Sweet Sweet Revenge Ltd

A revenge scheme goes hilariously awry in this zany if glib farce from Jonasson (The Accidental Further Adventures of the Hundred-Year-Old Man). Swedish white nationalist Victor connives to inherit a wealthy art dealer’s fortune by marrying his much younger daughter, Jenny Alderheim. First, Victor flies his Black 18-year-old son, Kevin (born to one of his regular sex workers) to Kenya and abandons him there. Ole Mbatian, a prominent Maasai medicine man, adopts Kevin and tutors him in traditional skills. Kevin shows aptitude, but he returns to Sweden to avoid circumcision; there, he falls in love with Jenny, newly divorced from Victor. Kevin and Hugo Hamlin, a former adman who runs a business offering revenge for petty grievances, hatch a scheme to implicate Victor in art forgery, drug use, and sexual deviancy. Then Ole comes looking for Kevin, and as the three try to bring Victor to justice, their mission is complicated by cultural miscommunications, incompetent police detectives, and Kevin and Jenny’s guilelessness. The jokes can feel a bit lazy, particularly when they come at the expense of Ole’s unfamiliarity with contemporary European culture, though Jonasson manages to keep the reader invested in the revenge campaign. There’s not much nuance, but it’s still a page-turner. Agent: Erik Larsson, Albatros. (May)