What do readers think of Three Seconds by Anders Roslund & Borge Hellstrom? Write your own review.

I found this book to be fairly typical of Scandinavian crime fiction (Mankell, Wahloo, Sjowall). I did enjoy aspects of the book that addressed various issues of illegal drug usage in prisons. Character development wasn't enough to cause any real emotional attachment. Given a choice of only one word, I would choose "confusion". Sometimes I just felt like I "missed" something. The details needed to be tightened up or maybe it is an editing issue. All in all, I have to say I can't figure out the basis for the major award this won in Sweden.

Overall, I enjoyed Three Seconds, but often found it confusing. I don't know whether that was the result of a bad translation or that the book had not been edited. The first part of the book where Piet is planning the takeover of the prison drug trade dragged on, but I think the book would make an exciting movie.

Having read the media review for this book, and the hype about the authors, I have to say that I was disappointed. I felt there was no depth to the characters, and by the time the plot gains any speed or real interest the actions of the main characters do not make sense. I was disconnected, just reading to get through. Definitely not at the level of current writers of this genre.

The ending of this book was surprising, but not completely unforeseeable. It just took f-o-r-e-v-e-r to get to the ending. I can respect the factual nature of the book which was interesting to learn, but it's possible that due to the real world feel the authors tried to incorporate that it caused the book to drag on and on like realty often can do.

I wanted so much to like this book, but it was a struggle to finish. While there is a backstory involving Ewert Grens and his team, it's not a deterrent to following the plot. Grens, however, is a frustrating character and difficult to like. There seemed to be a fair amount of repetition, possibly due to translation difficulties. The book only picked up once "Paula" went to prison, easily 1/3 of the way in. Those sections were exciting and lived up to the promos on the back of the book. But it wasn't worth wading through all the rest.

I tried the best that I could to enjoy reading this book. But, I just couldn't get my mind around the difficult names. I am not used to reading about this type of mule. I got to around 100 pages before I said "I quit". I think I got lost in the translation myself. I, in all honesty, could not recommend this book to anyone.

I was excited to get this book because the authors had been touted as the next Steig Larsson. I had read Larsson’s three books and then read them again because they are so excellent. I did a little research on Three Seconds and discovered that it is fifth in a series. Only four, including Three Seconds, are available in English.

From the first page, I had trouble with Three Seconds. This book does not appear to be completely stand-alone. I spent far too much time wondering why Ewert Grens was so tormented and what was up with the music, the death of the woman in the nursing home, and boxing up everything that reminded him of her and hiding it in the evidence locker at the police station.

The plot was compelling and the characters were flawed and intriguing, so it took me a while to determine that the major problem is the translation. I thought that if I made it to the point where Piet went into prison the story would pick up for me, but I finally gave up just before he went inside. The words on the page are all correct, but they are in the wrong place and there are far too many of them to make flowing sense. It is as if the translator literally translated from Swedish to English without taking into account word order. Words are also translated into English without regard to English colloquialisms, making some of the phrases understandable, but incorrect. For example, the one phrase that comes to mind is “it was a 9mm caliber Radon” – in English we would not put millimeter and caliber together; caliber is redundant. Perhaps it would have been better if Reg Keeland had translated the book, as he did the three Larsson books.

I gave this book to my husband thinking that he might like it better than I did. He made it five pages farther than I did and gave up, too. Sadly, I think that this book is one instance where the movie will be better than the book. I understand that Universal Studios has picked up the movie rights…