(To be reviewed also in Episode 60 off Reading in Bed – the book review Podcast)
Viveca Sten
Blurb:
The splendor of the Swedish mountains becomes the backdrop for a bone-chilling crime.
On the day Stockholm police officer Hanna Ahlander’s personal and professional lives crash, she takes refuge at her sister’s lodge in the Swedish ski resort paradise of Åre. But it’s a brief comfort. The entire village is shaken by the sudden vanishing of a local teenage girl. Hanna can’t help but investigate, and while searching for the missing person, she lands a job with the local police department. There she joins forces with Detective Inspector Daniel Lindskog, who has been tasked with finding the girl. Their only lead: a scarf in the snow.
As subzero temperatures drop even further, a treacherous blizzard sweeps toward Åre. Hanna and Daniel’s investigation is getting more desperate by the hour. Lost or abducted, either way time is running out for the missing girl. Each new clue closes in on something far more sinister than either Hanna or Daniel imagined. In this devious novel by the bestselling author of the Sandhamn Murders series, discover what it will take to solve a case when the truth can be so easily hidden in the coming storm.
Strengths and Weaknesses:
First
of all, this book was got from Amazon Fire Reads for November 2022
and as it was set over the Christmas period kinda made sense for it
to be reviewed for this kind of year.
First of all, I loved the setting in the book as it probably helped carry the book forward with its bleakness and the silence.
The main character, Hannah is given the classic set up which in previous generations would have put as a man, but given her as a clearly difficult woman in her job goes to pieces because of her job which then causes a split between her and her partner.
Moving to a countryish town, she then becomes involved in a kidnapping which then leads to something else shall we say.
I read the book fairly quickly over a few days which is rare for me and generally did enjoy it, but it wasn’t a masterpiece or offered anything particularly new or starling to the genre if it makes sense.
I struggled with the main character, Hannah somewhat as I struggled to feel sympathy as to bring a character in at rock bottom, you have to feel sympathy for it and I struggled with the damage she did to her ex partner’s clothes was bunny boiler territory.
The book also seemed to rush to be completed at the end also as being a bit of a slow burner for the first part off it certainly.
I’ve also read a number of reviews and did spot it once or twice the mixing up of tenses jumping between past and present across successive paragraphs which I suspect was the transaltor rather than the author.
There was also a few loose ends – for example who was the pet killer (sorry spoilers) and also the use of Hannah’s sister who saved her bacon several times by phone calls. Would have liked to have seen more character development there as with Daniel (the other cop)’s sister who both felt very shallow.
The atomsphere saved to be honest – if it had being set in Manchester I likely woiuld have abandoned it but it was good to okay – not great.
Would I read the following book in this series? Probably not but it was good to okay – not great.
8/10
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