Any Means Necessary: A Leona Lindberg Thriller

Rogneby’s edgy if flawed sequel to 2014’s Leona: The Die Is Cast finds Leona Lindberg, a crooked detective with the Violent Crimes Division of the Stockholm Police, guilt-ridden over her son’s death and saddled with an enormous gambling debt. Assigned to interview Fred Sjöström, the critically wounded bomber who recently attempted to blow up the Swedish Parliament, Leona secretly launches a training program for criminals willing to participate in the heist of an armored car she’s planning. How to escape apprehension is a key lesson. She eventually falls for one enrollee, David Lind, who, unbeknownst to Leona, is a police informer. Rapid-fire cuts between narrators convey the vicious uncertainties of Leona’s near-sociopathic hallucinogenic struggle to pay off her debt and make a better life for her school-aged daughter. Rogneby draws effectively on her background in criminology and experience as a Stockholm police detective, but plot inconsistencies and a multitude of sentence fragments will leave some readers dissatisfied. Agent: Elisabet Brännström, Bonnier Rights (Sweden). (Feb.)