The Believer: A Novel
3.5/5
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About this ebook
An intricately plotted and brilliantly conceived stand-alone sequel to the international bestseller The Swimmer that turns the hottest political topics of our times into a complex, resonant thriller in the vein of John LeCarré.
Yasmine Ajam has fled her past in the rough Stockholm borough Bergort, reinventing herself as a trendspotter in New York City. One day she receives a startling message: there are riots erupting on the streets of Stockholm and they appear to be connected with the disappearance of her brother, Fadi.
Following rumors that Fadi was radicalized and died fighting for ISIS in Syria, Yasmine returns to Stockholm to discover what really happened to her brother. There she becomes entangled in a dangerous web of allegiances and violence that stretches far beyond the gangs on her childhood streets.
Meanwhile, in London, Klara Walldéen has landed a job at a human rights research institute working on a report to predict the effects of privatizing police forces. When Klara travels to Stockholm to present her findings to European Union policymakers, her laptop is stolen and one of her colleagues is pushed in front of an oncoming subway train. As her path collides with Yasmine’s, Klara begins to realize that she may unwittingly be contributing to the sinister agendas of powerful interests who will stop at nothing to attain their goals.
With The Believer, Joakim Zander delivers another "page-turning" (Entertainment Weekly) novel of suspense that is as sophisticated and timely as it is compelling.
Joakim Zander
Joakim Zander was born in Stockholm, has lived in Syria and Israel, and graduated from high school in the United States. He earned a PhD in law from Maastricht University in the Netherlands and has worked as a lawyer for the European Union in Brussels and Helsinki. Rights to his debut novel The Swimmer were sold in twenty-eight countries. Zander lives and works in southern Sweden with his family.
Read more from Joakim Zander
The Swimmer: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Friend: A Novel Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
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Reviews for The Believer
28 ratings3 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Really well-done, and very timely story arc. Zander is a strong writer with a good message
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Radical Islamic jihadists, not my favorite subject. But, as deplorable as I find this subject matter, this is a page turner! Mr. Sander does an excellent job of creating characters you'll find compelling, and the story is intriguing as well. This a tale all too terrifying in that it seems wholly plausible, seeing this spread across the front page of the news doesn't stretch one's imagination.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Brother – Stunning Suspense ThrillerJoakim Zander came to prominence with his knock out debut The Swimmer, which I thought was a stunning thriller and would take some beating, he has put that to be bed with ease. The Brother is the follow-up and is one of the best thrillers of the year, it will simply take your breath away and breathless at the end.Zander has once again come up with a plot that is contemporary, without preaching at the reader, that is absorbing, thrilling and keeps you in suspense throughout. This is not a typical Scandi Noir thriller, this really is an international outlook in this book, that takes you to dark places without being dark.Yasmine has promised she would always protect her little brother Fadi, but it is five years since she left Bergort, a suburb of Stockholm. Her new life in New York is not everything it seems but she is surviving, just, when she receives new that her brother has been killed out in Syria and she devastated. When she receives a message from her mother with a picture of Fadi, she is convinced he is still alive and she needs to get back to Stockholm and find him.Accepting help, while supposedly working for a big agency in New York she is able to get back to Stockholm and find Fadi. What she finds is her old suburb suffering nightly riots, and Bergort is literally burning. Not everybody is pleased to see her back, especially as she gets messages to stop the search and go back to America.What we get is a thriller where the story is narrated by both Yasmine and Fadi, as the picture builds so we can understand how things are and how they had come to pass. At the same time a different thread is built around Klara, a researcher based in London, but from Sweden, and her story intertwines with the books main narrative.What the reader gets is an explosive story, a story of loss, jihad, Government Spy Agencies, and the people caught in the middle. As the story heads to its conclusion you really are not sure how this will end, for all three main characters, you hope for the best but fear the worst. This is an ambitious thriller that really does deliver on all levels and its breadth is wonderful and entertaining. The characters are believable and well written, and once again the research that has gone in to the writing of this book is really fantastic.Read The Brother and the suspense will keep you breathless and entertained, a really stunning Swedish thriller.