This story is about … Well take your pick from the author’s many suggestions as it unfolds. Easier to say where it takes place – at an apartment viewing in suburban Sweden; and when – the day before New Year’s Eve; and under what circumstances – potential purchasers held hostage by a bank robber on the run.
Outside the siege is conducted by two beat policemen, Jim and Jack, who to complicate things are father and son. On the way from Stockholm HQ, but stuck in traffic, is a hostage negotiator.
The narrative has three elements. The main story unfolds in the apartment as the prospective purchasers, strangers to each other, become better acquainted whether they want to be or not. Outside, we get a taste of Jim and Jack’s relationship as both father / son and old cop / young cop tensions are played out. Within these strands, back stories emerge to provide context for the characters’ states of mind.
The third strand reveals early on that the situation is resolved without harm, to the hostages at least, comprising interspersed transcripts of their witness statements taken on their release. The interviews are conducted, less than expertly, by Jim and Jack, so give little away but serve to amuse and tantalise. It is also soon apparent that the perpetrator, the bank robbing hostage taker, is nowhere to be found. So not so much a whodunnit as a where’d they go.
Actual events in the apartment are revealed in a slow, teasing manner, and in the familiar Backman style where the author converses with the reader. Whether the reveals are tantalising as intended or tortuously frustrating depends on taste. Either way it is clever, with misleads and twists aplenty. But forget the plot, it is really about how folk, given the time and opportunity, can help each other through the difficulties life throws up. Do these hostages, and their captor for that matter, forced into close proximity for hours on end, take that opportunity or not?
So, it’s a clever, well-meaning, mildly amusing, mildly irritating, potentially Marmite of a book. And probably my last Backman for a while.
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