Product Description

Sybilla Forsenstrom doesn't exist. For fifteen years she has been excluded from society and, as one of the homeless in Stockholm, she takes each day as it comes, keeping all her possessions in her rucksack - apart from a knife and salami which she stores in a smart briefcase. She is always well-dressed and displays impeccable manners. One night, in The Grand Hotel, she charms a susceptible businessman into paying for her dinner and room. His dead body is discovered the following morning and Sybilla becomes the prime suspect. When a second person is killed in similar circumstances, she becomes the most wanted person in Sweden.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #436690 in Books
• Published on: 2003-06-26
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 249 pages

Review
Karin Alvtegen, an award-winner in her native Sweden, should earn herself a wide English readership in this thriller with a difference, which has been very ably translated by Anna Paterson. Sibylla, a homeless con-woman living by her wits and on the streets, finds herself in deep trouble when a businessman she tricks into paying for a dinner and a hotel room in Stockholm's plush Grand is found dead the morning after. She flees, but as other similar murders are committed she is suspected of being a serial killer. Although a person of great resource, Sibylla, driven to despair, is about to give up. But then she meets the equally resourceful 15-year-old Patrik. Through many a twist, turn and disappointment that keep the reader riveted, the pair eventually wins through. The Swedish setting is beautifully evoked and the three strands in the plot knit together very neatly at the end, while the reasons for Sibylla's outsider status are clarified through flashbacks to her early and deprived family life. Her name has always been a problem, and so have her cold, narcissistic and snobbish parents. A teenage love affair ends in rejection by Sibylla's lover, followed by her pregnancy and mental breakdown: her son is taken away for adoption. It is at this point that she leaves her family and becomes a genuine outsider. Missing is currently being translated into 16 languages. No ordinary thriller, it charts the life that the homeless, the rejected and the marginalized experience and often share. 'Weakness is a provocation in itself,' Sibylla has learned, and her career bears the truth of this statement out. Her career also shows the difficulty people have if they have no place in the social system: no address, no credit rating and no real identity. (Kirkus UK)

Synopsis
Sybilla Forsenstrom doesn't exist. For fifteen years she has been excluded from society and, as one of the homeless in Stockholm, she takes each day as it comes, keeping all her possessions in her rucksack - apart from a knife and salami which she stores in a smart briefcase. She is always well-dressed and displays impeccable manners. One night, in The Grand Hotel, she charms a susceptible businessman into paying for her dinner and room. His dead body is discovered the following morning and Sybilla becomes the prime suspect. When a second person is killed in similar circumstances, she becomes the most wanted person in Sweden.

About the Author
KARIN ALVTEGEN (b. 1966) is regarded as the most exciting new crime writer in Scandinavia. Missing was awarded the premier Scandinavian crime writing award and was also nominated for the Poloni Award and Best Crime Novel 2000 in Sweden. Alvtegen lives in Stockholm. Her great aunt was Astrid Lindgren.

Customer Reviews

Definitely something missing
Over recent years, Scandinavian and Islandic crime writers have produced some of the most exciting and fresh contributions to the genre. And, at first glance, Karin Alvtegen's "Missing" seems to fit right in - an intriguing premise, played out against a starkly realistic setting. The book tells of a brutal serial killer's murder spree, as seen through the eyes of everybody's prime suspect: Sibylla, a young homeless woman with a history of mental health problems. The cards are truly stacked against Sibylla, as a chance meeting with the first victim and her own tragic past conspire to rob her of her one ruthlessly guarded treasure - her freedom. As the net draws ever closer, her deeply ingrained paranoia threatens to turn into suicidal desperation but fate sends her an ally with whose help she decides to fight back and track down the real killer. So far, so good.

Despite the sometimes rather clunky translation, there are some truly gripping scenes - when Sibylla meets one of her homeless friends, for example, whose psychotic antics attract the attention of two police officers. Or when she is attacked by a former partner who turns into a brutal bully and rapist whenever he's drunk. These moments convincingly show the dark side of Sibylla's precious freedom. Sadly, though, Alvtegen cannot sustain this gritty atmosphere throughout the novel. Sibylla, in an obvious attempt to make her more sympathetic, is a far too sanitized character: She used to spend her days in a drunken stupor, she stank, she scavenged food from bins, but by the time Alvtegen introduces us to her she is looking after herself and is saving to buy a little cottage. On the whole one never gets the feeling that Alvtegen is completely at ease with her material; she sets up an interesting and rather tough premise, only to spoil it by essentially opting out of it on a regular basis: Though homeless and jobless, Sibylla has the - rather large amount of - money needed in her search for the killer; she also finds a convenient ally who not only provides her with all the necessary clues so that she can instantly hit upon the motive for the murders, but also knows a computer hacker just when they need to break into a secure data base (not to mention that he also has close and useful relations with someone in the police force).

If you thought about buying "Missing" because the cover blurb sounded interesting, read George Dawes Green's thriller "The Caveman" (aka "The Caveman's Valentine") instead. It's the story of a homeless man with mental problems who has to track down a killer after a body is left in his hiding place, implicating him in the murder and it's much, much better.

Missing something, I think
It could be me. I am just not sure I get on with crime fiction. It always seems to me it gives plot an undeserved ascendancy over character, observation, depth and good writing. I'm afraid this was no exception. The prose was flat, and while Sibylla was interesting, there seemed to be little subtlety to her character. I just didn't really believe in her or her rather melodramatically appalling childhood. The serial killer as religious maniac theme also struck me as hackneyed. The news stories were truly awful - has the author actually read any news stories and observed how they are constructed? Or are Swedish newspapers fundamentally different to ours?

Worst of all the plot just struck me as plain unbelievable **** SPOILER COMING **** Are we really seriously expected to believe that the police would overlook a connection as obvious as all the victims being transplant patients? Especially given that Sibylla had no discernible motive, apart from a history of mental illness. It just didn't add up - at least in my mind.

That said, it's a cut above some of the crime stuff I've read, and being a complete Swedophile, I loved the descriptions and atmosphere.

Subtle and understated
Alvtegen wrote Shame, which I greatly enjoyed.

This is not quite as good, although if you haven't read her other work it is perfectly good enough. The initial plot is subtle and well written, although it loses something a little as it continues.

More important are the characters, and particularly, the central character. As ever with Alvtegen, there is depth and understatement aplenty, and a willingness to let matters unravel at their own pace, rather than rush it, or miss out details altogether.

Ultimately, the strength of this book is the way the past unwraps itself. If you are a patient reader who can live without car chases and explosions, you will be well rewarded.