedural. Although they initially appear in separate plot lines, they are gradually brought together by a common goal. Each is searching for a man known as Janus.
David Sarac is a legend in the Intelligence Unit of the Stockholm police department. He's a handler, recruiting informants to get the jump on local criminal gangs. The star of his stable of snitches is Janus. His high level intel has resulted in numerous arrests while propelling David to rockstar status in the department. He's a golden goose & no one else knows who he is or even what he looks like.
Unfortunately, after waking in hospital, David has no memory of him or anyone else for that matter. This is a problem. David's colleagues want Janus for their own reasons & rival gangs have joined forces to identify the rat who is ruining business.
Everyone is watching as David starts to search, not just for Janus but for himself. Eventually fragmented memories of people & places begin to surface & he's not sure he likes what he sees. Worse, he feels like he's not getting the whole truth from friends & colleagues. And then there's the hooded figure who lurks in the shadows. Why does no one else see him? Is he even real?
This is a twisty & complex story that will mess with your head. Everyone has an agenda & their own version of the truth. We travel with David as it all unfolds but we're not even sure if we can trust his memories & neither is he. The result is the reader becomes just as paranoid as the "hero", trusting no one & dreading what might pop up on the next page.
The author has created a likeable MC who is easy to empathize with & does an effective job of making us feel his fear & growing isolation. You genuinely get a sense of what it might be like to suspect everyone you "know" & it's an awful way to live. But it also explores the theme of identity. Who are you if you remember nothing about yourself.....your favourite movie, how you got that scar, who you love.
The tension begins as a whisper, then slowly builds as plot lines converge & it all comes to a head. The fact some of these characters will not be finding their HEA is hardly a surprise but the author reserves the biggest "Holy Crap" moment for the final pages.
If you saw & enjoyed the movie "Memento", give this a try. It's quite a ride.
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