Deliver Me: A Novel

Praise for Deliver Me: A Novel

“Giolito…deftly blends social commentary with exacting psychological insight, pathos, and a good deal of empathy for her characters…a beautifully written and gutting work of suspense.” —Shelf Awareness

“An ambitious tale of adolescent violence and the forces that enable it…Giolito dedicates significant space to the social problems—including restrictive immigration policies, corrupt law enforcement, and economic inequality—that surround gangs in contemporary Sweden. The sociological perspective joins with a strong emotional current to effectively convey the magnitude of the novel’s central tragedy. This will strike a chord with genre fans who are just as interested in the ‘why’ as the ‘who.’” —Publishers Weekly

“A brutal and beautiful read, enthralling from start to finish, Deliver Me paints an enduring portrait of two boys caught in an intractable landslide of violence. Malin Persson Giolito writes with unflinching precision and also great compassion for her characters’ humanity. A stunning crime novel that grapples with impossible questions about justice and responsibility, and reaches an unforgettable crescendo. You’ll read with your heart in your throat.” —Katie Gutierrez, bestselling author of More Than You’ll Ever Know

“Deliver Me succeeds with something very few crime novels do: Already on the first page, we know who the murderer is. And yet, we keep turning the pages, faster and faster until we reach the harrowing end. Sometimes fiction is needed to understand the reality we live in. Deliver Me is a masterful crime novel that hits like a well-aimed punch to the gut.” —Christoffer Carlsson, author of Under the Storm and Blaze Me a Sun

“Like the Baltimore of The Wire, the Stockholm of Malin Persson Giolito’s Deliver Me is revealed to be more than just a hostile concrete backdrop for the age-old crusade of ‘good’ against ‘evil’: instead, it’s a vast and complex network of familial care and interdependence, of best intentions stymied by judicial bureaucracy, of fear-based panopticons and manufactured scarcity, of the various limitations and empowerments conferred by race, class, and gender. Most importantly, Deliver Me is the story of kids who never got to be kids, to whom love and support is rarely extended on the societal level. Combining the legal savvy of a Grisham thriller with the big-hearted social realism of a Dickens novel, this book is a passionate call for change that ought to be heeded.” —Rafael Frumkin, author of Confidence and Bugsy & Other Stories

“Stunningly crafted and taut with tension, Deliver Me deftly exposes the dark underbelly of suburban Stockholm, where the reverberations of familial trauma and gang violence ensnare communities and hold for ransom the fate and friendship of two young boys. With this page-turning crime procedural, Giolito compels us to consider what justice means when morality is compromised by intolerance and prejudice.” —Tania Malik, author of Hope You Are Satisfied and Three Bargains

“As this gritty, tightly paced procedural unfolds, deftly weaving past and present, it’s clear that Deliver Me is more than a page-turner: it’s a poignant examination of place, family, and social class that asks how we become the people we are. It’s a character study of two very different boys and how their environments—and their friendship—shaped their fates. Intensely compelling, a true heartbreaker of a novel, Deliver Me is crime fiction at its finest.” —Samantha Jayne Allen, author of Pay Dirt Road and Hard Rain