Anton Marklund’s first suspense novel The Omniscient has certainly gotten off to a flying start with three pre-empts in the space of a week. Deals have been closed with Modtryk in Denmark, Bonnier Norsk in Norway and Btb in Germany. Here are some praise from a couple of the acquiring editors.
Anne Flötaker at Bonnier Norsk: It is such a gripping book. Exciting, but first and foremost touching in the best way possible. If it were not for the fact that I have three Norwegian manuscripts that must be read and that I am taking part in the National Championships this weekend I would have finished reading a long time ago. Because that is what I want to do most of all: to sit and immerse myself in this novel. I like the way it flows, like a river with parts where the current is stronger and the rocks bigger, to the backwaters where the water is calm, deep and dark. It is also so good to read a novel where it’s the inner tension that keeps me hooked, and not the outer. And where the language helps make the characters something other and more than stereotypes. Nothing is clear or clarified in this novel, yet the reader feels completely confident that the author knows what he wants and where he is going. And besides, I think it’s exceptionally well done by a man to write such good women, and not least, to have a female first person narrator who is completely believable.
Trine Busch at Modtryk: I have read Anton Marklund’s The Omniscient at a single sitting after you sent the book yesterday, and I am enchanted by his language, mood and characters. I love Ramona and Peter, and the completely unusual (and wonderful) slowness that still has an underlying force that drives the story forward. The constant trembling horror and suspense that Marklund manages to create from the very beginning –that as a reader you become insecure about Peter already on page 1, and that Marklund manages to tease us with that uncertainty throughout the novel. For many years I have longed for a social worker in crime fiction – and here she comes with everything that is her. I love it.
The novel, released here in Sweden a couple of weeks ago, is the first book about social worker Ramona Lindh.