If Ingmar Bergman, the famously austere movie director, had made thrillers, the films would have been a bit like UNDER THE STORM --- bleak, introspective, complex, ambiguous. Like Bergman, prize-winning novelist Christoffer Carlsson is Swedish; he is also a doctor of criminology and a writer whose murder mysteries are anything but formulaic. Maybe there is something about Scandinavia’s cold northern light, its all-too-brief summers, its deep forests that lends itself to protagonists who tend to obsess, as well as to a dark, dreamlike quality. The Swedish word kymig --- meaning spooky, sinister, uncanny --- recurs several times at key moments in the story.

But I don’t want to make UNDER THE STORM sound too gothic. It is a fascinating hybrid: atmospheric and brooding, but also a classic cold-case puzzle that will keep you guessing.

Carlsson gives his book a three-part structure that reinforces this dual character. In the first, set in November 1994, a house burns down and the body of a young woman, Lovisa Markström, is found inside. She is the victim of “blunt force trauma” to the head, not fire. Thus begins a tale of two obsessive individuals: Vidar Jörgensson, a police officer with deep roots in the tiny community where the death takes place (he and his father, Sven, also a cop, were characters in Carlsson’s earlier BLAZE ME A SUN); and Isak Nyqkvist, a seven-year-old boy whose uncle and frequent companion, Edvard Christensson, Lovisa’s boyfriend, is arrested and subsequently convicted of her murder. The two are insiders who feel like outsiders.

"...a fascinating hybrid: atmospheric and brooding, but also a classic cold-case puzzle that will keep you guessing.... UNDER THE STORM isn’t a cozy mystery. But it’s a really compelling one."

While Vidar checks alibis and uses his knowledge of the town to assist with the investigation, the locals gang up on Isak’s family because of their connection to Edvard. Isak is bullied at school, and his parents are ostracized. It turns out that August Christensson, Edvard’s father and Isak’s grandfather, was notorious for drinking and domestic violence. The vulnerable boy wonders if there is a gene for criminality, something mean inside him.

The second section begins nine years later, in Fall 2004. Vidar, now 37, is working in the property crimes unit and sees references to a burglary ring masterminded by two brothers, refugees from Sarajevo. He comes up with a theory that links them to Lovisa’s death. “I just want to know we got it right back then,” he says, but his questioning of Edvard’s conviction makes him unpopular with the other cops. He is ordered by his boss to stop poking around, and his unofficial involvement with the old case leads indirectly to behavior that compromises his marriage.

Isak, an adolescent, is still haunted by the spectre of inherited violence, of being born bad. When two bullies call him “just as pathetic as his sick-f**k uncle,” he hits one of them with a beer bottle: “It felt so good to hurt someone. To finally stop holding back.”

In the last 35 pages of this section, Hurricane Gudrun --- a real and tragic event --- strikes Sweden, and the damage is particularly extreme in the area where UNDER THE STORM is set. Isak is lost in the woods: “Branches tear at him. Downed power lines spark and crackle. The rain is tiny nails against his skin.” He finds shelter in a barn, but the structure is tossed and crumpled by the storm; he only just manages to save himself and a single horse (her name is Hedwig: She reappears later in the story, and her relationship with Isak is one of the most touching parts of the novel). Finally, the trees fall, the ancient forest disappears, and Isak tumbles to the bottom of a well. He is literally “under the storm.”

In the third section, the story jumps forward 12 years to the summer of 2017. There is an oppressive heat wave that, like the hurricane, seems to intensify the drama. Isak is 31, convicted twice of assault and battery: He “tried to keep out of trouble, but it found him in the end.” Vidar, meanwhile, has left the police, but he is yanked back into the now very cold case of Lovisa’s death when Karin, Isak’s pregnant partner, shows up to report him missing.

Again the narrative is shared by these two alienated men. Karin’s pregnancy rouses Isak’s fear that he will pass on some genetic flaw to his son; he must know for sure if Edvard was the culprit. He sets out to identify the person he believes really murdered Lovisa and steps into danger. Vidar works with a friend on the force to track Isak and comes to the same conclusion. But once more, his preoccupation with the case threatens his marriage and (here’s where his dilemma resembles Isak’s) leads him to behave exactly like his policeman father. Unable to let go of unsolved cases, Sven would turn mute and detached, a poor father and a worse husband. “You can’t disappear into this case again,” Vidar’s wife says, an ultimatum of sorts. But he can’t help himself.

At 400 pages, longer than most mysteries, UNDER THE STORM moves slowly, despite short chapters and punchy sentences. Partly this is because Carlsson has stocked the book with red herrings to misdirect the reader. Partly it’s because there are extensive dialogue scenes that could have been pruned, as well as rather repetitive monologues in which Vidar and Isak’s respective angst is on full display.

However, the length also means there is room for a great deal of beautifully observed detail about the rural setting and its inhabitants. The writing (in translation) is sensitive and often very fine, and I was impressed by the way Carlsson combines a nuts-and-bolts police investigation with penetrating character studies (especially that of Isak as a child) and a deep evocation of the intimacy, cruelty and claustrophobia of small-town life. Plus, of course --- I did mention the parallels with Bergman --- a powerful dose of existential dread!

UNDER THE STORM isn’t a cozy mystery. But it’s a really compelling one.