Red Wolf_ A Novel - Liza Marklund [162]
3. She was once arrested for vagrancy in Athens. Together with fifty other young people from all corners of the world she was locked in a garage full of motorbikes. But Liza was released after just quarter of an hour: she had asked to meet the head of police, commended him on his work, and passed on greetings from her father, the head of police in Stockholm. This was a blatant lie: Liza’s father runs a tractor-repair workshop in Pålmark.
4. Liza’s eldest daughter is an actress and model. Annika, who lends her name to the heroine of Liza’s novels, was the seductress in the film adaptation of Mikael Niemi’s bestseller Popular Music from Vittula. Mikael and Liza have also been good friends from the time when they both lived in Luleå in the mid-1980s. Mikael was one of Liza’s tutors when she studied journalism in Kalix.
5. Liza got married in Leningrad in 1986. She married a Russian computer programmer to help him get out of the Soviet Union. The sham marriage worked; he was able to escape, taking his brother and parents with him. Today the whole family is living and working in the USA.
Liza’s Favourites
Book: History by Elsa Morante
Film: Happiness by Todd Solondz
Modern music: Rammstein (German hard rock)
Classical music: Mozart’s 25th Symphony in G-minor. And his Requiem, of course.
Idols: Nelson Mandela, Madeleine Albright and Amelia Adamo (the Swedish media queen).
Liza’s Top Holiday Destinations
1. North Korea. The most isolated country in the world, and the last iron curtain. Liza has seen it from the outside, looking into North Korea from the South, at the Bridge of No Return on the 38th parallel.
2. Masai Mara, Kenya. Her family co-owns a safari camp in the Entumoto valley.
3. Rarotonga, the main island in Cook archipelago in the South Pacific. The coolest paradise on the planet.
4. Los Angeles. Going ‘home’ is always brilliant.
5. Andalucia in southern Spain. The best climate in Europe, dramatic scenery, fantastic food and excellent wine. Not too far away, and cheap to fly to!
We hope you enjoyed RED WOLF.
Did you wonder about Annika’s claustrophobia and fear of the dark?
Do you want to find out exactly what
happened when she was held hostage in an
underground tunnel?
All is revealed in her multi-award
winning, unputdownable thriller
THE BOMBER – coming in Spring 2011
Here’s a taster . . .
Prologue
The woman who was soon to die stepped cautiously out of the door and glanced quickly around. The hallway and stairwell behind her were dark, she hadn’t bothered to switch on the lights on her way down. She paused before stepping down onto the pavement, as if she felt she were being watched. She took a few quick breaths and for a few seconds her white breath hung around her like a halo. She adjusted the strap of the handbag on her shoulder and took a firmer grasp of the handle of her briefcase. She hunched her shoulders and set off quickly and quietly towards Götgatan. It was bitterly cold, the sharp wind cutting at her thin nylon tights. She skirted round a patch of ice, balancing for a moment on the curb of the pavement. Then she hurried away from the street-lamp and into the darkness. The cold and the shadows were muffling the sounds of the night: the hum of a ventilation unit, the cries of a group of drunk youngsters, a siren in the distance.
The woman walked fast, purposefully. She radiated confidence and expensive perfume. When her mobile phone suddenly rang she was thrown off her stride. She stopped abruptly, glancing quickly around her. Then she bent down, leaning the briefcase against her right leg, and started searching through her handbag. Her movements were suddenly irritated, insecure. She pulled out the phone and put it to her ear. In spite of the darkness and shadows