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The Other Son
The Other Son
A Novel
The exciting follow-up to The Andalucian Friend, a breakneck thriller that follows Sophie Brinkmann as she faces the consequences of joining Hector Guzman's crime empireFrom the moment Hector Guzman...
The exciting follow-up to The Andalucian Friend, a breakneck thriller that follows Sophie Brinkmann as she faces the consequences of joining Hector Guzman's crime empireFrom the moment Hector Guzman...
Reviews-
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Starred review from May 25, 2015
Stockholm nurse and single mother Sophie Brinkmann paid dearly for her romance with Hector Guzman—the seductive criminal she met when he landed in her hospital after being run down by a competing gang—in Söderberg’s acclaimed debut, The Andalucian Friend (2013). In this propulsive, Tarantino-esque sequel, Hector lies comatose after a second botched hit, and his associates have strong-armed Sophie into functioning as the Guzman syndicate’s mouthpiece to help maintain the illusion that Hector continues to run things. Sophie has to make some hard choices amid kidnappings, assassinations, and collateral damage to innocents, all of which mushroom as the remnants of the Guzman cartel come under fire from Colombian drug baron Don Ignacio Ramirez and the German Hanke brothers’ gang. Meanwhile, Tommy Jansson, a former associate of corrupt cop Gunilla Strandberg, embarks on a crime spree that threatens one of his few honest colleagues, dedicated Det. Insp. Antonia Miller. As the blood-splattered action accelerates across Europe and beyond, a shell-shocked Sophie tries to outmaneuver her adversaries with the help of a ragtag band of allies, including her first love, Jens, a smuggler. Readers won’t want this fast and furious—and fitfully funny—roller-coaster ride to end. Agent: Leyla Belle Drake, Salmonsson Agency (Sweden). -
August 31, 2015
Book two in Soderberg’s announced trilogy (after 2014’s The Andalucian Friend) throws us into the middle of protagonist Sophie Brinkmann’s continuing struggle for survival, caught in the middle of a violent turf war between two Scandinavian drug cartels. A working knowledge of the first book may not be a necessity but it will help in understanding how Sophie, a nurse and single mother, could have fallen in love with her patient, Hector Guzman, the leader of one of the cartels. It would also provide clues as to her relationship to Jens Vall, who seems to be a good-guy arms dealer. Without that and other info, the best way to enjoy this dense thriller is to ignore the past and let reader Jackson’s crisp, dramatic British delivery whisk you along at a breakneck pace that manages to speed up as Sophie’s situation grows ever darker. Jackson smoothly adds the appropriate accents as the action hops from Istanbul to Berlin; Biarritz, France; Sonora, Mexico; and Stockholm, simplifying this complex, overpopulated tale so that most listeners will be ready for book three. A Crown hardcover. -
Sophie Brinkmann is trying to remove herself from her lover's crime ring. He's in a coma--she's in the crosshairs of both the police and the other mob members. The palpable danger to Sophie, and her paralyzed son, is conveyed in Gildart Jackson's gritty narration. His steady pace and precise diction deliver the violent details of this second installment in a Swedish crime series. The fast-paced plot moves the listener from scene to scene without many pauses or downbeats. Overall, this is an enjoyable listen, though the details of the multiple crimes may be too much for some. The audiobook's start is dramatic and sharp--the story itself doesn't quite maintain its initial levels of suspense. M.R. © AudioFile 2015, Portland, Maine
- USA Today "Epic... The Andalucian Friend is a crime novel that mixes familial drama -- the Guzman crime family is drawing comparisons to Mario Puzo's Corleones -- gang wars, the illegal gun trade, break-the-rules cops and unspeakable violence...The scope of this novel is sometimes astounding and always fascinating."
- Los Angeles Times "Scandinavian crime fiction finds a new voice in Alexander Söderberg. . . .[a] dark, intricate debut novel."
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The Wall Street Journal
"[A] tense, accomplished debut. . . . Complex but swift, well-written and often grisly. . . . There are enough aspects left unresolved to look forward to at least two more books of deadly peril, with new danger at every turn." - Entertainment Weekly "Takes up Stieg Larsson's mantle in icy, brutal style. . . . This adrenalized debut leads you into a European drug ring and introduces an unlikely heroine who's caught in the crossfire."
- The New York Times Book Review "An enjoyably offbeat thriller about rival gangs fighting over an international drug-smuggling route. . . . [Söderberg] writes with feeling about the crushing psychological stress felt by both cops and criminals."
- Mystery Scene "A timely thriller [that] adds some gritty saturated color to the minimal black-and-white palette of Nordic noir. . . . Intriguing."
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Brad Thor, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Black List
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"Imagine The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo meets The Sopranos, then crank up the intrigue and rip off the knob. Alexander Söderberg has penned an awesome thriller you won't want to miss." - Scott Smith, author of The Ruins "One of the many wonderful things about Alexander Söderberg's novel, The Andalucian Friend, is how it upsets our expectations. His cops act like gangsters, while his gangsters (some of them) attain a startling sort of nobility. Söderberg has created an entertaining, engaging, and wonderfully bloody-minded world. He's agreat storyteller. It's that simple."
- Chris Pavone, author of The Expats "The international cast is packed with compelling bad guys, the plot is intricate and urgent, and the dialogue is tense and true and sometimes even funny. A joy-ride of a read."
- Booklist (starred review) "Get ready for another round of hype in which one more heavily promoted Scandinavian thriller will be touted as 'the next Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.' It's a shame, really, because this gripping crime novel, the first in a trilogy, deserves to stand completely on its own. Yes, it's set largely in Stockholm, and, yes, it stars a woman of remarkable strength and resiliency, but Soderberg, a veteran screenwriter, is a very different kind of writer than investigative journalist Larsson; this novel is much faster paced than Dragon Tattoo, and while the multiple characters are richly complex, the narrative rumbles ever forward without Larsson's emphasis on backstory and research techniques. When we first meet Sophie Brinkman, an unassuming nurse and single mother, she seems the polar opposite of Lisbeth Salander. That changes slowly but inexorably after Sophie gets to know one of her patients, the suave Hector Guzman, a charming family man but also--as Sophie eventually discovers--the head of an international crime ring. (Comparisons to the Corleone family are also inevitable and not entirely unjustified.) Soon enough, Sophie finds herself in the middle of a gang war as Guzman's family battles a rival Russian contingent. Throw in a gaggle of rogue cops and Sophie's old boyfriend, who turns up out of nowhere with a history of his own, and you have a multistranded plot that holds together as exquisitely as finely wound silk. But, as with the Larsson trilogy, it's the woman at the center who sparks the engine. By novel's end, Sophie has realized that 'she was bigger than she had dared to see.' We see it, too, and are ready to follow her anywhere."
- BookPage "A tale of cutthroat mob bosses. . . . Söderberg writes exceptionally well-drawn and sympathetic characters . . . and has the chops to move a story along with the best of them."
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Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Excellent. . . . [A] jam-packed plot." - Kirkus Reviews "Söderberg is masterful."
