Last year Sweden’s queen of chick lit, Denise Rudberg, reinvented herself with a completely new genre – elegant crime. The first novel about Marianne Jidhoff, Ett litet snedsprång / Stepping Out of Line, marked the start of a new phase in her authors ...
Last year Sweden’s queen of chick lit, Denise Rudberg, reinvented herself with a completely new genre – elegant crime. The first novel about Marianne Jidhoff, Ett litet snedsprång / Stepping Out of Line, marked the start of a new phase in her authorship, and her biggest success in Sweden so far. The concept – crime stories in an upper-class environment – contains all the ingredients to make up an exciting story: power, money, extravagance and decadence.
During the Christmas’ holidays, a strange assault occurs at the well-reputed investment company The Chinese Wall. The victim, one of the senior partners, is found in the office severely injured. The crime is kept under close watch by the press, and the police soon learn that The Chinese Wall isn’t just a well-chosen company name; it is also a pretty accurate description of the company’s policy towards the outer world. A unified front is displayed towards the investigators and not a single witness to lead the investigation further can be found.
The first days after the assault, the victim is in a crititcal state, but after a while he regains consciousness and can finally be heard. But for the police it is once again a dead end, the man seems to recall nothing significant – or he is keeping his mouth shut about what he knows about the event.
Prosecution secretary Marianne Jidhoff, police officer Augustin Madrid and lead criminal investigator Torsten Ehn are assigned to the task of the investigation, specialized as they are on high-profiled cases. The group starts digging in search of any criminal connections to The Chinese Wall. Slowly, but surely, a increasingly horrifying image develops of a group of men who strategically and with tremendous determination work towards a more conservative way of doing business; keeping women away from any leading company position, but also dictating the marital terms of their employees every-day life.
And as Christmas turns into New Year, the champagne flows and fireworks covers the sky, another crime is committed in the shadow of sparkling dresses and crystal glasses.
Just like in Ett litet snedsprång / Stepping Out of Line, Denise Rudberg serves elegant entertainment in the salons of the upper-class, spiced with a perfect amount of suspence.
Press voices for Ett litet snedsprång:
”The strenght of the book is Rudberg’s character descriptions which are both profound and reader friendly. The author succeeds in a brilliant way to move the story along with the help of her characters /.../ The characters are difficult not to fall in love with” Tidningen Kulturen