The Man With the Ox Heart

The fireman Stefan Almgren never returns from the alarm to Gas Works Road. He’s struck by panic and rips off his mask in the middle of the smoke-filled building, and before his partners can react, he’s already dead. He’s the first of many casualties striking the Östermalm Fire Station in Stockholm, and it soon becomes clear that there’s some kind of connection, but what is it? Franki Ljungberg, Stefan Almgren’s childhood friend from Hässelby, a suburb of Stockholm, also wanted to be a fireman when he grew up, but he wasn’t successful. For a number of years now, he’s been taking anabolic steroids which have made his heart expand – what the experts call an ox heart. One day, Franki meets Waltraut Eng, the sister of one of the firemen at Stefan’s station – and begins a rocky love affair.

268 pages

Reviews

“As usual, Inger Frimansson builds the feeling of unspecified threat with rising, nerve-rattling intensity.”

Nerikes Allehanda

“Frimansson spins her yarn with a sure hand, a mystery that will catch you and lead you astray.”

Östersunds Posten

“An unassuming, unique mystery, as if made for those realistic, gray day Swedish films which we’ve learned to love.”

Helsingborgs Dagbladet

“…a tale which makes you cringe and fills you with fear, by an author who is unusually skilled in her style, knowing her characters to the tiniest detail.”

Skånska Dagbladet

“A quick tempo drives the action forward, and the pages groan with events which what the emotions of being an outsider, being a failure and being lonely can drive a person to do The Man with the Ox Heart is just as much high literature as it is a thrilling mystery.”

Norrköpings Tidningar