Anxious People by Fredrik Backman

This has a kind of straight-faced slapstick humor that the author is widely known for. It is at core a bemused observation of human nature, seen through the lens of an event that is unlikely to occur in real life, and populated with quirky yet believable characters, and in the end you have laughed some and learned something. It’s almost New Year’s Eve in a small Swedish town when a distraught parent, short on rent and afraid of losing child custody, makes the poor choice to half-heartedly rob a bank. The ill-conceived plant doesn’t work out--it’s a cashless bank and even customers willing for fork over what cash they have do not have enough. The police are closing in, so the inexperienced robber, still wearing his ski mask disguise and carrying a toy handgun, flees to a nearby apartment building and unintentionally turns an ordinary open house for an apartment that is up for sale into an extraordinary hostage situation.