There is a LONG time between summer's longing and winter's end. I should have known something was fishy when I saw the publisher's sticker on the book, comparing it simultaneously to Henning Mankell, Steig Larsson, and...Ingmar Bergman?Mankell and Bergman...yes--the BBC's Wallender series has proven as much. Mankell and Larsson? Maybe, if the similarities you're going for are (a) Sweden and (b) crime. But Larsson and Bergman? No. Net. Absolutely, positively, in no way possible.
Perhaps the problem is that Leif GW Persson's Between Summer's Longing and Winter's End is trying to please all those audiences simultaneously--the publisher is clearly trying to--and that simply isn't possible. What sets the Larsson books apart is how character-driven they are, unlike many police procedurals, but readers who come to Persson's book expecting more of the same will be sorely disappointed. The book's characters are nearly indistinguishable, which is bothersome up to the point at which you realize that it doesn't really matter, they're all part of one big corrupt machine.
This book will be appreciated only by those who like the driest of dry police procedurals and conspiracy theories. Basically, it's a book for someone who likes a long, slow, black and white Bergman film with complicated subtitles and long stretches of silence. And I am that person, so I liked the book, but I can see why no one else does. I will probably even buy the remaining two books of the trilogy, in hardcover, no less, but I will be prepared to take them like I take my Bergman, in small doses, thank you very much.
