The Dark Heart: A True Story of Greed, Murder, and an Unlikely Investigator Kindle Edition

I don’t read True Crime as often as some, but, for some reason, the urge to read this tale was overwhelming. Unlike most months, there were at least three Amazon First titles that I was eager to read. If not for a determined ‘missing persons’ investigator and the victim’s nervous sister, the perpetrator probably would have gotten away with murder. Almost as critical, without the determination of a journalist, and a competent translator, we likely would not know of this sensational case.

POV: This story is told in third person.

BLUSH FACTOR: Although there are not a great number of profanities, there are some, including f-words. As a true story, though, it does seem right to include the rough language of the people speaking.

ADVENTURE: Yes, there is adventure within the pages. The sense of adventure is not as strong as some fiction, of course, but. I am more in tune with Swedish and their lifestyle.

SUSPENSE: Yes, there is suspense, from the opening chapter, all the way through the story.

THE WRITING: This is a page-turner that had me turning the pages quickly. The writing, bearing in mind that I read the English edition, after translation from Swedish, is pretty straightforward. Unlike fiction, there is not a lot of latitude in regards to creative writing, which may be a blessing for the translator. Still, the writing is quite good and hooked me from the early pages. For a better understanding, please refer to the excerpt below.

Excerpt

To avoid any possible spoilers, I have published a very short sample of the writing.

‘…An additional factor adds spice to the narrative: Göran Lundblad’s grandfather Knut, the adventurer, at one point purportedly promised to gift part of his forest to an older member of the Törnblad clan, as thanks for services rendered. The Törnblad man cared for the Norra Förlösa land as a kind of forester, and Knut Lundblad wanted to compensate him somehow. But when the time came to convey the land, Gustav Lundblad controlled all the Lundblad properties, and he reneged on his father’s promise.

“It’s the kind of thing that would stick in the craw, I reckon,” said Mats Råberg, a Norra Förlösa farmer who rented his land from the Lundblads. “It’s partly about money, partly about being stabbed in the back.”

In the Lundblad family, it is said that it was an older aunt of Gustav’s who owned the forest in question. After she was moved into a nursing home, her neighbor Karl-Oskar Törnblad would visit, ingratiating himself with coffee, cake, and silver-tongued persuasion. He wanted her to sign the property over to him. But Gustav caught wind of the scheme and managed to stop the transfer.

The words of the foiled Karl-Oskar Törnblad later became something of a mantra for his family: “One day, Ställe Farm will be ours.”

At the end of the 1960s, Göran Lundblad was sent away to Ireland by his father. Rumor had it that it was because of Göran’s poor performance in school. In fact, he was being ushered into the family business as…’

Palmkvist, Joakim. The Dark Heart: A True Story of Greed, Murder, and an Unlikely Investigator (pp. 44-45). Amazon Crossing. Kindle Edition.

BOTTOM LINE

Certainly, this is a true crime story worth reading. Not spectacular, but well-written and well-translated. I was leaning towards five stars, but want to draw attention to the profanities and to the fact that it is a translation. Ah, never mind. I loved it.

Five stars out of five.

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You can’t make this stuff up, unless you’re Shakespeare. But Romeo and Juliet got nothing on these kids. I don’t normally read true crime novels, but the sample text for this book was such a draw that I grabbed it, and I’m very glad that I did. The Dark Heart is an efficient, engrossing read that even while fictionalized is not sensationalized, but comes across as a prolonged journalistic article revealing fact after fact surrounding a 2012 missing person’s case in Sweden. Göran Lundblad disappeared, leaving behind a life born into and driven by greed and control, where family and money count above all, where money is placed above family, and generations of two feuding families hate each other across the mis-mapped piece of land between them and work their children like serfs.

I found it amazing that the missing man, Göran Lundblad, was so limited by his parents that he did not have any control over his life or his finances until he was sixty years old and his father went into a nursing home. Each of the families ground their children (and their spouses when they married) under with authoritarian parenting, making them slave long hours for their room and board. Göran was not as bad as his parents or his neighbor/nemesis Åke Törnblad. But this disputing over a piece of land reads like Romeo and Juliet when Göran’s daughter, Sara, takes up with Åke’s son, Martin. When Sara refuses to leave her relationship with Martin over the course of many years, Göran finally stops fighting with her, and starts limiting the damage she can do to the family’s finances, in a family, where money wins over all. In the process Sara eventually signs over the rights to her properties to her father, although she keeps her loss of fortune a secret from her boyfriend.

When Sara reports Göran missing in 2012, there aren’t many leads. The case stumbles to a stop, but is reenergized when Sara’s younger sister, Maria, calls the police to voice her fear that Sara was involved in her father’s disappearance. Sara has been strangely cold and unaffected by the disappearance, almost immediately beginning to renovate her father’s house, she has been grabbing control of her father’s lands and properties, siphoning off his money, and she’s aligned herself with a loser boyfriend and his family, who are the sworn enemy of her own.

But the case is cold and gets colder. There’s no body, no evidence to prove a murder. Just property and bank accounts waiting to be inherited. Therese Tang runs a branch of a Missing Persons organization. She’s driven by her past and by her drive to find those who are lost, whether they’ve disappeared through accidents, suicide, or murder. Most of the time, their targets are dead, and this time, he surely is. But that doesn’t mean Therese is going to stop looking. She’s got angles the police aren’t allowed to pursue, even if she doesn’t have quite their resources. But she’s got her imagination, her drive, her ability to connect with people and make them trust her. All she has to do is find the right person, the right lever, the right fact. Sooner or later, she’s going to find Göran… if it kills her. And it just might.

The Dark Heart is a gripping tale of greed, corruption, twisted love, and a lot of people trying very hard to do the right thing. Highly recommended for those who like mysteries, crime stories, and regional history. The translation is pristine and crisp, the writing indelible, and the mystery is humanity at its worst and best.