Fiction

When a twelve-year-old girl appears fully formed out of the head of her father, she is turned over to social services, where she is given the name Anna. She is sent to live with a family in northern Sweden but when it is found that she can speak in tongues, the pressure from the church becomes too much and she suffers a breakdown and is admitted into a psychiatric ward.

Vilhelm Moberg (1898-1973) is perhaps best known for his four-volume “Emigrants” series of novels, filmed by director Jan Troell as The Emigrants and The New Land (starring Max von Sydow and Liv Ullmann). In Sweden he is also known as an historian (A History of the Swedish People) and playwright.

A Small Indiscretion by Denise Rudberg, translated by Laura Wideburg, is the first in a series featuring detective inspector Marianne Jidhoff in the “elegant crime” genre. Jidhoff has been on leave from the Stockholm National Police Force to care for her ailing husband, who had been an upper level investigator on the force.