Box 21, by Anders Roslund and Borge Hellstrom, is a hard ball police work novel with a harsh look at the hard core of prostitution in Sweden. This novel begins in pieces, which over time are put together in ways one suspects but follows into the darkness. The reader meets two Lithuanian prostitutes sold as sex slaves, ostensibly to a pimp named Dimitri. Then there is an enforcer/killer for hire named Lang who is just out of prison. Inspector Ewert Grens and his partner Sven pivot between these characters as the action soon heats up. When one of the girls goes beserk and the police are called, the threads wind up tightly, in ways Grens would prefer the rest of the world never finds out. But Sven has more of a consience and pursues leads on his own initiative. In the mean time, there are a few dead end plot lines that could have been left out but do lend a bit of authentic confusion to the police work aspect of the story. This is the world of scum and their victims, hunters and hunted, the innocent and abused all writ intimately and without the gloss other stories use to polish over the depravity.
All in all, this is a bleak story, one with few redeeming messages. Right to the end, the reader will be looking for some light at the end of the tunnel. Warning: there isn’t much. Such is life as created by this team of authors. However, those readers who want a glimpse into the savage ways of human traficking will want to peer through this lense, if only to see how bad it can be and what happens when a person can’t take it anymore.
The Bent Page 
The Ghosts of Belfast
The Ghosts of Belfast, by Stuart Neville, is a descent into revenge hades. Gerry Fegan, a former IRA killer literally sees ghosts of his victims. It is the appearance of these ghosts that slowly drives him to confront his past and do something about it. Slow by slow, Fegan seeks out those who gave him orders or facilited death. It is this path that forms the spine of the story. Along the way, Fegan meets Marie and her daughter Ellen, who are also trapped in the cycle of revenge exacted by the various factions in Northern Ireland’s troubles. Marie has her own hidden past, but she’s living up to it, going straight in her own way, defying the prejudices of the past by living boldly in the present. Then there is Campbell, the British Government undercover agent pursuing Fegan, another character with more baggage than can fit on the plane. These three and more are on a collision course with misery that unfolds as paybacks become ever more costly.
There is a level of brutality in The Ghosts of Belfast that may be appropriate to the subject matter. At the same time, I hoped for a bit more sophistication such as a protagonist trying to clear his conscience using more than a gun and his heart on a sleeve. The relationship between Fegan and Marie showed great promise at the beginning but never gained traction through the story to a level that would have made it more than a damsel in distress plot point. What Neville does best is to expose the double-triple crosses of the guerilla life and the consequences these shabby alliances create. He portrays the thugs for what they are: less than intelligent men bent on using their fists for no good reason at all. So it is that in this portrayal of a Northern Ireland subculture nobody wins, everyone pays, and corruption rules the day. This book will best be enjoyed by those who like a slow-burn slug fest complete with brawls, trick shots, and death defying duality.
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on April 23, 2011 at 11:34 am Leave a CommentTags: book review, fiction, Ireland, justice, novel, Stuart Neville, Writing