Today I’m super excited to participate in the Blog Tour
of ‘The Father’ by Anton Svensson. This is a thriller inspired by the
unbelievable true story of how three brothers came to be Sweden’s most wanted
criminals. This book is definitely a must read!!

How does a child become a criminal? How does a father
lose a son?

An epic crime novel with the excitement of Jo Nesbo’s ‘Headhunters’
and the depth of ‘We Need to Talk About Kevin’, ‘The Father’ is a work of
fiction, inspired by the extraordinary true story of three brothers who held
Sweden to ransom, committing ten audacious bank robberies over just two years
(in the early 1990s) and who rewrote Swedish criminal history.

None had committed a crime before. All were under 24
years old. All of them would be changed forever.

In this intoxicating, heart-breaking thriller, the fourth
brother, who was not involved in the real robberies, tells of three boys who
grew from innocent children to become public enemy number one – and of the
father who made them that way. This is a gripping story about a family, about
the bonds of brotherly love and the complex relationship between fathers and
sons.

 ‘The Father’ is
the first part of a two-part series, with the second part, ‘The Son’, to
publish in hardback in 2017.

Publication Date:	March 24th 2016
Series:	–
Genre:	Crime, Thriller
Pages:	496
Formats:	eBook, Paperback, Hardcover
Available at:	Amazon UK

  

Normally I don’t read books like ‘The Father’. I read
crime books, mysteries and detectives but a based-on-a-true-event crime novel,
written through the eyes of the ‘criminals’ is definitely a first for me. But
this book just sounded so good, and the cover looked amazing, I decided it was
time to try out a book like this.

Although this book is very different than my normal reads,
I was hooked to the pages from the moment I started reading. The authors
definitely have a special way of writing and I was completely intrigued by it. This
book alters between the past and the present, and it alters between the point
of view of all the main characters. That sounds like a confusing part, but for
this book it really worked perfectly.

On the front of my review copy of ‘The Father’, it says: “How
does a child become a criminal? How does a father lose a son?”. And throughout
this book, we get the answers to these questions.

We get to read parts of the bank robbers, Leo, Felix and
Vincent’s youth, which really made me feel for them. And yes I know they are
supposed to be the ‘bad’ guys, but they were also really human to me. Greedy
and out of control.. Yes, but they didn’t sound like these truly terribly and
angry people. Throughout everything they were brothers at first. Brothers who
had a terrible example as a father and who taught them violence.

Reading about the robberies and about the detective wo
was trying to catch them, it was really thrilling an nerve wrecking. On the one
hand I was rooting for the detective to catch those robbers, but on the other
hand I was rooting for Leo, Felix and Vincent. These authors definitely did a
great job with making you think all kinds of things. In the end I almost didn’t
know who I wanted to win.

From the moment I started reading this book, I just didn’t
want to stop. I really wanted to know how this story would end. And I wasn’t satisfied
until I reached the very end of the book and knew what happened.

‘The Father’ was definitely a great read. It was
different, thrilling, confusing and definitely just very good.

‘Anton Svensson’ is a pseudonym for Stefan Thunberg and
Anders Roslund.

Stefan Thunberg is one of Scandinavia’s most celebrated
screenwriters. His body of work spans popular TV-series such as Henning
Mankell’s Wallander and Håkan Nesser’s Van Veeteren as well as two of Sweden’s
biggest box office successes in recent years: Hamilton and Jägarna 2. While
Thunberg achieved fame as a screenwriter, the rest of his family became
infamous in an entirely different way: his father and brothers were Sweden’s most
notorious bank robbers, dubbed Militärligan (The Military Gang) by the media. ‘The
Father’ is Stefan Thunberg’s debut novel.

Anders Roslund is an award-winning investigative
journalist and one of the most successful and critically acclaimed Scandinavian
crime writers of our time. Roslund is part of the New York Times bestselling
author duo Roslund & Hellström, who are recipients of many prestigious
awards, including the CWA International Dagger, the Glass Key and the Swedish
Academy of Crime Writers’ Award, and who boast sales exceeding five million
copies. Films and TV series based on Roslund & Hellström’s novels are in
the works, both in Hollywood and Europe. ‘The Father’ is Anders Roslund’s
seventh novel and the first he has co-authored with Stefan Thunberg.

For more information about ‘Anton Svensson’, please visit their website. 

I received this book from the Little, Brown Book Group in exchange for my honest review.