Anxious People

The last few books I read had end-of-the-world themes so I was looking for something more lighthearted to read and a friend suggested Anxious People by Fredrik Backman. I wondered how a book about a bank robbery and hostage taking could be lighthearted but it turned out to be the perfect antidote to a run of depressing (but good) novels.  It begins with a desperate bank robber trying to pull off a heist in a small Swedish town only to find that the chosen bank was a cashless branch. The would-be robber flees to a nearby apartment building and lands at an open house being held by a real estate agent on the day before New Year's Eve. The agent and seven prospective buyers become hostages. The two small-town police officers assigned to the case are a father and son who tend to get under each other's skin. Some chapters are witness interviews after the fact, others explore the pasts of the various characters and some are set during the hostage situation. The characters are so skillfully drawn that, by the end of the relatively short novel, I felt like I knew them all very well. There is a wacky realtor, an old woman who is missing her husband, a young lesbian couple expecting their first child, an obnoxious wealthy woman who seems only interested in looking out from the balcony, a pair of middle-aged real estate flippers and a guy with a rabbit head. Somehow it all flows together seamlessly, eventually connections  between the characters are made and all the loose ends are tied together. It is a fine piece of choreographed confusion that made me laugh and an ending that left me feeling good. It was exactly what I was looking for.