The hitman returns
Whether it’s his dark humour, esoteric protagonists, plots jampacked with action, or unusual titles, Swedish author Jonas Jonasson undoubtedly knows how to write international hits.
His first novel, The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared went from bestseller in his native Sweden to a global publishing sensation and major feature film in the space of a few short years.
The book’s unusual premise – how a centenarian’s escape from an old folks’ home leads him to become embroiled in theft and murder – led to worldwide sales of 10 million copies.
The author’s next book, The Girl Who Saved the King of Sweden, also sold in the millions.
Given Jonasson’s knack for crafting literary success, it’s hard to imagine his new work, Hitman Anders and the Meaning of it All, is going to do anything but conquer book charts around the world.
This is especially so as not only does the novel mark a return to one of the quirkier characters in the author’s first novel – intense hired gun Anders, but it is also filled with all the fast pace and unexpected plot twists, which have become the hallmarks of Jonasson’s work.
Nordic noir is a term that commentators have come up with to describe the author’s books.
It’s certainly one especially apt to Hitman Anders and the Meaning of it All.
The titular anti-hero bears all the modern-day characteristics of the kind of gun-toting oddball made famous by Bogart et al on the post-war silver screen.
Ruthless, dispassionate, obsessive executor, Anders is also the perfect foil for the plot’s other eccentric protagonists, diligent Stockholm hotel receptionist Per Persson and his imaginative, ecclesiastical boarder, Johanna.
When the latter happens upon a healthy wad of cash belonging to Anders and determines that her professional morals can be temporarily dispensed with in the name of a greater cause, all hell, of course, breaks loose; which is ideal fodder for Jonasson’s skill in pushing the action to extremes on almost every page.
If the resultant journey feels as fluctuating as a rollercoaster, the constant sense of unpredictability, perhaps an inevitable outcome of reading a Noir-style work, particularly one which is pensively Swedish, is offset by the freshness and consistency found in the book’s themes.
Ethics, trust, belief, loyalty, doubt, and violence thematically fortify the work, and readers’ engagement.
Almost imperceptibly, for instance, Vicar Johanna plunges us into the dark heart of contemporary religion and belief. Through her, we face and evaluate our own complex relationship with faith, spiritual or otherwise.
Action-packed, quirkily comic, and continuing the author’s notoriety for Nordic noir, Hitman Anders and the Meaning of it All is sure to appeal to all Jonasson aficionados.