Deceit double dealing and danger sum up the ingredients of this book. The hero, if that's a reasonable term, is manoeuvred and manipulated by all sides whilst desperately clinging to some form of normality as plans are developed and played out in a world of intrigue and darkness. The plot skips along offering bite size chunks enabling the reader to dip in and out when time permits, despite this structure there are times when you have to keep reading. Some may consider the book as overly formulaic, but on this occasion it works and works well. Anyone who enjoys a fast paced novel with twists and turns, albeit somewhat predictable at times, will enjoy this book.

Understandably, Quercus are promoting Three Seconds on the back of their big success with the Stieg Larrson trilogy. While both are Swedish and focused on crime, the nature of Three Seconds is very different. A more realistic comparison is the Martin Beck series of police procedurals by Maj Sjöwall and Per Whalöö, another joint authorship but from a gentler time. Three Seconds is a police and crime procedural that is a tightly written step-by-step thriller. Roslund and Hellstrom create tense dark and at times brutal sequences that outline in meticulous detail the process, but they also create a strong sense of character, not least of Hoffman. In the first section, there is the meticulous setup and the conflicts of innocence and guilt between Hoffman and his family and within the police service - in the second half, all hell breaks loose. Fascinating.

This is my first dive into the Swedish Crime fiction, I did find it incredibly confusing for the first 100 pages, The pace of the writing is very fast and furious, the chapters are one or two pages long with this I found I couldn't really get into the story line as it jumped all over the place. For someone who hasn't really read this genre before I have found this extremely off putting, none of the characters grabbed me and have not really read it past 100 pages. After reading other peoples view I am tempted to give it another go, it seems like you need preserve and the pace slows down from scene setting to storyline. It is more suited to people who love their fiction fast paced, double dealing, thriller crime.

I wanted to read this as I am a fan of Henning Mankell. I was a little disappointed with Three Seconds to be honest. Granted it was action packed and well written, but difficult to get in to. It was not clear who the characters were at first, and I did lose interest. The characters were not likeable, and I did not care what happened to them. I did persevere however, and it did improve. It did provide an insight into criminal life, in great detail, which was interesting. The accounts of the people who carried the drugs were graphic and chilling. The double life of the central character was a good twist, and it was a page turner. It was not a book that I enjoyed however. I wanted to like this book very much, but it was not an enjoyable read.The hype suggests that fans of henning Mankel would enjoy it. I think Henning Mankell is far superior.

Like some of the other reviewers I received this book rather late and I really struggled to finish it. There are a lot of great Swedish authors, including Stieg Larsson. But just because some authors from Sweden are great it doesn't in my opinion mean they all are and I'm afraid it's my opinion that this was one of those authors that wasn't great. The author had a rather disjointed way of writing which I found hard to follow. I wasn't sure if it was the translation of the novel or the way it was written in the first place, either way I found that the book jumped around and wasn't clear in the narrative journey. Similarly some of the words and phrases seemed to either not translate well or not be translated at all which made the story equally difficult. On a positive note I liked the way the story built up throughout the novel so that it became more and more exciting the nearer you got to the end. The only problem with this was that I found I really had to persevere in order to get to the end in the first place to get the enjoyment out of it. Similarly I thought the character development was done very well showing how each character had emotions and family lives that often clashed harshly with the realities of the often unpleasant job that they were doing. I'm afraid I can't really recommend this as a novel. If you like Stieg Larsson or any of the other good Swedish novelists around at the moment I suggest that you go and read one of their books and leave this one alone. The rear of the novel quotes lots of people who have found the book enjoyable it may be that I'm the exception but I probably wouldn't believe the hype