Publication
Amsterdam Bakker 1994
ISBN
903511406X / 9789035114067
Language
Collection
Description
Midsummer eve, 1974, in the far north of Sweden. Annie Raft arrives with her six-year-old daughter in a small town called Blackwater to join her lover Dan on a commune. But Dan is not there to meet them. Panicking, Annie treks into the wilderness to find the commune, in the strange, hovering light of midsummer night. By the river, she finds a tent; and inside it two bodies hideously murdered - stabbed so violently that the feathers from their sleeping bag scatter the ground. Many years later, Annie has settled in the region, and Mia, her daughter has grown up. Early one morning glimpses Mia in the arms of the man she believes responsible for the murders. The seemingly inexplicable crime, long buried, is forced to come to its own dark and unexpected conclusion.… (more)
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User reviews
LibraryThing member SeriousGrace
Ekman's Blackwater is possessive. It grabs you and you can't put it down. It's dark and gritty - peppered with angry scenes of violence and meaningless, lust driven sex. Like a maze with many twisting passages Blackwater has a community of dark stories to tell. Each tale is tangled with another and
In the beginning Annie Raft follows a lover to Blackwater to his out-of-the-way commune. On her first day in town Annie stumbles across the murdered bodies of two tourists camping in the backwoods of Blackwater. For twenty years she is haunted by the face of the man she thinks did it until one day that face comes back in the form of her daughter's newest boyfriend. The mystery, along with a whole host of secrets, start to unravel.
The landscape is such an important element in the novel I would have enjoyed a map, something that illustrates Annie getting lost in the forest, how far away from town the commune was, where the well was that Johan was tossed into in relation to where the murders took place, etc.
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at the center, common to all, is a double murder. While everyone knows about it and is touched by it, no one can solve it for twenty years.In the beginning Annie Raft follows a lover to Blackwater to his out-of-the-way commune. On her first day in town Annie stumbles across the murdered bodies of two tourists camping in the backwoods of Blackwater. For twenty years she is haunted by the face of the man she thinks did it until one day that face comes back in the form of her daughter's newest boyfriend. The mystery, along with a whole host of secrets, start to unravel.
The landscape is such an important element in the novel I would have enjoyed a map, something that illustrates Annie getting lost in the forest, how far away from town the commune was, where the well was that Johan was tossed into in relation to where the murders took place, etc.
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LibraryThing member RidgewayGirl
Blackwater by Kerstin Ekman is a crime novel by a Swedish author, but it's much more than just another dark Scandinavian mystery. The novel centers around a double murder, following the lives of three people affected by the event; the young woman who stumbles across the bodies, a doctor whose wife
The writing is beautiful with lovely descriptions of a part of Sweden between Ostersund and Norway, where nature is lush and fragile, the people hardy but closed to outsiders. The mystery is solved in the end, in a satisfying way. A book well worth reading.
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is in the area at the time, and a teenage boy who runs away the night of the killings. For much of the novel, as the characters go about living their lives, the murders are almost forgotten. Ekman explores the themes of solitude and loneliness, how you can live with someone and still be a stranger to them, environmental destruction and the uncomfortable tension between a nostalgia for days gone by and the harsh reality of life in the middle of Sweden in the past. The writing is beautiful with lovely descriptions of a part of Sweden between Ostersund and Norway, where nature is lush and fragile, the people hardy but closed to outsiders. The mystery is solved in the end, in a satisfying way. A book well worth reading.
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LibraryThing member richardmckellar
The other reviews adequately outline the setting, theme and story line. I am moved to provide this review because I was deeply disappointed with a novel that I found pedestrian, uninventive and virtually without humour or wit. Moreover, it is padded with disassociated side stories that neither
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inform the main theme and story nor provide greater depth to characterisation. I thought the plodding style might be due to the translation, but I cannot believe that a translation would have lost all wit that might have been present. So if you wish to visit a well-described small isolated Scandinavian rural community in a boreal region, this is for you. However, if you are looking for a novel that will surprise and delight, I'd leave this one and look for another. Show Less
LibraryThing member PilgrimJess
Annie Raft, is woken at 4 am by a car pulling up outside her home. She looks out of the window to see her 23-year-old daughter Mia getting out of the car and embracing a man who she doesn't know but whom she believes brutally murdered two campers some 18 years previously. She telephones her friend
Through Annie Raft, Birger Torbjornsson and Johan Brandberg the reader is transported back to Midsummer's Eve 1974, when Annie and her daughter, then 6 years old, arrived by bus in remote Blackwater where they are to move into a commune with Annie's lover, Dan Ulander. When Dan fails to meet the bus, Annie and Mia set off on foot to walk the four kilometres to the commune. En route they spot a young man coming in the opposite direction but he does not see them. Dan has given them a rudimentary map of the area but they are soon lost . When Annie spots a tent she decides to go and ask for assistance only to find the bodies of a young man and woman brutally stabbed to death. The identity of the young woman is soon established, but nobody can figure out why she was killed, who did it or who her murdered companion was. The mystery lasts for almost 18 years.
The unsolved murders makes the small community of Blackwater infamous, bringing it a lot of outside interest but has negative affects on its residents. So when Annie and Mia later decide to settle in Blackwater all their lives are haunted by the incident.
This book is portrayed as a thriller but it is told at a somewhat sedate, methodical pace with the author resisting the temptation to add to the body count. Instead Ekman concentrates on the effect the murders have on the community and the rich eerily bleak countryside thereabouts. In fact she creates a landscape that as equally as important to the plot as its human cast. Clear-cutting of the forests is a fairly central issue but this not a political bandwagon. Rather the plot purrs along at a slow steady pace threading its way through the seasons and the complicated lives of the people present.
When Dan fails to meet the bus Annie and Mia are forced to take a path that leads not only to the dead bodies but one that will also have unforeseen consequences, mirroring the way that decisions that we all make when we are young can shape our futures. This is no doubt particularly true for people live in small villages where everyone knows and are likely to be in some way related to each other. In fact it is Mia who eventually reveals the identity of the murdered young man despite only being a child at the time of his death.
The novel is not without some imperfections. In particular Johan is never properly investigated by the police despite the fact that he left home on the night of the murders and never returned to the village. Come to think of it, the whole police investigation seems to have been pretty haphazard. Similarly Johan's sex sessions with the woman who helped him to get away seem to be a little out of keeping with the rest of the novel. However, that all said and done, the author has created a gloriously rich and thoughtful page-turner that deserves to be read.
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and lover, local doctor Birger Torbjornsson to tell him what she has seen and later discovers that the man she saw is Johan Brandberg, the youngest son of a local family.Through Annie Raft, Birger Torbjornsson and Johan Brandberg the reader is transported back to Midsummer's Eve 1974, when Annie and her daughter, then 6 years old, arrived by bus in remote Blackwater where they are to move into a commune with Annie's lover, Dan Ulander. When Dan fails to meet the bus, Annie and Mia set off on foot to walk the four kilometres to the commune. En route they spot a young man coming in the opposite direction but he does not see them. Dan has given them a rudimentary map of the area but they are soon lost . When Annie spots a tent she decides to go and ask for assistance only to find the bodies of a young man and woman brutally stabbed to death. The identity of the young woman is soon established, but nobody can figure out why she was killed, who did it or who her murdered companion was. The mystery lasts for almost 18 years.
The unsolved murders makes the small community of Blackwater infamous, bringing it a lot of outside interest but has negative affects on its residents. So when Annie and Mia later decide to settle in Blackwater all their lives are haunted by the incident.
This book is portrayed as a thriller but it is told at a somewhat sedate, methodical pace with the author resisting the temptation to add to the body count. Instead Ekman concentrates on the effect the murders have on the community and the rich eerily bleak countryside thereabouts. In fact she creates a landscape that as equally as important to the plot as its human cast. Clear-cutting of the forests is a fairly central issue but this not a political bandwagon. Rather the plot purrs along at a slow steady pace threading its way through the seasons and the complicated lives of the people present.
When Dan fails to meet the bus Annie and Mia are forced to take a path that leads not only to the dead bodies but one that will also have unforeseen consequences, mirroring the way that decisions that we all make when we are young can shape our futures. This is no doubt particularly true for people live in small villages where everyone knows and are likely to be in some way related to each other. In fact it is Mia who eventually reveals the identity of the murdered young man despite only being a child at the time of his death.
The novel is not without some imperfections. In particular Johan is never properly investigated by the police despite the fact that he left home on the night of the murders and never returned to the village. Come to think of it, the whole police investigation seems to have been pretty haphazard. Similarly Johan's sex sessions with the woman who helped him to get away seem to be a little out of keeping with the rest of the novel. However, that all said and done, the author has created a gloriously rich and thoughtful page-turner that deserves to be read.
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LibraryThing member froxgirl
DNF. Violent with no apparent redeemable anything.
Awards
Dublin Literary Award (Longlist — 1997)
Glass Key Award (Nominee — 1994)
Nordisk Råds litteraturpris (Nominee — 1994)
Giuseppe Acerbi (1999)
Augustpriset (Nominee — 1993)
Original publication date
1993