Review: The Girl Who Smelled Like Cheese

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The Girl Who Smelled Like Cheese

By Björn Jörgensörn

Umlaut Press 562 pages

Reviewed by Christamar Varicella


Once again, the Swedish novelist Björn Jörgensörn has produced a compelling thriller destined to top the best seller lists for many months to come.  Like his first two novels, The Girl Who Played in Traffic and The Girl Who Picked Her Nose, the story centers on Günter Pflefferkvisktshhheek, a dumpy middle-aged reporter who finds himself embroiled in a constitutional crisis that could bring down the government.  It seems a former prime minister has been manipulating the secret police into helping him molest a thirteen-year-old autistic computer hacker named Elizabeth Salamander, and only Pflefferkvisktshhheek, his part-time lover and former boss, Tersa Bloomgärten, his police detective sister, a half a dozen members of the justice department, another (nicer) former prime minister, a Brazilian wrestler named Räul Tomlinson, and the cast of Swedish Happy Days, can help bring the villains to justice.