Starred review from June 5, 2017
Agatha Christie meets George Orwell in journalist Avdic’s unsettling first novel, set in Sweden in 2037. A coup has led to a state of martial law and the country’s transformation into a protectorate under the aegis of an international entity known as the Union of Friendship. Anna Francis, a bureaucrat, is estranged from her family and tempted by an unusual job offer from a high official called the Chairman. The Chairman explains that the secret RAN Project is short-handed and that a psychological exercise has been devised to identify a suitable new member of the team: prospective candidates are to be transported to a remote island, along with Anna, who will pretend to have been murdered, so that she can covertly observe their reactions to the unexpected trauma. Things don’t go as planned, and Anna soon has a real murder to deal with. Avdic not only constructs a fascinating and original plot but makes her imagined reality chillingly plausible. Agent: Astri von Arbin Ahlander, Ahlander Agency.
June 1, 2017
In the not-too-distant future, a group of carefully chosen people spends 48 hours on a remote Swedish island engaged in what at first seems like an exercise but turns into a high-stakes test of survival and betrayal.It's 2037, and the world is shockingly different yet terrifyingly the same: there's been another Cold War, and, at least in the Protectorate of Sweden, loyalty to the all-powerful government is paramount. Anna Francis, recently back from a soul-sucking assignment in remote Kyzyl Kum, is as chilly as a Stockholm winter, a distant mother who leaves her 9-year-old daughter with relatives more often than she sees her. In the well-worn tradition of "just this one last time" that never ends well, she's approached by the Chairman to participate in the top-secret RAN project, not as an actual member but as a quasi-spy. As if Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None was cross-pollinated with "The Most Dangerous Game," Anna is charged with observing a small group of hand-selected Swedes for two days on the island of Isola; that is, until she's meant to fake her own murder and disappear into the walls of the compound to watch how the others respond to the "crime." One of the participants is Henry Fall, a former colleague for whom she'd developed feelings, though the romance is as dry as the paperwork Anna reads in preparation. Turns out Henry has his own agenda on Isola, one that isn't wholly clear, though he and Anna are often frustratingly close to the same goal. Avdic's debut, while painting an unsettling portrait of our possible future, lacks a compelling main character, and for all the book's calculated plotting, it doesn't add up to a satisfying read.
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