The Sins of Our Fathers by Asa Larsson review - Fragile characters navigate harsh Nordic landscapes

Kiruna, where Larsson grew up and still lives, is a remote and forbidding town built around an iron ore mine: its "black silhouette against the graphite-grey sky; the huge granite terraces on the mountain where the entrances to the main iron ore seams were located".

Martinsson first appeared in Larsson debut novel The Savage Altar (2003), which won the Swedish Crime Writers' Association Prize for best first novel. Two of the novels that followed, The Blood Spilt and The Second Deadly Sin, won the Best Swedish Crime Novel Award.

The five novels in the series were the basis for the TV series, Rebecka Martinsson.

Larsson then turned from crime fiction to collaborate with fellow Swedish writers Ingela Korsell and Henrik Jonsson on PAX, an urban fantasy epic poem in 10 parts for young adults, set in a new world of magical creatures drawn from Nordic mythology.

However, Larsson must have felt that Rebecka Martinsson's story was incomplete and, in 2021, The Sins of Our Fathers was published in Sweden and won the Best Swedish Crime Novel Award for that year, as well as the Adlibris Award and the Storytel Award for the Best Suspense novel of 2021.

Rebecka is in a dark place. Her relationship with Krister is long over, the friendship with police inspector Anna-Maria Mella is fracturing and her nemesis Carl von Post has been appointed acting chief prosecutor.

He has assigned her new duties, reviewing the backlog of minor crimes the police have already investigated. She is isolated and depressed.

Forensic pathologist Lars Pohjanen knows he's dying. He and Rebecka have always worked well together, building respect and friendship. He has heard about von Post and suggests Rebecka might be interested in a corpse on the mortuary, "just the kind of thing to cheer a girl up".

Henry Pekkari, an alcoholic recluse has been found dead in his decaying house. Another dead body discovered in his freezer is identified as Raimo Koskela who disappeared in 1962. He's the father of the famous Olympic boxing champion Borje Strom and he's been shot.

However, as any investigation of the crime is barred by the statute of limitations. Pohjanen suggests to Rebecka she "could take a look at the murder just for fun . . . [and] for Strom's sake".

Further investigation reveals that Henry Pekkari was also murdered. Pohjanen begs Rebecka to help "grant the wish of a dying man", telling her, "I owe a debt ... you could lighten my load. Before I go on my final journey".

PohJanen doesn't tell Rebecka that he and Borje Strom are cousins and about his "shame. At how his own family had treated him before his boxing career when Strom was just a boy".

Rebecka too has family connections to the case. The Pekkaris were her mother's foster family. Rebecka knows their mistreatment of her contributed to her mental instability and her possible suicide when Rebecka was 12.

As a result, Rebecka only feels hatred for the surviving Pekkari siblings.

Nonetheless, Pohjanen's plea resonates and she convinces retired police officer Sven-Erik Stalnacke to help her investigate.

Together they uncover Raimo Koskela's links to the Lingonberry King, Frans Maki, who was the region's organized crime boss when Koskela disappeared. Now in his 90s, he's guarded by his young Russian wife and a couple of Russians thugs with fighting dogs, in a house that resembles a fortress.

The Sins of Our Fathers is the final chapter in Rebecka Marinsson's story. In her acknowledgements, Larsson says farewell to her character. "I created you and in the process you created me . . . I find it difficult to believe how sad I feel now that we are saying goodbye ... thank you for your stubbornness...Your pigheadedness has been both your strength and your weakness."

But The Sins of Our Fathers is far more than a crime novel.

Larsson uses her story to explore a number of issues affecting the far north of Sweden and Kiruna in particular.

The mine, which dominates the town, needs to expand and Kiruna is being pulled down and rebuilt on nearby marshland, which is 10 degrees colder in the winter then the current location.

Sven-Erik at one point looks down on the town, with its "lovely old wooden houses", realising the Kiruna he knew would "disappear in a landslide ... the very foundations of his memories would be obliterated".

Larsson is a talented storyteller and her talent shines again in this story about learning from the past and the redemptive power of love.