WHEN THE SNOW FELL

Kurt Wallander’s author pens his third novel about Joel Gustafson, now age 14. Narrator Francis Greenslade establishes the 1950s setting and the shivery cold in which an adolescent makes a vow in a midnight graveyard and knows it will come true. He vows to live to 100 and to see the sea and a naked woman. He doesn’t plan on becoming a hero, but he does that, too. With a charming lilt, Greenslade follows the funny, fantasy-filled year of a Swedish boy who is between childhood and adulthood. Greenslade animates the dismal town with wonderful characterizations of its inhabitants, including the shadowy, beautiful store assistant who is the object of Joel’s fantasies, an older woman who has no nose, and the schoolmate who promises she’ll teach Joel how to kiss. S.W. © AudioFile 2011, Portland, Maine [Published: DECEMBER 2011]