Very "okay"-ish book. I liked it a lot better than the other Swedish crime novel I just read (1973) because this one had a good plot and managed to be suspenseful most of the way through without fake cliffhangers all the time. The best part was of course when HP was part of the game, which sadly wasn't most of the book.

The author also does a good job writing an unlikeable protagonist that you still root for without symphatizing with him completely. Becca is harder, he really tries to write about the struggles a female police officer has to deal with and I appreciate that, but at times it is the only thing she thinks about and that's not really how it works. But he tries, so I'm not mad.

I'll need to read the entire trilogy before I know if the scope of the "plot" is too big (it might just be HP going crazy), because that part is my least favourite part of the story. I especially didn't like having Lasermannen be some sort of plot point because we know he was a racist asshole, it's much better to use those murders/disasters where we don't actually know what's behind it. ( )

Autor plasticky opisuje udalosti a vojenskú situáciu na zmenšujúcom sa povstaleckom území koncom októbra 1944, odhodlanie veliteľa stíhacieho pluku zostať so svojou jednotkou na bojisku až do konca, jeho ťažké rozhodovanie pri presune na územie oslobodené Sovietskou armádou... ( )

This is another one of my charity shop buys where the synopsis on the back sounded like fun. I raced through the book very quickly , the plot is fast moving, and the story was good enough to hold my attention. There is a little character development along the way but we learn a little of their back story's along the way. While exciting, the plot is quite far fetched and there are a lot of coincidences that are quite daft. Up to this point it sounds fairly standard but there are two flies in the ointment and they are pretty big. The first is that the main protagonist HP is pretty weak as a character. I understand that anti-heroes are a pretty popular narrative device but in this case he's a joke of a character. In fact, none of the characters seem 'real' in any way, they are all very cliched and come across as caricatures. The other issue is that the writing is pretty awful in places. Some passages are real stinkers, so much so that they really made me laugh at how bad they were. This could be a consequence of the translation but I very much doubt it. Words such as halal are used in completely the wrong context and his casual racism seem out of place given his friends. I get the feeling that de la Motte was trying to make HP come across as streetwise but he actually comes across as someone trying to act "street". ( )

Woah. What a book. I had a hard time at first with the formatting of this book as I received a copy of it from NetGalley and it was hard to tell which character was speaking at times. Game introduces us to HP and Rebecca, two siblings who have chosen very different paths in life. The story is told from their perspectives. HP gets himself involved in a game that blurs the lines between reality and fantasy rather quickly leaving HP to pick up the pieces. Rebecca is just trying to do her job as a bodyguard yet finds herself picking up after her little brother over and over again. I found the book quickly paced and easy to read once I got the hang of the format. Definitely can't wait to read the rest of the series. ( )

Henrik Pettersson, ook wel HP genoemd, zit in de trein naar Stockholm. Op de zitplaats naast hem vindt hij een gloednieuwe mobiele telefoon, die een direct aan hem gerichte uitnodiging blijkt te bevatten voor deelname aan een spel. HP kan de belofte van spanning en snel geld verdienen niet weerstaan. Het duurt niet lang of Het Spel neemt HP’s leven over. Wat eerst een grap leek, blijkt al snel een gevaarlijk crimineel spel, en HP raakt betrokken in een complot waarvan hij de gevolgen niet meer kan overzien. Rebecca Normén is alles wat HP niet is: ze heeft haar leven op orde en maakt snel promotie bij het beveiligingsbureau waar ze werkt. Dat succesvolle leven wordt grondig verstoord als iemand anonieme briefjes en oproepen voor haar achterlaat met informatie die niemand had kunnen hebben …