57th out of 85 books
—
68 voters
Box 21 (Grens & Sundkvist #2)
The International Thriller that Stockholm City hailed as the Best Crime Novel of the Year has finally crossed the Atlantic! Three years ago, Lydia and Alena were two hopeful girls from Lithuania. Now they are sex slaves, lured to Sweden with the promise of better jobs and then trapped in a Stockholm brothel, forced to repay their “debt.” Suddenly they are given an une...more
Hardcover, 400 pages
Published
October 13th 2009
by Farrar, Straus and Giroux
(first published 2005)
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Box 21 is not for the faint of heart. It’s not even for the mid-strength of heart. It is strong stuff. There were things about it that I thought were excellent, one thing that didn’t work, and many things that made me very, very angry. Basically, there’s not a lot of middle ground with this book.
Though dark and extraordinarily sad the plot is quite outstanding. There are two main threads, both involving Stockholm detective Ewert Grens. In the first Grens is on the trail of Jochum Lan...more
Though dark and extraordinarily sad the plot is quite outstanding. There are two main threads, both involving Stockholm detective Ewert Grens. In the first Grens is on the trail of Jochum Lan...more
Roslund, Anders, and Hellstrom, Borge. BOX 21. (2009). **. Hailed by many critics as the new thriller-blockbuster from Sweden, I got the feeling that it was a paint by numbers book assembled by two writers who only had bright day-glo colors to work with. The book is written in a hop-scotch style that revels in scenes of macabre sex and domination, and the investigation put on by a team of Swedish police is directed by flashbacks of the chief investigator of an accident that left his wife pa...more
This novel centers around the trafficking of sex workers from the Baltic states to Sweden, which is apparently a big problem, as it seems to pop up in a lot of Swedish crime novels (and was the subject of a harrowing film called Lilya-4-Ever). Though I found this book tautly written and difficult to predict, it's awfully bleak.
The Russian mob does a nice business by hoodwinking young girls, with the promise of high-paying jobs, into leaving their humble origins in Russia or the Baltic ...more
The Russian mob does a nice business by hoodwinking young girls, with the promise of high-paying jobs, into leaving their humble origins in Russia or the Baltic ...more
A book filled with frustrating characters, sensationalistic themes, and a masterfully constructed plot. Box 21 tells the story of Swedish police investigating a hostage/murder-suicide incident at a hospital. The perp is a young girl who has been kept as a sex slave for three years. The police have to uncover the dark secrets of modern slavery and sexual abuse, while struggling with the ethical behaviour of their own force. The blurb on the cover compares the novel to Stieg Larsson's Millenium tr...more
PROTAGONIST: Detec. Ewert Grens
SETTING: Stockholm
RATING: 4.5
It’s really disheartening to think of the thousands (millions?) of women’s lives that have been destroyed by the sex slave industry. BOX 21 takes us deep into that world by focusing on the situation of two Lithuanian women who were forced into sex slavery in Sweden. The book tells their story in a very straightforward manner. The wrongs that they have to endure are heartrending. Locked into an apartment for t...more
SETTING: Stockholm
RATING: 4.5
It’s really disheartening to think of the thousands (millions?) of women’s lives that have been destroyed by the sex slave industry. BOX 21 takes us deep into that world by focusing on the situation of two Lithuanian women who were forced into sex slavery in Sweden. The book tells their story in a very straightforward manner. The wrongs that they have to endure are heartrending. Locked into an apartment for t...more
Another Swedish mystery set in a similar style as Stieg Larsson's Millenium Trilogy. What is it with these Swedish mystery writers that makes their novels so gruesome and gritty? Is it the long, cold, dark winters? This was indeed a gruesome book, but well worth reading. The authors explore a seamy side of Swedish culture that I for one, was not aware of, and that is the sex slave business in Sweden, run mostly by Russian and Lithuanian mobsters. But it was also the rich characterization of...more
Box 21,by Anders Roslund and Borge Hellstrom, A-minus, Narrated by Christopher Lane, Produced by Brilliance Audio, downloaded from audible.com.
I think that this book was written before “Three Seconds” and in my opinion it is a much better book. Alena and Lydia were teenagers in Lithuania who were lured by the promise of making more money in Sweden. They signed on and for three years were sex slaves in a Stockholm brothel. They were forced to “service” 12 men a day, to always act ...more
I think that this book was written before “Three Seconds” and in my opinion it is a much better book. Alena and Lydia were teenagers in Lithuania who were lured by the promise of making more money in Sweden. They signed on and for three years were sex slaves in a Stockholm brothel. They were forced to “service” 12 men a day, to always act ...more
Hmmmmm, not so much. A thriller set in Stockholm. The main character is a detective superintendent who, 30 years earlier, watched his partner, also the love of his life get gunned down. She lived, and resides in a facility where she is cared for, and has the brain function of a baby. She does not know Grens, her former lover. But he spends his entire life mourning her loss, alienating everyone in his life except the other police officer who was at the scene. They form a strong bond and fr...more
not very well written AT ALL.. not "bound to please fans of Stieg Larsson" because Steig Larssons characters jump off the page, you feel for them, understand them, care for them worry for them hate them. Box 21 is such a disappointment. These characters are so one dimensional that their actions do not make sense, and not in the artsy "well humans are complex creatures and do not always make complete sense". It's just simply poorly written.
The Vault (in my translation, Box 21) by Anders Roslund is the second in a series following the gritty cases of hard-core police detectives Gresn & Sundkvist. There is passion but no sentimentality in this police procedural about a young girl kidnapped from Vilnius and forced into prostitution who seeks vengeance and the vengeance Detective Grens seeks on the man who destroyed the life of fellow detective (and love of his life) Anni, 20 years earlier.
The story is often sordid, filled...more
The story is often sordid, filled...more
This is one of the best thrillers I have read in a really long time. I liked everything about it, the writing style, the characters, everything was perfect. This would be the perfect gift for the reader in your life.
I wanted to like this book, but it was just too heavy-handed and predictable. The social issue though is shocking, disturbing, and very sad.
Also published under the title “The Vault” in the UK
Book 2 in the Ewert Grens series
The novel holds two main stories that are dark, extraordinarily sad and definitely not for the faint at heart. Both threads involve one of Stockholm’s best detectives Ewert Grens.
The first plot opens, with the release from prison of a notorious criminal; Jochum Lang. Detective Grens who has personal and professional reasons, feels Lang is a threat to the public, a hard core criminal ...more
Book 2 in the Ewert Grens series
The novel holds two main stories that are dark, extraordinarily sad and definitely not for the faint at heart. Both threads involve one of Stockholm’s best detectives Ewert Grens.
The first plot opens, with the release from prison of a notorious criminal; Jochum Lang. Detective Grens who has personal and professional reasons, feels Lang is a threat to the public, a hard core criminal ...more
A book filled with frustrating characters, sensationalistic themes, and a masterfully constructed plot. Box 21 tells the story of Swedish police investigating a hostage/murder-suicide incident at a hospital. The perp is a young girl who has been kept as a sex slave for three years. The police have to uncover the dark secrets of modern slavery and sexual abuse, while struggling with the ethical behaviour of their own force. The blurb on the cover compares the novel to Stieg Larsson's Millenium tr...more
Box 21 was written by the mystery team of Anders Roslund and Borge Hellstrom, whose acquaintance I made when I read their later book, Three Seconds, which was terrific. Box 21 is a great, fast read featuring detective superintendent Ewert Grens, who continued on into Three Seconds. However, Box 21 is set at an earlier time and finds Grens still haunted by his wife’s accident and encumbered by rather poor social skills. The early chapters of the book set up each of the main characters in a rapid-...more
So, the dust jacket was printed earlier and the blurbs make no comparison to Steig Larsson, but a sticker on the front says, "bound to please fans of Stieg Larsson's "The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo" - Library Journal.
Perhaps, but really there isn't much of a comparison, other than the contemporary Swedish setting. The first Larsson book is a thriller/mystery in which the police hardly figure while Box 21 is a much more traditional police procedural. There are no char...more
Perhaps, but really there isn't much of a comparison, other than the contemporary Swedish setting. The first Larsson book is a thriller/mystery in which the police hardly figure while Box 21 is a much more traditional police procedural. There are no char...more
Having read somewhere that fans of Girl With the Dragon Tattoo would also like this book, I picked it up. It's nothing like Stieg Larsson's book at all. In his novel, there's a mystery to be had as well as a strong heroine who lives by her own inner sense of morality and never wavers. Here, what you've got is a police procedural, a story of revenge and betrayal, and at its heart, an ethical and moral dilemma. That's not to say that this isn't a good book (it is), but it's a different animal alt...more
Set in Stockholm, the novel follows two stories: A savagely beaten Lithuanian prostitute takes a group of doctors hostages at the hospital where she is being treated — the same hospital where a junkie has just been found dead after a visit from a drug lord’s hit man. Detective Ewert Grens and his colleagues on the police force juggle both cases and end up with more information than they’d hoped for.
Story trumps characters most of the time in “Box 21,” and the twisty plot carries readers a...more
Story trumps characters most of the time in “Box 21,” and the twisty plot carries readers a...more
I was really excited to start Box 21 and was kind of disappointed by the result. This book was marketed towards the fans of "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" and as "the best crime thriller of the year" to which it fell short. Many parts of the book dragged on and were predictable (especially the big "reveal" at the end) which kind of ruined the book for me. And although this book dealt with deplorable issues such as human trafficking, I didn't feel as moved as I...more
Why do these Scandinavian crime thrillers always involve extreme sexual violence? Yes, it does make me uncomfortable that sex--particularly that involving debasing women as much as humanly possible--sells. Nonetheless, not so uncomfortable that I didn't read the book. Interesting twist, but not as fascinating as the other book of Roslund and Hellstrom that I've previously read and rated on this site.
I loved The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo& The Girl Who Played with Fire, and I was very excited to get to read another bestseller Swedish crime novel. I hate to say it, but Box 21 was a disappointment.
The reason why I couldn't enjoy Box 21 is simple. It's not as well written as other good crime novels. First, I couldn't get intrigued by its' plot. It felt cliche and disjointed. Second, I tried very hard to care the characters but failed to even share their feelings. I do admire the fa...more
The reason why I couldn't enjoy Box 21 is simple. It's not as well written as other good crime novels. First, I couldn't get intrigued by its' plot. It felt cliche and disjointed. Second, I tried very hard to care the characters but failed to even share their feelings. I do admire the fa...more
I've never been so disgusted and appalled by a book before...in a really good way! The charactes are strong and so sad that it's bordering on ridiculousness...
The Chief Inspector who grieves his living but no longer "living" wife and takes his only comfort in an old kasette player. The two young girls who are forced to live as prostitutes (trafficing) in an apartment locked from the outside, right next door to the regular people who either have no idea of their existance, don't ca...more
The Chief Inspector who grieves his living but no longer "living" wife and takes his only comfort in an old kasette player. The two young girls who are forced to live as prostitutes (trafficing) in an apartment locked from the outside, right next door to the regular people who either have no idea of their existance, don't ca...more
Ewert Grens is losing it, after 33 years as a Swedish detective, he still is haunted by the accident that put his love in a brain damaged state. Now he has the opportunity to get the person responsible. Of course it intertwines with human trafficing and unfortunatly, with one of his policeman friends. The end is a real twist, although I had thought that ws the person earlier on.
En oikein osaa sanoa pidinkö tästä loppujen lopuksi vai en, sillä jännitys ja kiinnostavuus lopahti puolivälissä. Tämä kirja on tosin osoitus siitä miten aivan viimeisellä sivulla voidaan tarinaan puhaltaa reilusti lisää pontta (vaikka ratkaisu olikin sellainen, joka olisi pitänyt jo kirjan puolivälissä arvata ;))
"Box 21" is a crime novel set in contemporary Stockholm that is centered around human trafficking. However, the criminal aspect is actually overshadowed by the emotional and moral side of the events as perceived by their protagonists. The story is quite well written, but the ending very predictable. I could also do without the inner monologues of various characters. The novel is supposed to please the fans of Stieg Larsson, and it does, indeed. It is also full of coffee drinking and ho...more
I have found both books I've read by this pair to be extremely well written in terms of a gripping well constructed plot. People who have enjoyed Stieg Larrson's books are likely to appreciate these as well. Not for people who like to be very clear about who are the good guys and who are the bad guys.
Box 21 may not be the best thing I’ve ever read (a status reserved only for Us Weekly and Sarah Palin on Twitter) but it’s compelling. And well worth packing for your next vacation.
[FULL REVIEW]
[FULL REVIEW]
Excellent thriller, fast paced, complex plot, interesting characters. A seriously injured young prostitute is rescued from an apartment where it is obvious she and another have been kept locked up. When she takes hostages and makes an odd demand, they have little time to figure out what is behind it. The consequences lead them on another search for deeper and more disturbing answers.
Bleak, joyless with contrived plot twists. Not a sympathetic character between the covers. I certainly don't expect crime novels to be laugh-fests; but I do hope for some redemption for someone at some point. If you share that hope look elsewhere.
Tight written prose holds you enthralled as two cases unwind that share only a setting and the protagonist.
This is one of those novels you come away feeling a bit of awe. There's naivete of human perception caught in blinders, and difficult choices faced and made. The lines between right and wrong become blurred into fading shades of gray leaving you with the question, would I have made the same choice?
The subject of sex trading isn't for the squeamish, but is portraye...more
This is one of those novels you come away feeling a bit of awe. There's naivete of human perception caught in blinders, and difficult choices faced and made. The lines between right and wrong become blurred into fading shades of gray leaving you with the question, would I have made the same choice?
The subject of sex trading isn't for the squeamish, but is portraye...more
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Anders Roslund is a Swedish author and journalist. He is the founder and former head of Kulturnyheterna (Culture News) on SVT, Sweden's national television broadcaster. For many years he worked as a news reporter – specializing in criminal and social issues – and as an Editor-in-chief at Rapport and Aktuellt, the two major News programmes on SVT.
Roslund regularly collaborates with Börg...more
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Roslund regularly collaborates with Börg...more
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