like a hundred summers since.
She had guided them here.
In real life, there was no camping ground.
Now he saw the target on the other side of the juniper. It was upright. The moose leered at him from the corner of its eye, or maybe it leered at something behi nd him. He turned. He saw the plaid shirts, the baseball caps, the boots. The guns. Now they were raised. They pointed at him. Youâre fucking supposed to aim at the moose, he thought before understanding. Truly understanding. He heard a sharp, metallic sound from the guns, a sound he couldnât identify. But he knew what it was. There are certain things you recognize the first time you encounter them, he thought.
Beyond the men the sky was flame colored. He saw the tower as a silhouette outlined by fire. He saw the figure standing at its top. He wanted to wave. He wanted to cry out. He wanted to explain all. He wanted to run up the ladder. He wanted to fly. The evening breeze suddenly took hold of her skirt and blew it out like a black banner.
Born in the small town of Eksjö in 1953, Ã
ke Edwardson initially worked as a journalist, then as a teacher at the Gothenburg School of Journalism before publishing his first novel in 1995. That book, Till allt som varit dött (To All That Has Been Dead) , won the Best First Novel Award from the Swedish Crime Fiction Academy; it was also the first novel in his series about Chief Inspector Erik Winter, who has since appeared in eleven novels. For two of the later Winter novels, Dans med en ängel (Death of Angels) and Himlen är en plats på jorden (Frozen Tracks) , Edwardson received the 1997 and 2001 Best Novel of the Year Awards from the Swedish Crime Fiction Academy. The Winter novels have been adapted for film in Sweden and are being published in numerous countries, including the United States.
IN OUR DARKENED HOUSE
I NGER F RIMANSSON
Inger Frimanssonâs novels have no recurring protagonists, although characters, places, and events in one book may appear or influence what happens in others. In that sense, she is gradually creating what she calls Frimanssonlandâa fictitious world in which her characters interact and influence one another and events. Similarly, although many of her novels are viewed as psychological thrillers while others are primarily psychological portraits, the line dividing the two is fluid and uncertainâin all of her novels are streaks of inner darkness, of the damage we do to each other, and of its consequences for our lives.
Readers of this story should know that December 13 is Lucia Day and important to most Swedes, particularly children and teens. The tradition was initially a combination of ancient midwinter rituals and imports from Germany during the eighteenth century, but was in its modern form introduced in the late 1920s via newspaper contests for a town Lucia. The main event is a Lucia procession very early in the morning, consisting of a Lucia, dressed in white with a scarlet ribbon around her waist and with candles in her hair, and her followersâgirls dressed in white, usually with tinsel in their hair and boys dressed variously as âstar boys,â in white with cone hats decorated with golden stars, as Santaâs helpers, or as gingerbread men; together they sing a few traditional songs and wish a Merry Christmas. Lucias are often elected by popular vote in towns, business offices, schools, day care centers, and other places where people gather; regional Lucias will visit hospitals, old peopleâs homes, churches, shopping malls, and the hotel rooms of visiting Nobel laureates to sing and often serve coffee, mulled wine, gingerbread, and specially made saffron buns, also traditionally associated with Lucia mornings. In most homes, the children will do something similar.
The name Lucia, of course, is taken from the Sicilian Saint Lucia, killed in the early 300s. But there is nothing religious about the Swedish tradition, nor is December
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