Small concert for whistle blowers – Expressen

Nils Schwarz reads a masterful mellanbok of Stewe Claeson.

A mellanbok is usually a divertissement as a writer and then a little parenthetically gives out between the larger bets. If there is one between the book’s champion in Sweden’s his Stewe Claeson .

He’s in the 2000s published three major novels – “Rowan grape glows” (2002), Isaiah Tegnérs last days and death, “Still cheering birdsong” (2009) on adult education at the time of the General Strike in 1909, and the mildly contemplative contemporary depiction “The twenty-third poem” (2012). In addition, he has published five novels, less weighty, but all maximum readable. Get hold such a high level between their books.

It applies as much his new novel, “Getting close” I hesitate to call it mellanbok. Claeson give this to grips with a local scandal of the ever revealed type, where local politicians and contractors are caught with your fingers in the jam jar, brushing each other’s backs in the exchange of mutual benefits.

Gothenburg scandal is well Claeson nearest model for the fictional small municipality on the west coast, where the young whistle blower Pontus – Investigators at a consulting company that checks if a waterfront large building complies with environmental laws and common rights – has discovered suspicious mutaffärer between the developer and the leading councilor. The construction put on hold pending judicial review.

Pontus supported at present by the consultancy’s head, but he endured a storm of accusations from municipal representatives, local reporters and anonymous letter writer to suggest that he himself does not have clean flours in bag.

Pontus is determined to stand on, but he suffer from stress-related headaches and persuaded to take a break in a traditional guest house in Småland. Unable to drop the issue, drawn, he still reluctantly into the conversation with the landlady and a retired history lecturer whose life experiences and alcohol intake far exceeds Pontus more moderate track record.

Claeson follow the young man’s inflated state of mind all the way into meaningful buildings that hie almost without breathing pauses. There are reasons for the reader to not run on without occasionally put down the book and ponder the important questions about power, morality, courage and the collateral damage that dances on the sides.

A divertissement, the book is probably , but also a whistle-blowing concert in both the whistle-blower who the reader heads, evocative music by the books’ champion.