Reviews

• “It is a rare thing, that a crime novel makes me cry, but this time I had to succumb. With this book Erik Axl Sund manifest themselves as some of the best within Swedish crime fiction. /…/ Erik Axl Sund have done a magnificent job with the Victoria Bergman trilogy. In the first part of the series they constructed a skeleton, and in the second part they added meat to it. In this third part we get the soul of the novel, and what a tormented and unhappy soul it is! Moreover, this soul wants revenge.”

• “This is addictive, intelligent entertainment of the highest order. For very good reasons, this trilogy has been compared to Stieg Larsson’s Millennium trilogy. But where Stieg Larsson tells a classic saga about the struggle between extremely good and extremely evil people, Erik Axl Sund puts a knife straight into the heart of the reader. /…/ All in all, the Victoria Bergman trilogy is a refreshingly bold and genuinely original project. It is an astonishingly stringent, well executed and actually almost without exception breathlessly suspenseful psychological thriller bar none, not only in Sweden.”

• “Erik Axl Sund writes a psychological riddle rather then a criminal one /…/ These novels have an appealing, genuine tone and an engagement that places them in a league of their own in Swedish crime fiction.”

• “The third part of the Victoria Bergman trilogy definitely establishes what I predicted about a year ago: this trilogy is among the best I have read in Swedish in the genre. Perhaps even the best. /…/ When I wrote about The Hunger Fire last year, I appointed Erik Axl Sund as Stieg Larsson’s superiors. It is now very gratifying to be able to acknowledge that I wasn’t at all wrong. If I should choose between two trilogies from the 2000’s, the choice is easy: The Victoria Bergman trilogy. And you have to remember that I belong to those who really praised the Millennium trilogy to the skies. There are a few similarities between these two great Swedish works. There are young women in danger, there are conspiracies and it’s all very suspenseful. But as for literary quality, I believe that the Victoria Bergman trilogy will last longer. I wouldn’t be surprised if future writers will refer to this work in the same way in which so many Swedish and foreign writers always refer to Sjöwall & Wahlöö as their major source of inspiration.”

• “An entire year we have waited for the conclusion, and it was well worth the wait. A conclusion in which one elegantly gathers all the strings and unsolved issues that amazed in The Crow Girl and The Hunger Fire. The truth is ruthless and so evil that I couldn’t have guessed it even in my wildest imagination… Erik Axl Sund have written a trilogy that readers of crime fiction cannot due without.”

• “The trilogy makes you breathless and confused as you chase across the pages, eager to find out more. It is a story that takes place in what Jung calls the collective unconscious, i.e. inside all of us… [An] insidiously shimmering masterpiece.”

• “The Weakness of Victoria Bergman touches the heart of true psychological crime. Impressive and terrifying.”