Woman Around Town’s Editor Charlene Giannetti and writers for the website talk with the women and men making news in New York, Washington, D.C., and other cities around the world. Thanks to Ian Herman for his wonderful piano introduction.
Last year, Swedish author, Emilie Schepe, took us all on a wild ride with her debut novel Marked for Life where we met Jana Berzelius aka KER; a prosecutor with a hidden past as a child assassin. This year, Jana/KER is back in part two of a planned trilogy.
Marked for Revenge picks up six months after the events detailed in Marked for Life. Jana’s managed to keep her past secret, but her old nemesis (and fellow child assassin), Danilo, is still out there as the one loose end she has to fear. When one girl from Thailand overdoses smuggling drugs into Sweden and her fellow drug mule goes missing, it sets off an criminal investigation and chain of events that make it vital for Jana to find Danilo before anyone else does. Along the way, Jana makes unexpected further discoveries about her past; and possible new connections for the future.
As a middle chapter of the trilogy, Marked for Revenge inevitably has some awkwardness to it. People trying to start here without reading the first book first will inevitably become confused and the ending is of course a cliffhanger to set up part three. Also, an attempt to add further tension among Jana’s work colleagues with a love triangle at one point feels contrived. Schepe is far stronger when she focuses on those psychological demons she’s already set up within her main cast like self-destructive policewoman Mia Bolanger and happily married policeman who’s sympathetic to Jana (possibly even nurturing a crush,) but begins to have nagging little doubts about her. The main center of course remains Jana herself, that icy, impenetrable killer who constantly skates on the edge of discovery or death in a manner that while not always plausible is always entertaining. As a series, it practically screams for a screen adaption and readers will find themselves impatient to turn the pages.
With a sharp piece of glass he carved her new name on her neck. It said KER.
Marked For Life by Swedish author Emelie Schepp is the first novel of a planned suspense trilogy that follows in the footsteps of other authors such as Jo Nesbø (Harry Hole series) and Stieg Larsson (The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo). Its main protagonist, brilliant young prosecutor Jana Berzelius, is an icy perfectionist as cold, beautiful and impenetrable as a glacier. She’s the one person who’s never affected by gruesome crime scenes or grieving widows and when the murder of a high ranking migration official is first assigned to her she maintains her customary, clinical detachment. But when the murder weapon is found with the body of a young boy, and his autopsy reveals that the word Thanatos (a Greek God of Death) has been carved into his skin, Berzelius’s entire world is turned upside down. For she too has a word carved into her skin as well, and she soon realizes that she shares a connection with this particular case.
Schepp offers a briskly paced, tight moving story that does goes down some very, VERY dark corners along the way. Besides the enigmatic Jana, we meet other well drawn members of the investigative team as well: Chief Inspector Henrik, who’s dealing with a wife who no longer likes sex; Detective Inspector Maria Bolander of humble origins who can’t manage her money properly; crime scene technicians Gunnar and Anneli whose working relationship is complicated by their on-again, off-again romantic one; and, Jana’s own father, former Chief Prosecutor Karl Berzelius, whose emotionally distant personality played a role in shaping his daughter’s. As more secrets are uncovered and revelations revealed, Jana finds herself not only navigating the investigation but, in a dangerous game, trying to conceal the truth from her colleagues as well. Marked For Life is a great read in its own right, but it’s also guaranteed to hook you in for the rest of the ride with Schepp.
