Eva had sensed that something essential was wrong, but nevertheless her world is rocked when her husband Henrik tells her that after fifteen years of marriage he doesn't see a future for them together.  What he cannot tell her yet is that since seven months he's seeing Linda, a teacher at the daycare centre where their son Axel goes.  Linda was a relief, she didn't took over every responsibility like Eva did.  Eva from her side would have loved to give away some of the control to Henrik, but she never had the patience to wait for him.  And now her image of the future is shattered.

Jonas is a mentally ill young man who visits his girlfriend Anna every day in the hospital, ever since she went into a coma after a swimming accident he doesn't remember anything of.  The medical staff would like him to let her go, emotionally, because they know what he is unable to accept: she won't ever recover.  One evening he meets Eva who resembles his Anna so much he can hardly believe it.  From there their lives converge, and the combination of poor communication, hidden feelings, and a sick mind rollercoast to a tragic conclusion.

Betrayal takes many forms in this novel.  There's the obvious betrayal of Henrik, but even inside their marriage there was some of it.  Linda betrayed trust, Eva feels she betrayed her parents by not being able to build a solid relationship like theirs, just like she feels she betrayed her son by not giving him the home she had.  But there's more, in Jonas' past, in unspoken dreams, in silented hopes, in misunderstood signs.  Betrayal steers the events in this novel.

In an attempt to show how these feelings of betrayal are not always -in fact, hardly ever- as straightforward as they seem, Karin Alvtegen often uses an unusal technique.  She shows the same situation from the point of view of each of the characters, using just the (meager) conversation as a guide to understand why each of them reacted as they did.  The effect is surprising.  Even if a scene is repeated it doesn't slow anything down, it even helps to build the tension.  As a reader one discovers bits and pieces of information that build a more complete story than, in my view, another narrative style would have permitted.

Alvtegen is praised as a crime-author, yet this is the second novel I read of here where crime is not the main subject.  The psychology, the interactions, evolving relationships, emotional scars, emotional pressure, all of these are more important than what is going on in the sick Jonas' mind.  You want to know what happens next, you want to know where this will lead to - you will want to read this in one session.