Jenny and Kevin are strangers with one thing in common: they've both been horribly wronged by the same man. Fate brings the young couple together to fix their situation in the dark but uproariously funny Sweet Sweet Revenge Ltd by Jonas Jonasson, translated from the Swedish by Rachel Willson-Broyles.
Smooth-talking narcissist Victor bullies the owner of an art gallery into giving him a managerial position and quickly marries the owner's daughter, Jenny, though Victor continues seeing a prostitute. Ten years later, that woman, now dying, reappears with Victor's son, Kevin, and demands Victor provide financial support. Victor makes Kevin live in a shack and sustains the boy with weekly pizza deliveries. On Kevin's 18th birthday, Victor abandons him in the wilds of Kenya, hoping lions will eat him. But Kevin is rescued by Ole Mbatian, a Maasai warrior who becomes the father Kevin never had. The relationship is harmonious until a misunderstanding involving circumcision causes Kevin to return to his old shack, where he finds Jenny. She's been living there since her father died and Victor tricked her into signing over the gallery to him, leaving her penniless. She and Kevin plot to right the wrongs done to them.
Jonasson (Hitman Anders and the Meaning of It All) enlightens readers to the universe's humorous manner of exacting karma. Delighting in the killing of even a fictional character is morally questionable, but what if the character is evil, the demise involves a jar of lingonberry jam and the deed is done in the name of young love? This author has a wickedly fun way of saying it's okay. --Paul Dinh-McCrillis, freelance reviewer