Johan Westlund, better known as JW, is a struggling student trying to make ends meet. His other goal in life is to find out what happened to his older sister who vanished from her apartment in Stockholm about a year after she left her family home in a small town not too far from the capital.

As in most cosmopolitan cities various ethnic mobs are alive and well and eager to participate in the lucrative drug world. In Stockholm the Yugoslavian mob is headed by a fellow named Radovan, affectionately known as R. The muscle behind Radovan is Mrado, an enigmatic man who doesn't turn a hair at physically abusing anyone who dares monkey with the mob operation, yet desperately wants custody of his eight-year-old daughter and treats the girl like a princess.

Inevitably, the lives of these three men will intersect. Each is his own person, yet each realizes that he will probably have to form an alliance with one of the other two. How these choices are made and what the consequences are form the basis for the plot of this novel.

The author, who is a Swedish defense attorney and has had direct contact with the criminal element of Swedish society, is able to add a feeling of authenticity to the description of the economics of crime, particularly as it relates to the drug business not only in Sweden but internationally. The ingenious methods used to transport illegal substances across international boundaries, as well as the methods that law enforcement employs to try to counteract these methods are described in some detail.

As is true of many Scandinavian novels, Lapidus offers comments on the Swedish justice system. He does not take a position on one side or another on most issues, though he intimates that under Swedish law private citizens have little privacy. It appears that anyone can request fairly personal data about anyone else without having to present any authority or documentation to do so.

Easy Money was translated from Swedish by Astri von Arbin Ahlander. The translator has done an excellent job of rendering the story into English, including slang and vocabulary native to drug trafficking and use. Readers unfamiliar with this special language may find some of the passages a bit difficult to understand, but the wording does add authenticity to the dialogue.

Court procedures in the Swedish courtroom are given as transcripts of trials of individuals who figure prominently in the plot. Thus readers are given a closer look at the Swedish legal system as well as information that is critical to the plot providing an economy of words.

What is most striking in this novel is how important economics is to the understanding of the drug trade. It runs very much like any other business except, one hopes, that other businesses are not illegal. A basic knowledge of economics or at least good money sense will add to one's enjoyment of this novel.

--Andy Plonka