Trailer Park Tuesday: The Crow Girl by Erik Axl Sund

Welcome to Trailer Park Tuesday, a showcase of new book trailers and, in a few cases, previews of book-related movies.

After watching the unsettling trailer for the new novel The Crow Girl, I’ve decided to swear off the following: abandoned mental hospitals, dirty hypodermic needles, and girls with scribbled-out faces. I’m reluctant to fall asleep tonight because who knows what will show up. Maybe a tuxedo’ed man in a wheelchair sporting a pig’s mask who’ll lead me through the dark, dank corridors of my imagination. Or maybe someone will repeatedly plunge a needle into my forearm without taking anything out or putting anything in. One way or the other, I doubt I’ll be sleeping with bunnies, rainbows and prancing unicorns. The Crow Girl is the latest Swedish important to terrorize our shores after we’ve been repeatedly Stieg Larsson’ed and Jo Nesbo’ed half to death. The debut novel by Erik Axl Sund (the pen name of writing duo Jerker Eriksson and Håkan Axlander Sundquist) has a familiar plot. It pairs a detective with a therapist (been there) who team up to track down a child killer (done that), but what sets this novel apart is its pace and manner of unspooling the tension. As Lloyd Sachs writes in the Chicago Tribune, “This book’s engine never stops humming.” The novel’s trailer also runs on full acceleration, fueled by an industrial-rock soundtrack by Peace, Love and Pitbulls and enough shaky-cam shots to make The Blair Witch Project look like a slow ride across a smooth lake. One thing I’ll say about The Crow Girl’s trailer: it certainly sets the mood and gets readers in the right frame of mind before they enter the dark hallways of the 800-page novel. Welcome to Creepytown, Sweden—Population: You.