A tale of tragedy and revenge that is truly gripping, and all the more horrifying because this kind of thing can happen anywhere.”
The Guardian (UK)
”Alongside serial killers, paedophilia is an increasingly common theme in modern crime fiction. Rarely has it been dealt with as chillingly yet as thoughtfully as in The Beast. /…/ The Beast is a must read.”
The Observer (UK)
”Their cooperation makes for a stunning thriller. Roslund’s disciplined writing and plot-driven style combine with Hellström’s profound knowledge of the world of prison, prisoners and wardens to provide a roller-coaster read that is driven by emotional power. /…/ This is a book with extraordinary insights and totally unexpected plot twists. Yet the most striking thing about it is the intensity in the characters. It’s hard to read without tears coming to your eyes. It has the blunt, matter-of-fact Swedish tone of thriller writers like Henning Mankell, yet it is also subtle and nuanced. A fabulous read.”
Sunday Business Post (UK)
”It is like being hit by a verbal projectile, a smooth, cold bullet, at close range. /…/ This is how the story progresses, all the way through the book, with plot twists, as unexpected as anything by le Carré, and tricks, cunning enough to match any by Hitchcock, to keep the reader in a permanent state of breathlessness. /…/ The raw excitement is kept at a level as high as in Miss Smilla’s Feeling for Snow. But, just as in Peter Høeg’s classic from the 90s, there is much more to the book than run-of-mill entertainment.”
Information (Denmark)
****** (six stars out of six) “Two Swedish authors make their literary debut with a gripping crime novel, The Beast, which tells a breathtaking crime story while it discusses the primitive yet forbidden human concept of the vendetta./…/ The two Swedes, Anders Roslund and Börge Hellström, emphasize this dilemma in their debut novel The Beast in such an intense, realistic and gripping way that the reader understands the view of both the lawbreaker and society, whose duty it is to put the accused on trial and thus make sure that people learn from it. /…/ The two debutants have created a crime story that lives up to all the expectations of a breathtaking and suspenseful bestseller. /…/ It looks like a pair of new realistic Swedish crown princes of crime have been born.”
Berlingske Tidene (Denmark)
“The Beast is a merciless thriller, that enthralls readers with a cleverly orchestrated plot and excellent writing.”
Milano Finanza (Italy)
“The Beast, is an excellent and insightful thriller by the Swedish pair [Roslund & Hellström], and frighteningly realistic in the way that it tackles a hot social issue.”
Keskipohjanmaa (Finland)
“A singular team of writers who produce brutal but real books, which even on the high-quality Swedish literary scene, stand out as riveting crime fiction.”
Noir (Italy)
“Roslund & Hellström deliver raw writing and blood-chilling scenes that creep under your skin and strike you right down to the bone.”
La Sicilia (Italy)
”The Swedish debut novel of the year. An extraordinarily thrilling novel, but also an extraordinarily thought provoking novel.”
Ystads Allehanda (Sweden)
“This is so well written that it’s impossible to put the book down, and with an intensity that makes it clear you shouldn’t.”
Fyens Stiftstidene (Denmark)
“By assuming that the genre is alive, dynamic and possible to develop further, they place their novel alongside those of Hammett, McBain, Manchette and Sjöwall-Wahlöö.
BLM
What is fantastic about this novel is that Roslund-Hellström do not settle for any half measures: they could have contented themselves with run of the mill prose that fits nicely into this genre, since their mission is to raise important questions. Likewise, they could have left psychology out, since their social repertoire has such width.
They do neither. Instead, they have made an effort to produce a novel that is complete.
Roslund-Hellström are advanced in terms of story-telling technique. They use a wide range of viewpoints, parallel courses of events, changes of style, an ability to identify emotionally to characters ranging form the psychologically disturbed to bored civil servants. The Beast is alert, intelligent and disturbing. Just as we were beginning to sense that the Swedish crime novel was about to install itself comfortably in the compartment of success, Roslund-Hellström puts it to back to work. Clearly, this is very beneficial to it.”
“Intriguing”
Independent
“A tale of tragedy and revenge that is truly gripping, and all the more horrifying because this kind of thing can happen anywhere’”
Guardian
“Alongside serial killers, paedophilia is an increasingly common theme in modern crime fiction. Rarely has it been dealt with as chillingly yet as thoughtfully as in The Beast by Anders Roslund & Borge Hellstrom. [...]The Beast is a must-read”
Observer
“A stunning thriller. Roslund’s disciplined writing and plot driven-style combine with Hellstrom’s profound knowledge of the world of prison, prisoners and wardens to provide a roller-coaster read that is driven by emotional power. It has the blunt, matter-of-fact Swedish tone of thriller-writers like Henning Mankell, yet it is also subtle and nuanced. A fabulous read’”
Sunday Business Post
“A very strong story about a terrible crime and its equally terrible consequences. It creates an urge to discuss the value of life – is the life of one person worth more than that of another? Can a murder be justified? The discussions are not merely theoretical, because Odjuret pushes the reader away from fiction and straight into reality. /…/ Together, these two Roslund/Hellström are successful in giving a large amount of people an audible voice. /…/ Often, it is said that crime novels provide relaxing reading material, a moment of entertainment and diversion.
Odjuret reveals the true potential of this genre. This is as far from entertainment and relaxation as one may get and instead intimately near reality and our own personal feelings and opinions. /…/ Undoubtedly, this is a book that will be widely discussed and debated, and it will clearly make a lasting impression on every reader.”
Skånska Dagbladet
“ Odjuret by Anders Roslund and Börge Hellström is one of the best first novels for a long time. /…/ What impresses me the most is perhaps that Odjuret manages to make so many of the central characters credible and thereby much more difficult to condemn. This is well done and even more promising for the future. I hope the combination of the authors Anders Roslund and Börge Hellström will soon return.”
Sydsvenska Dagbladet
“Culture journalist Roslund and criminal care debater Hellström have joined forces to produce a crime novel that seeks to provide more than mere momentary entertainment. And they have certainly achieved their objective. The scenes keep changing just like in a rock video, but the focus always remains clear. The reader always feels present immediately when and where something happens.
Rarely, one is confronted with such credible characters – irrespective of whether they are paedophiles with clear psychopathic traits, perpetual jailbirds, hardened policemen, shocked victims, career-minded prosecutors, agitated citizens wishing to take the law into their own hands, or others. /…/ A horrid story with a nerve. It is also told in a very good and refined manner…worthy of all appreciation it can get.”
Länstidningen Östersund
“By the time I have read the last page, Hellström and Roslund have managed to surprise me numerous of times. The book, which at the onset appeared to be a regular novel of suspense, turned out to be so much more. This is a story that stirs up people’s emotions, and that feels very timely. It is a well thought trough first novel with more dimensions to it than I anticipated when I started reading it.”
Värmlands Folkblad
“A frighteningly good thriller. /…/ When a journalist and a former criminal write a thriller, the insight becomes apparent. Rarely have I read a crime novel with such a strong credibility as far as the setting is concerned. Börge Hellström provides unique insider information in the prison scenes and Anders Roslund describes the legal turns with precision. Odjuret is actually a traditional novel about society, but not since the Sjöwall-Wahlöö set of novels about Martin Beck has the coffee from the coffee machine at the police head quarters had such a bitter taste to it, the dust been gleaming so mercifully in the morning sun, the message been chiselled so rhetorically convincingly. A triumph for the authors and the publisher, who will make a fortune on The Beast.”
Stockholm City
“Ambitiously presented thriller about a sadistic sex murderer.”
Upsala Nya Tidning
“This is a good thriller, a solid and read-worthy first novel.”
LT
“Amongst the scariest I have read…very, very, poignant. /… It is so incredibly well-written that it scares you out of your wits. /…/ One of the most fascinating novels I have read for a long time.”
Sveriges Radio Sjuhärad
“Well written and with a high tempo… Well depicted characters”.
Östersundsposten
“A scary novel about evil processes. /…/ Odjuret is a novel, but firmly anchored in reality and with a debate about difficult dilemmas in a community governed by law.”
Jakobstads Tidning (Finland)
“A successful – but horrid – first novel. /…/ The novel brings interesting matters to a head. How should society handle such deranged murderers? By giving them medical treatment? Or by repression and locking them up? Or even through capital punishment?”
Mariestads Tidning
“Together, these two men have produced a scary and gripping novel… This is a highly read-worthy book.”
Värnamo Nyheter
“Skilful writing by a first timer duo. Their topic is emotional, but their language feels disturbingly true to life. This is exactly how it could be in real life. The increasingly accelerating road to downfall into the abyss is depicted in a painful manner. The tragedies are foreboded and the course of the revenge appears relentless and fair, but in its wake there are other tragic consequences in a spiral of violence that brings with it nothing positive. /…/ Their first novel is strong and stir up relentless emotions. To read Odjuret is to look into a warped abyss of the human psyche – a place where the urge for revenge becomes easy to understand and sympathize with, but where the intrinsic nature of revenge misguides us and turns us, the agitated, into the perpetual losers.”
Norrbottens-Kuriren
“Together, they have produced something that is not merely a novel, but a portrait of our times.”
Södertälje-Posten
“The first novel Odjuret by Roslund/Hellström is a gripping – and sometimes disturbing – thriller where the end is anything but happy. /…/ That The Beast’s horrid crime is described in detail may make your stomach turn, but nonetheless you will find it difficult to put the book away before you have finished reading it.”
Hallandsposten
“The book is strong and moving, sometimes to such an extent that I had to put it down. /…/ It is thoroughly thought through and calls upon reflection and debate… It is very gripping and an excellent result of the cooperation between Roslund and Hellström.”
Nu
“A frightening and frighteningly well-written first novel. /…/ It is a book that evokes both disgust and that is in some parts so gripping and so scary that it would make you want to put it away if your curiosity about the end didn’t stop you.”
Katrineholms-Kuriren
Try to imagine that you are inside the mind of a paedophile who likes killing his victims. Imagine following every step as he calculates strategy and tactics, second by second, up to a crime actually being carried out. Every needling irritation from what left from his fading awareness of guilt, and every lecherous pang of lust. And every studied use of childish slang, every carefully analysed moment of risk-taking.
Most people would surely prefer not to, but Anders Roslund and Börge Hellström do not spare the readers of this, their first novel. Like Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö, leading Swedish crime-writers in the 70s, Roslund and Hellström write as a team. They hold you helplessly captive as they probe the mind of an outlawed madman and sex offender.
No, Odjuret is in no way just another novel. Hints of its forthcoming publication alerted the publishing world well before its Swedish launch. In Denmark, a couple of publishers locked horns in a rough, blood-and-ink auction to get the book, each bid raising the price to ever larger sums. Finally, Centrum won. Now, although the book is still not published in Sweden, the Danish public can relax, safe in the knowledge that Odjuret will soon arrive here too.
“He shouldn’t have”. This is the very first sentence in the book or, rather, the bundle of photocopied pages that your ever alert reviewer managed to get hold of. The words form the first line, and this somehow emphasises their seriousness, hammering them into the reader’s consciousness. It is like being hit by a verbal projectile, a smooth, cold bullet, at close range. The following seventeen pages are absorbing, petrifying. The man advances. He lounges on the green park-bench, casually, like any teenager. He twists his baseball-cap – it’s just like everybody else’s, because he has been observing the boys hanging out in the playground. He chats up two little girls, manipulates them and gains their grudging trust. He persuades them to come with him into the basement of a block of flats. He ties them up. And then he lifts the screwdriver … There is nothing – nothing at all – that the reader can do to stop him.
This is how it is, in real life too. The writers force us to watch the most appalling crimes, from beginning to bitter end. The police arrest the paedophile repeat offender, but four years later he is off, back in society after having beaten up two transport guards and walked away. A paedophile demon from hell, once more free to kill.
At this point the writers screws up the tension by introducing us to a father, who is setting out to drive his little girl to nursery school. Leaving the nursery, he nods in passing to a man with baseball-cap. The reader almost screams.
This how the story progresses, all the way through the book, with plot twists, as unexpected as anything by le Carré, and tricks, cunning enough to match any by Hitchcock, to keep the reader in a permanent state of breathlessness. Will he get there in time? What will the others do meantime? Is she going to manage? Why do this, just now? Watch out, he’s got knife! The raw excitement is kept at a level as high as in Miss Smilla’s Feeling for Snow. But, just as in Peter Høeg’s classic from the 90s, there is much more to the book than run-of-mill entertainment.
For the most amazing fact about this new book is that provides such a superbly well informed overview of its subject-matter. Who is ‘the beast’, really? Is it the paedophile man? Is it society, unable to protect the victims? The authors response to both questions is a qualified ‘no’: the phenomenon of ‘paedophilia’ is ‘the beast’. It is a concept, but also a taboo. Hence no one is able to cope with it. The authors show this by systematically displaying every aspect of the mess created by our moral distancing, our fears of guilt by association. They show us the callousness of the criminal, in all its depressing awfulness. They show us the parents’ despairing and utterly hopeless attempt to take the law into their own hands. They show us the immoral conduct of the lawyers. The uselessness of antiquated legislation. The torments unto death suffered by sexual offenders at the hands of other prison inmates. They show how ignorance and misunderstandings obscure the entire area of paedophilia and how grossly the press exploits it.
Anyone who reads this Swedish book about Odjuret must think it unlikely that the two authors are first-time novelists. But then, neither is a novice. One is the Arts Editor at Swedish TV and the other works full-time for an organisation supporting released criminals and started by himself, an ex-con. Between the two of them, they have an unparalleled grasp of the subject, making this one of the most thoroughly researched of all books about sex offenders published in Scandinavia for a very long time. It covers every aspect of the subject, even the finer points, but an accessible way. It is like watching a really good documentary film.
The book, published in Sweden by Jan Guillou’s Pirat [Books], will be widely read, here in Denmark too. Of course, it is a given best-seller, simply because it is a very exciting crime novel, but it is also a provocative and thoughtful argument, setting a new benchmark for how the debate about paedophilia should be conducted.”
Kristian Ditlev Jensen, Information (Denmark)
