Block 46 - Johana Gustawsson

 Johana Gustawsson is the Queen of French noir.   She was born in Marseilles, lived in London and now lives in Sweden.   This, the first in her series featuring Canadian profiler Emily Roy and London-based true crime writer Alexis Castells, who is Spanish, takes place in Sweden, London, and Germany, specifically in Buchenwald concentration camp in the closing years of World War II; everything else takes place in 2014, which I assume is when the book was written.

Alexis is drawn in when her friend, the jewellry designer Linnea Blix, fails to turn up for her launch party in London.   Her mutilated body is found in Sweden, an out-of-the-way town called Falkenberg.   Emily Roy is the profiler sent to assist the Swedish police.

Then a boy turns up murdered in London, with the same signature wounds.   Is it a copycat, a serial killer with broad tastes, or (as Emily suggests) a pair of killers operating together, one of them dominating the other?

Interweaved with the investigation narrative is the story of young Erich Hebner, a German student sent to Buchenwald as a political prisoner.   He has a measure of medical training and is recruited by the camp doctor, Horst Fleisher, with the gruesome experiments he carries out in Block 46.   After the war, Hebner drifts around Europe, ending up living in the same cul de sac in Falkenberg where Linnea Blix had her hideaway.   That's got to be more than a coincidence right?   I confess I didn't see the final twist coming.

The action moves along at a punchy pace.   The writing is neat, controlled where it needs to be, more expansive where it doesn't.   There's a lot of dialogue which all rings true.   The characterisation is what it needs to be with a series - that is to say, a lot remains to be discovered about Roy and Castells.   On the other hand we get plenty of insight into Erich and other characters involved in the main plot.

I enjoyed Block 46.   I already have the other two Roy/Castells novels on my Kindle and will read them soon.   I was interested in Johana Gustawsson because Thomas Enger collaborates on a series with her as well as Jorn Lier Horst on the Blix/Ramm series.   Wait a minute ...  Linnea Blix and Alexander Blix?   That's got to be more than a coincidence.   Right?