The Invisible - Hardcover

Wahl, Mats

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0374336091 ISBN 13: 9780374336097

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR), 2007

Synopsis

One ordinary Monday morning in May, Hilmer Eriksson walks into his high school classroom and discovers that he has become invisible. No one can see him, no one can hear him. In fact, a police detective named Harald Fors arrives at school that very morning to investigate Hilmer's disappearance. The boy has no idea what's going on, but he's frightened, and he's starting to forget things - including what happened to him a few nights earlier. Detective Fors suspects foul play, and those suspicions lead him - trailed by the ghostlike presence of Hilmer - to a group of skinheads. These unpopular, disaffected kids are very vocal about their Nazi sympathies. But how does Hilmer's life intersect with theirs? As Fors scours the village and interviews area residents for clues, he begins to piece together the puzzle of Hilmer's disappearance. Meanwhile Hilmer waits, silently, to discover what has happened to him.
 
In this riveting mystery set in northern Sweden, Mats Wahl deftly alternates between the policeman's and the victim's points of view, as the story of a missing-persons case shifts with a sad inevitability into a heartbreaking murder investigation.

About this title

About the Author

MATS WAHL has written over forty novels, as well as numerous plays and screenplays. He lives in Stockholm, Sweden.

Reviews

Grade 9 Up—A small town in Sweden becomes embroiled in a mystery when one of its own becomes a missing person. One day Hilmer Eriksson walks into his high school classroom and finds that he has become invisible. He is a quiet young man who likes chess and has a steady girlfriend. The teen wonders why no one can see him and begins to realize that something terrible has happened. Hilmer learns that he is missing, but is confused because he can see what is going on around him. Soon he realizes that he is invisible to the outside world. Detective Harald Fors arrives to investigate his disappearance, and the teen remains by his side. After conducting several interviews, Fors suspects that a group of skinheads is involved: the teen had earned their wrath by trying to protect one of its victims—a fellow student who is an immigrant. Even after Hilmer is found hidden away in a compost heap, badly beaten and barely alive, his ghostly presence continues to follow the characters, until his body dies and his strength runs out. The story is intriguing at first, but once Fors gets on the trail of the skinheads, the book becomes predictable. Much of the story line centers around Hilmer's reaching out for help and no one responding because of his invisibility. However, as the plot picks up speed, the interludes describing his thoughts are dropped haphazardly into the chapters without cohesiveness. Give teens Carol Plum-Ucci's The Body of Christopher Creed (Harcourt, 2000) instead.—Shannon Seglin, Chantilly Regional Library, Fairfax County, VA
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

This taut police procedural, full of foreshadowing and suspense, opens as Hilmer, a 15-year-old boy in a small Swedish town, realizes that he has become invisible and is believed missing. The focus soon shifts to Fors, a policeman brought in to investigate the case. Invisible Hilmer follows along. During the next two days, interviews with Hilmer's girlfriend, mother, classmates, and others reveal the missing boy's quiet integrity, and Fors learns that teenage neo-Nazis, abetted by prejudice among adults, may hold the key to the disappearance. Hilmer's angst and confusion contrasts with Fors' dogged pursuit of clues to the boy's fate. Wahl's skillful, understated prose explores the dark side of modern society, and readers come to understand that the book is less a mystery than a human tragedy. The book was published first in Sweden, where it was made into a movie; a U.S. film version will open in April 2007. Kathleen Odean
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR)
• Publication date: 2007
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0374336091
• ISBN 13: 9780374336097
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 186