Easy Money by Jens Lapidus

I will definitely not be reading any more books from this Author. It was very difficult to follow the story line of the book. A lot of detail which would have made for coherent story telling seems to have been missing; perhaps lost in translation from Swedish to English. The pace of the book unlike many crime thrillers is very slow, boring and not gripping. I really struggled to finish the book.

There were a lot of graphic scenes of violence, double crossing, extortion, fraud, money laundering and prostitution which I found unappealing. The use of gangster-speak, vulgar and gutter language also means that the book will have a limited number of followers.

Lapidus seems to have missed a trick by not having a Police or Detective solving the crime and bringing to justice the "wrong doers" as in James Patterson’s character ‘Alex Cross’ or Michael Connelly’s Detective ‘Harry Bosch’.

The book is one long and laborious narration about the lives of crime of three very grim and unsavoury characters who are totally bereft of morals and capable of committing unspeakable crimes in a bid to make ‘easy money’. There is no likeable rogue in the story to empathise with – the Chilean (Jorge) the Swede (JW) and the Serbian Mrado are all despicable characters.

I found it impossible to believe that Jorge following his escape from prison continues his lifestyle of crime and drug dealing in Sweden undetected by law enforcement agents and he does this simply by wearing a silly disguise and growing a beard. That certainly does not speak well of the standard of policing in Sweden.

Lapidus background as a Criminal Defence Attorney comes into play in the book – his case notes rather than engendering a cohesive thread; jump at you. It is also difficult to see what value the various ‘Project Nova’ reports add to the story. The reports could have been seamlessly included in the book through a narration by a character in the book – it seemed to me at times as if I was reading a report and then a story; I found this a bit disjointed.

I however found it poignant and touching that Jorge forgave JW for double crossing him. Jorge’s gesture in depositing Three Hundred Thousand Kronor into JWs account in the Isle of Man surely illustrates that ‘there is honour even amongst thieves’. 

(I got this book through Amazon Vine. My friend Chuka reviewed it. It is listed on Amazon here.)