This book took seemingly forever to read. I don't know if it was the level of detail in describing people/surroundings, or the endless tangents that the plot/main characters kept going on, but I couldn't wait until I finally finished it so I could move on to something else. ( )

Annika Bengtzon misstänks för mordbrand i sitt eget hus.
När David Lindholm, Sveriges mest kända polis, hittas skjuten i sängen identifierar hon sig snabbt med hans unga hustru Julia.
Julia hotas av livstids fängelse för mord, både på sin man och sin försvunna fyraårige son Alexander.
Men Julia nekar. Det var inte hon. Det var en annan kvinna som sköt hennes man och kidnappade hennes son.

Medan tillvaron rasar samman omkring Annika gräver hon sig allt djupare ner i den mördade polisens våldsamma förflutna.
Till slut återstår två grundläggande frågor.
Om Julia ljuger: Var har hon gömt Alexander?
Om hon talar sanning: Vem håller honom fången?

Livstid är en thriller om människans längtan efter det eviga: kärleken, makten, meningsfullheten - och barnen.

Annika Bengtzon’s life is in disarray as the book opens. The previous night her husband left her to (as my mother would put it) ‘shack up’ with his mistress and a few hours later her house caught fire while she and her two children were still inside. They do escape but do not manage to salvage a single item from the house and the final misery comes when her best friend refuses the bedraggled family a place to stay.

The sorting out of this mess acts as a backdrop to the main events of the novel which focus on the death of a celebrated policeman David Lindholm. He was found by fellow officers dead in his apartment and his wife Julia, also in the police force, appears to be guilty. Her service weapon was used to kill David and she can provide no coherent explanation for what happened. Even more worryingly she cannot say where the couple’s four year-old son is. Most of the police force agree that David Lindholm was a hero and that his wife should be locked up forever for his murder, and they soon come to believe she also killed their son. Even Julia’s best friend, Nina Hoffman, finds it difficult to maintain a belief in her friend’s innocence. Annika becomes involved with the story because she remembers spending a night on patrol with Julia and Nina some years earlier for a story she was writing and she contacts Nina for an interesting angle. She becomes increasingly involved, especially when learning that the public plaudits for David Lindholm do not represent the whole truth about the man.

Sometimes it’s hard to like Annika Bengtzon but I have no trouble loving her as a character. She is such a realistic person with her jumbled mixture of good and bad qualities that I can’t help but be compelled by her and here I felt sorrier for her than I’ve ever done before. Not only does she have lousy taste in men but her choice of best friend proved poorly judged too. But Annika is nothing if not resilient and she gets on with the business of investigative journalism even while she’s screaming at bank clerks to find her a way to get access to her money without proof of identity, being under suspicion of setting the fire which burned down her house and overdosing on ‘bad mother guilt’. The scene in the book where has to take her kids to an interview with a social worker at a centre for drug addicts has stuck in my mind as the perfect example of the way Marklund depicts all aspects of Annika’s life so very credibly.

As always though, the book offers much more than Annika’s domestic woes and a crime to solve. Marklund continues her exploration of the way modern media and journalism is coping (or not) with the enormous changes in the industry in recent years and this has become one of my favourite aspects of the novels. There is also more insight into the workings of a modern government as, partly through Annika’s husband Thomas’ work, the novel explores the concept of life sentences in the justice system in a thought-provoking way. In fact the only sour note of the whole reading experience is that I really didn’t swallow the resolution to the thread of Annika’s house being burned down. I can’t say why without spoiling the ending but I just thought she was way too blasé about this to be really credible.

I’ve always read my Marklund books in print before but I happened to see this one available at Audible so I listened to it instead. The narration by India Fisher was terrific and I really enjoyed reading the book with my ears instead of my eyes. To round out the trilogy of named contributors to this book the translation by Neil Smith was, as always, the kind that makes me forget it was first written in another language.

If you’re a fan of Liza Marklund’s books then you probably don’t need much encouragement to read LIFETIME but if you were wavering: don’t. It’s a fabulous addition to the series. If you’re new to Marklund’s work I’m not sure I’d start here simply because there are so many connections to the previous novel so you should probably start with Petrona Award winning LAST WILL.

Reviewed for Reviewing the Evidence. Best when the focus is on solving the crime not on solving the heroine's personal problems.

Liza Marklund's latest book Lifetime is the seventh book featuring newspaper reporter Annika Bengtzon.

Stockholm, Sweden. Police Officer Nina Hoffman is on patrol when a shots fired call comes in. Nina and her partner race to the scene - only to find that the victim is another cop - and his wife Julia is lying beside him, covered in blood. Worse still - their four year old son is missing. Julia swears there was someone else in the apartment. Nina is sure her friend and former co worker could not do such a thing. Or could she....? Annika knows both women - she did a story on them years before. The high profile case is a story worth investigating.

This is the third book I've read by Marklund and I've enjoyed every one. Annika is a complicated protagonist - she's headstrong, impulsive and plunges headlong into her stories. She trusts her instincts and hunches and follows them regardless. But her personal life is in a shambles - she herself is suspected of a crime and her marriage is falling apart. Although I've heard some other readers remark that this secondary storyline muddies the waters of the main plot, I disagree. I quite like seeing the two sides of Annika's life personal and professional. Both story lines held my interest equally.

Annika's investigation leads to more questions and links to the past, with the path to answers and resolution anything but straight. Marklund keeps us guessing about Julia until the very end. And the end was a lovely 'gotcha'. Marklund brings the setting to life as well, with descriptions that underline the gritty tone of the mystery.

This is an excellent series with a character I quite like. Definitely recommended. I'll be watching for the next in the series ( )