Roslund, Anders 1961- (Roslund Hellström, a joint pseudonym)

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Roslund, Anders 1961- (Roslund Hellström, a joint pseudonym)

PERSONAL:

Born 1961.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Sweden. Agent—Salomonsson Agency, Stora Nygatan 20, 111 27 Stockholm, Sweden. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Writer, novelist, and journalist. Culture News, founder and former head; Aktuellt, former head of news. Rapport (Swedish television station), investigative reporter. Worked as a manufacturer, a fruit seller, and a waiter.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Citypriset (The City Prize), Best Crime Novel of the Year, 2005, for Box 21; Glasnyckeln (The Glass Key) Award, Best Scandinavian Crime Novel of the Year; recipient of awards for his journalism and investigative reporting work.

WRITINGS:

WITH BORGE HELLSTROM, UNDER JOINT PSEUDONYM ROSLUND HELLSTROM; "EWERT GRENS AND SVEN SUNDKVIST" THRILLER SERIES

The Beast, translation by Anna Paterson, Little, Brown (London, England), 2005.

The Satisfaction of Edward Finnegan, Piratförlaget (Stockholm, Sweden), 2006.

Box 21, Little, Brown (London, England), 2007.

The Girl below the Street, Piratförlaget (Stockholm, Sweden), 2007.

The Vault, Abacus (London, England), 2008.

ADAPTATIONS:

The Satisfaction of Edward Finnegan, The Beast, and Box 21 are under option for film to Swedish National Television.

SIDELIGHTS:

Writer and novelist Anders Roslund is a member of the Swedish thriller writing team known as Roslund Hellström. Along with his writing partner, Borge Hellström, an ex-criminal who works in rehabilitation, Roslund writes visceral, involved thrillers and suspense novels. A well-known journalist in his native Sweden, Roslund is the founder and former chief of Culture News. For many years, he was the head of news at Aktuellt, a broadcast news program, and served as an investigative reporter at the Swedish television station Rapport. Roslund has won awards for his journalism and his fiction writing.

The Beast, is Roslund Hellström's first book and one of their better-known works. The authors' "cooperation makes for a stunning thriller. Roslund's disciplined writing and plot-driven style combine with Hellstrom's profound knowledge of the world of prison, prisoners and wardens to provide a roller-coaster read that is driven by emotional power," commented Lucille Redmond in a review in the Sunday Business Post (Dublin, Ireland). In a small Swedish town, a sexual predator and pedophile lures two young girls to their doom. Bernt Lund, a mentally disturbed young man, is arrested, charged, and convicted of the brutal assault and murder. The crime has a profound effect on many whose lives it touched, including Ewert Grens, the hardened police detective who, along with officer Sven Sundkvist, caught and arrested Lund; Frederik, the emotionally devastated father of one of the slain girls; prison warden Lennart Oscarsson, who is hiding a shocking secret from his wife, Karin; and residents of the prison's violent offender ward who are disgusted by, and driven to violence against, child murderers and pedophiles. Lund is incarcerated for four years. While being transported outside the prison, he goads one of his guards, Ake Andersson, into attacking him, then knocks Andersson unconscious with the chains that bind his wrists. Lund slips past the other guard, Ulrik Berntfors, and is suddenly, dangerously, at large again, a looming threat to the most innocent and defenseless members of the community. Soon, the dreaded result occurs, and more victims are found, leading authorities to conclude that the deranged Lund has struck again. Driven nearly mad by the situation, Frederik becomes a vigilante determined to track down Lund and end his threat forever. Elsewhere, the police are involved in a heated search for Lund, though their case is complicated when Frederik's reputation is elevated to that of local hero. A Kirkus Reviews critic named the novel "a grim and compelling noir debut, written with cool precision and menacing immediacy." Eurocrime reviewer Mary Wilde called the novel a "dark and rather frightening book," while London Independent critic Jake Jakeman noted that the book's "narrative is intriguing, but the subject matter is distressing."

Other novels by Roslund Hellström are also emotionally charged thrillers. In Box 21, the authors bring back detectives Grens and Sundkvist as they explore the deadly ramifications of human trafficking. The novel explores the personal story of a police officer's quest for revenge against the man who injured and permanently disabled his lover. As the story unfolds, the police officer's mission clashes with the desire for revenge by a woman who was raped and enslaved by traffickers.

In The Satisfaction of Edward Finnegan, Roslund and Hellström consider the death penalty and the most terrible consequences that can result from it, spinning a story that stretches across international borders from the United States to Sweden. The Girl below the Street puts police detectives Ewert Grens and Sven Sundkvist on the trail of a brutally murdered woman discovered in a hospital basement, even as they try to figure out what to do with several dozen abandoned children who have appeared at police headquarters. During their investigation, Grens and Sundkvist discover an unexpected world beneath the city streets, where the unknown and homeless live anonymous lives among the sewers, and where the poor, deformed, hopeless, and deranged struggle to survive even as they find themselves exposed to violence and exploitation.