A Darker Shade of Sweden

By: John-Henri Holmberg

Narrated by: Carol Monda, Scott Brick, Adam Grupper, Maggi-Meg Reed, Edoardo Ballerini, Erik Bergmann, Tavia Gilbert

Ever since Stieg Larsson shone a light on the brilliance of Swedish crime writing with his acclaimed and best-selling Millennium trilogy, listeners around the world have sought out and devoured the crime fiction of his countrymen (and women), many of whom have proved to be some of the greatest masters of the genre. In this landmark and unique publication, Sweden's most distinguished and best-loved crime writers have contributed stories to an anthology that promises to thrill even the most jaded mystery listener.

Containing 17 stories, all never before published in English, A Darker Shade of Sweden illuminates the shadow side of this beguiling country as never before, and promises to be among the most highly anticipated crime fiction of the season.

©2014 John-Henri Holmberg (P)2014 HighBridge Company

Not enough stories

To much blah blah blah, not enough of the stories. They only way I made it through the book is I thought the next chapter would be better.

Okay, but misses out with the narrators

As a native Swede I did appreciated the stories of more or less known authors to me.
However I found the narrators inability of pronouncing Swedish locations and streets annoying . In some stories I had to back to listen again to get the picture of location . Otherwise not bad compilation.

Mixed reviews

As with any collection os short stories, some are good and some not. Actually more "not."

The pronunciation...

This book would have gotten more stars if the narrators had even tried to get the names of the authors correct. Professional narrators (in my view) are expected to find out how to pronounce at least the names correctly.
On the whole this was a good collection of Swedish crime novelists.
I was looking for new authors to read or listen, but I had to do a lot of extra work to find out who were talked about...

Awesome stories, pointless stories and more...

STORY (Swedish crime fiction) - There are 15 or 20 short stories in this collection, each lasting about an hour or less. I enjoyed this book as a whole but, as my title suggests, some stories were much better than others. They are written by various Swedish authors, each with their own writing style. Some are just basic detective-type stories, some are thrillers, some are dark and eerie, some noir... blah, blah. Steig Larsson himself (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) wrote one of the stores, and his long-time girlfriend pitched in a couple as well. Another reviewer, Alcairha, has written an excellent summary of each story and rated them individually. I agree with most of her opinions.

The entire first chapter is basically an introduction to Swedish crime fiction which I could have done without, and before each story is a summary of its author. I listened to all that stuff but, in hindsight, I wish I'd fast-forwarded through it because I gained very little information of interest when compared with the time spent listening to it all.

My favorite was the third story entitled "Never in Real Life," about a couple on a camping trip. Not only is it very good, but the ending totally rocks! Another story toward the end of the book is entitled "Diary Braun." I was totally confused by the story till it finished and I did a Google search to figure who in the heck it was about. While I enjoyed the mystery and suspense, I think I would have enjoyed the story more if I'd been familiar with the story behind it. If you're interested, do a Google search of the name Eva Braun and read briefly about her relationship with Hitler, their marriage and their deaths. Interesting stuff.

PERFORMANCE - There are a variety of narrators reading these stories, some male, some female. All were very good and one of my favorites, Scott Brick, narrates a couple.

OVERALL - I would recommend this to all mature listeners, whether male or female. There are some sexual references (including lesbianism) and some cursing, but not a lot of either. I hope to hear more from some of these authors in the future!