BOOKS FROM SWEDENThe Dying Game
by Asa Avdic
Tags:
Female author
Description:
'A deliciously creepy novel revolving around a terrific paradigm shift: The job you think you're doing? That's not the job you're really doing.' Chris Pavone, author of THE EXPATS 'Oh, it's really quite simple. I want you to play dead.' On the remote island of Isola, seven people have been selected to compete in a 48-hour test for a top-secret intelligence position. One of them is Anna Francis, a workaholic with a nine-year-old daughter she rarely sees, and a secret that haunts her. Her assignment is to stage her own death and then observe, from her hiding place inside the walls of the house, how the other candidates react to the news that a murderer is among them. Who will take control? Who will crack under pressure? But as soon as Anna steps on to the island she realises something isn't quite right. And then a storm rolls in, the power goes out, and the real game begins...
Reviews:
(2 months ago) |
08 Aug, 2025
I enjoyed the book and found it a pleasure to read.
Why do so many not like it? One main problem is the misleading marketing for the book. It is marketed as if it were a mystery novel or a Hunger Games type game, but these descriptions give the wrong idea about what to expect. It is more like totalitarian Dystopian Speculative Fiction such as 1984 (but even that is misleading) or maybe more like New Weird Fiction such as Mieville's The City and The City. It mixes genre elements of political, thriller, Noir, dystopian, mystery and SF with elements of literary fiction, and so would be totally unsatisfying for anyone expecting a straight genre novel.
Translated by Rachel Willson-Broyles
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