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The man with the nuclear briefcase has gone rogue - Mission Impossible meets the Hunt for Red October in "I don't think I have read such a philosophical, knowledge-studded and realistic adventure novel since Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose" Göteborgs-Posten Erasmus Levine has a job like no other. He travels with the President of the United States at all times, and holds in his hands the power to obliterate life as we know it. He is the man with the nuclear briefcase, part of a crack team of top-secret operatives established after 9/11 and led by a man codenamed Edelweiss. But even Edelweiss does not know the identity of their ultimate authority, known only as Sysboss. Levine has a secret. For twelve years he has been receiving cryptic messages from Sysboss - an elaborate communication that began with the words We two against the world . Slowly but surely, Levine begins thinking of escape. His chance comes during an official visit to Sweden, when the alarm sounds in Stockholm's Grand Hotel. But Sysboss has other plans for him. From their first meeting in a network of tunnels and bunkers beneath the city, Levine is drawn into a plan to eliminate the world's nuclear arsenals. But how can he be sure that controlled demolition is the endgame? Could he be working towards a controlled apocalypse, a doomsday plot to wipe humanity from the face of the earth? Translated from the Swedish by George Goulding
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What should a thriller do to rise above the ranks of the clichéd? It does no harm to demonstrate some intelligence and (if possible) an engagement with serious issues - but no polemics. Thankfully, Mattias Berg's The Carrier hits those targets squarely. Barry Forshaw Financial Times
