Book Review: Cocaine by Pascal Engman

Corruption, corruption, corruption… What people won’t do for a taste of power.

Cocaine by Pascal Engman starts off like any good crime thriller: with a dead body found under mysterious circumstances—in this case, an unidentiable man off the coast of Sweden. Shortly thereafter, the police find a downed cessna, the local community is flooded with cheap cocaine, and the violent gang crime skyrocket. What the hell is going?

Engman’s writing got me hooked from the beginning. It’s fast-paced, hard-hitting and captivating, and never boring. It reminds me a lot of Don Winslow in how he keeps the action and intriguing constantly rolling. Engman will make you turn pages like it’s nobody’s business. Honestly, it’s been ages since I read a book this fast. Hooked, hardly begins to describe it.

Also, even coming into this Vanessa Frank series completely blind (this is the fourth book to follow the lead police detective, I think), I never felt like I missed out or was confused about anything. All the necessary backstory is there, and everything else that is hinted at just makes me want to read the previous installments! The book is super realistic and clearly very well-researched. It’s divided into parts that are prefaced with quotes from real-life police and crime reports  from Sweden, and reading the acknowledgments at the end, you’ll get some insight into who has contributed to the book and in which capacity.

Only problem is – I don’t think this book is translated into English yet. I got it for Christmas, as a secret Santa gift (guess my friends and family know I like books, weird, huh? I’m still really curious who actually bought it for me), and I actually read it in Norwegian. It’s the first book I’ve read in Norwegian in a long while, and I assumed that a thriller of this caliber would be translated to at least English, but also maybe German and Spanish, consider it’s available in the Scandinavian languages already. But I can’t find a cover that has an English title on it. Then again, no one loves crime as much as us, I guess. Nordic noir, and all that…

Anyway! A great book and an amazing crime thriller. If you can find a language to read it in, I highly recommend it.

As always – I’d love it if you would check out my books! If you’re into crime thrillers, you’ll definitely want to check out The Columbus Archives.

Find all my books and stories here

Trey Stone’s Books

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