Good Night, My Darling

“Yes, well, it wasn’t a smart thing to say. We know he’s wrong, don’t we?”

“Yes…”

He was breathing normally again. He took hold of the plaid bedspread and wrapped it around them both.

“You’re not working tonight, are you?”

“No, Justine, I’m with you. I’m staying here.”

He stroked her hair, kissed her neck, her ears.

“You’re not going to just disappear?”

“I’m sorry, Justine, forgive me. I should have tried to call you again, but Pappa was beside himself. I’ve always been their support in life.”

They lay pressed against each other for a while. He embraced her. He was heavy, living. She felt calm returning, like sleep, but without sleeping.

“Do you have a handkerchief?”

He searched in his pocket, took out a wrinkled tissue. “It’s clean,” he whispered. “Even if it doesn’t look like it.” “I believe you,” she said and blew her nose.

Then she let her hands go toward his narrow, hard hips. “Hans Peter,” she said, in order to massage his name into the room.

About the Author

INGER FRIMANSSON was born in 1944 in Stockholm and grew up in various places in the middle of Sweden. Today she lives in Sodertalje, a town not far from Stockholm, with her husband Jan. As a young girl Inger Frimansson won a number of literary competitions, among them, the so-called Little Nobel Prize in 1963. She started her career as a working journalist, and she made her debut as a writer of serious fiction in 1984 with her novel The Double Bed (Dubbelsangen). In 1997, she published her first full-fledged psychological thriller, I Will Fear No Evil (Fruktar jag intet ont).

A significant breakthrough in her writing career occurred in 1998 with the publication of Good Night, My Darling (Godnatt, min alskade), which was voted Best Mystery Novel of the Year by the Swedish Academy of Mystery Authors. The jury’s citation included this appreciation: “A psychological thriller about senselessness and revenge that doesn’t loosen its grasp of the reader’s attention for the length of the book.”

In autumn 2002, The Island of Naked Women (De nakna kvinnornas o) was published, a thriller about vehement passion and unprovoked manslaughter. Hidden Tracks (Morkerspar), 2003, followed with more rave reviews from the critics, as did the recent The Shadow in the Water (Skuggan i vattnet), awarded with The Swedish Academy of Mystery Authors Award for Best Swedish Crime Novel 2005. She is the only female crime author ever to receive this award twice.

Inger Frimansson’s novels are translated into several languages and are published in various editions in Norway, Latvia, Holland, Finland, Denmark, Spain, Bulgaria, and Germany.

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