Dead in the water…
NICK RENNISON is gripped by a dark historical novel that follows a murder investigation in 18th-century Sweden
The Wolf and the Watchman by Niklas Natt och Dag John Murray, 416 pages, £12.99 As an antidote to nostalgia about the not-so-distant past, this darkly compelling crime novel is unbeatable. There is no room for any idea of the so-called good old days in Niklas Natt och Dag’s grim but potent reconstruction of late 18th-century Sweden.
The year is 1793. Revolution is under way in France, and though its ideas of equality and liberty have begun to filter northwards, Stockholm remains a bleak place. Poverty, disease, dirt and drunkenness stalk its streets. The state is run for the benefit of the few, not the many.
One morning, a watchman, Mickel Cardell, fishes a limbless torso out of one of the city’s bodies of water. Investigator Cecil Winge is given the job of uncovering the dead man’s identity and cause of death. He takes on Cardell as his assistant. Both men are damaged souls. The watchman lost his arm in conflict and is haunted by his wartime experiences. Winge is dying of consumption. He retains a faith in the idea of justice, but not the likelihood of achieving it.
Together they set out to give a name to the anonymous, mutilated corpse and catch whoever inflicted such suffering on him. Their quest for the truth demands that they confront the darkest elements of human nature.
The Wolf and the Watchman is not a novel for the squeamish. It forces us to acknowledge the worst that men are capable of doing. However, its cleverly constructed narrative, which moves back in time to reveal the circumstances surrounding the murder, before returning to Cardell and Winge’s investigation and its savagely ironic conclusion, seizes the reader’s attention.
This debut novel has been a bestseller in the author’s native Sweden, and there is no reason why it should not do just as well in the UK.