What happens when you give a genuine psychopath a stockbroker's salary and a cocaine habit in Stockholm? Nothing good. But damn if it doesn't make for 22 hours of listening that kept me locked in.
I picked this one up on a whim during a four-day consulting gig in Dallas - hotel rooms, rental cars, client dinners where I'm the only one not drinking. Plenty of dead air to fill. Almost Ordinary Man by Dag Öhrlund and Dan Buthler came across my radar as Swedish crime fiction, which I don't normally gravitate toward (give me Lee Child or Don Winslow most days), but the premise - privileged finance bros spiraling into murder - felt like it could scratch that American Psycho-meets-Scandinavian-noir itch. And it mostly did. I'd had a similar itch going into Left To Die — that European-procedural flavor where the geography itself feels like part of the threat — though that one didn't stick its landing the way this one does.
Three Rich Idiots and a Body Count
Let me cut to the chase: Christopher Silfverbielke is one of the more convincingly written psychopaths I've encountered in crime fiction. Not the Hollywood kind who monologues about Nietzsche while eating liver. This guy operates like the worst officer I ever served under - superficially charming, strategically generous, and absolutely hollow behind the eyes. The authors build his manipulation of Hans Ecker and Johannes Kruut with a patience that reminds me of how real predators work. They don't kick down doors. They hold them open for you until you're too deep inside to leave.
Hans is the one who makes this triangle interesting. He's not stupid. He knows something's off about Christopher. But the champagne lifestyle, the women, the drugs - they're an anesthetic. His relationship with Veronica functions as the book's moral anchor, and the tension between his two lives is where the real suspense lives. Not in the murders themselves, but in watching a guy who could walk away choose not to. I've seen this scenario play out in real life - not the murder part, obviously, but the way certain personalities in high-pressure environments pull weaker people into increasingly reckless behavior. The dynamic rings true.
Johannes Kruut is basically the rich kid who buys his way into the cool table. He's there to fund the lifestyle and take the fall if things go sideways. The authors clearly did their homework on how these power triads function - there's always the manipulator, the willing accomplice, and the useful idiot.
Commissioner Colt vs. the Finance Bros
The cat-and-mouse element with Commissioner Jacob Colt works, but I'll be honest - it's the weaker half of the book. Colt is competent but not particularly distinctive as a detective character. You've met versions of him in a dozen Scandinavian crime novels. Dogged, principled, maybe a bit world-weary. The investigation procedural sections don't carry the same electric charge as the chapters inside Silfverbielke's head.
At 21 hours and 55 minutes, this is a commitment. There are stretches in the middle third - particularly around the financial machinations - where the pacing slows to a crawl. I bumped to 1.25x during those sections and didn't feel like I missed a beat. When the escalation kicks in and the murders start stacking up, though, the book earns its length. The last five hours are relentless.
Ciaran Seward Behind the Mic
Here's where I have to level with you: I don't have strong feelings about the narration either way, which in audiobook terms is roughly a C+. Seward handles the material competently. He differentiates the three main characters well enough that I never lost track of who was speaking. But for a book that lives and dies on the menace of its central psychopath, I wanted more from the vocal performance during Silfverbielke's sections. More controlled menace, more of that flat affect that makes your skin crawl. The performance is professional but plays it safe where the material calls for something more dangerous.
The Swedish names and locations didn't trip him up, which matters more than you'd think over 22 hours. Nothing pulls you out of a story faster than a narrator who sounds like they're reading a foreign word for the first time every time.
Who's This For (And Who Should Steer Clear)
If you like your crime fiction character-driven rather than puzzle-driven, and you've got patience for a slow build, this delivers. Fans of Jo Nesbø's darker stuff or Stieg Larsson will find familiar territory here. If you need constant action beats or tight 10-hour thrillers, this'll test you. The financial world details and the cocaine-fueled party scenes can feel repetitive - yes, we get it, they're decadent and terrible.
Also worth noting: this book doesn't flinch from its violence or its characters' worst impulses. Not gratuitous exactly, but unflinching.
Mission Debrief
Worth your time? Here's the debrief: Silfverbielke alone justifies the listen. He's a villain who earns his menace through behavior rather than backstory monologues, and the way the authors dissect the enabling that allows psychopaths to operate in plain sight is genuinely sharp. The procedural side needed more heat, and the narration could've pushed harder into the darkness, but I finished all 22 hours without quitting. That's not nothing. Ranger slept through most of it, but he perked up during the final act. Take that as you will.
