Author:Eva-Marie Liffner
It is 1938. A corpse is found in a peat bog in Schleswig-Holstein, a tiny but hotly contested fragment of Europe's coastal landscape between Germany and Denmark. The body is that of a nineteenth-century soldier bent double underneath his coat - a disquieting reminder of old ferocious battles just when a new world war is about to begin.
Three men - a Danish policeman, a young German-Jewish refugee and a German professor - venture out into the quagmire to find clues to the mummified soldier's identity. Soon afterwards, the professor disappears.
It is the year 2000. Esmé Olsen, a cleaner in the Institute for Historical Studies in Copenhagen, stumbles upon documents concerning the find in the bog while cleaning up after a party. A quirky amateur historian, she can't resist 'borrowing' the documents to read. Thus begins a many-layered journey into the past, both real and imagined. Esmé's childhood, her relationship with her eccentric father, the particular opulence of 1960s American automobiles, a packet of letters to the writer J.D. Salinger, the young soldier's drunken rape and the discovery of the German professor's body down a well are subtly interwoven to create a multivalent tale of mystery, memory and remembrance.
Esmé Olsen is, like her author, a woman whose powers of imagination and recall are considerable, not to say formidable... Every era, every episode is densely imagined and detailed
—— GuardianA slice of psychogeography... This is a story of broad horizons that brings together battlefield horrors, a touch of German Romanticism, and tales of the supernatural
—— IndependentA terrific novel... Atmospheric, clever and gripping
—— ObserverAn undeniably artful frenzy of violence, guilt and unappeased self-loathing. Ellroy's crime fiction represents a high mark in the genre
—— New York NewsdayA fascinating, swaggeringly confident performance
—— Sunday TimesA page-turning caper filled with well-timed surprises...there is also the saving grace of Reacher's deadpan humor -as when he is sawing with a motel key at a captive's rope bindings. "Don't you have a knife?" the man asks. "I have a toothbrush,! Reacher responds. "That won't help," the captive says, to which Reacher retorts: "It's good against plaque."
—— Wall Street JournalWith Child, you can always count on furious action - and a damned good time.
—— Miami HeraldMasterful writing and storytelling...Child makes it look effortless...If there were such a thing as a writer-magician, Lee Child woud be the face above the cloak.
—— Washington PostChild always puts his heart into the elaborate quasi-military operations he cooks up for Reacher...But there's something even more chilling about those lonesome hours spent riding the Interstate, watching the rundown family farms and commercial strip malls and topless bars go by.
—— International Herald TribuneWill leave the legion of Reacher addicts satisfied but craving for their next fix.
—— Irish IndependentThe most satisfying of all 17 thrillers in the series. The unfolding of events nudges along at just the right rate... toward an authentically gripping climax.
—— Toronto Star