The Arc of the Swallow - 9781623654122

Danish author S.J. Gazan established herself as an international talent to watch with her debut thriller novel,The Dinosaur Feather. In addition to being named “Crime Novel of the Decade” by the Danish Broadcasting Corporation, NPR’s Maureen Corrigan called it her favorite mystery of 2013, andThe Wall Street Journal’s Tom Nolan placed it in his year-end top ten list.

Now, Gazan’s much-anticipated follow-up is here, bringing back maverick policeman Søren Marhauge.The Arc of the Swallow evokes such literary mystery masterpieces as John Le Carre’sThe Constant Gardner and Peter Hoeg’s Smilla’s Sense of Snow, pitting a principled scientist against a profit-motivated conspiracy that leads to the upper reaches of corporations and government.

Biology Ph.D. candidate Marie Skov is devastated when, on the same day as her mother’s death, her mentor Kristian Storm apparently kills himself. Storm had been facing academic dishonesty charges, as well as heated criticism of his research on a vaccine for African children—that suggested the vaccine was causing more harm than it was preventing.

Skov is skeptical that the death was a suicide. She knows Storm’s research on the vaccine was sound, and learns that his on-site work in Guinea-Bissau was marred by intimidation, sabotaged data, and the suspicious death of another scientist. She also learns that in his final days, Storm felt he was being followed by a blue Ford with tinted windows.

Soon afterwards, a blue Ford with tinted windows parks across from Skov’s home. The police have no interest in re-examining the official narrative. But Marhauge shares Skov’s desire for answers, and defies his superiors to help her investigate. They receive unlikely help from a Nobel Prize-winning rival of Storm’s, and find themselves on a perilous trail that leads to Big Pharma and the World Health Organization.

Interwoven in this thrilling storyline are deeply-moving portraits of Skov’s troubled family and Marhauge’s tenuous relationship with his girlfriend, another biologist. The result is a complex page-turner that establishes S.J. Gazan (herself a biologist) as a world-class author at the beginning of a formidable career.