by Åsa Larsson ; translated by Laurie Thompson ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 12, 2014
The translation proves odd and stiff in places, veering between American and British colloquialisms, but this glimpse into...
Another heinous murder in the frozen north.
In the tradition of modern Nordic crime fiction popularized by another Larsson, this is a stark, bloody book with strong female leads. There are two separate but related stories running parallel: the modern-day murder of a waitress and the tale of the victim's grandmother, who was murdered many years earlier. When a woman is found slain and her small grandson missing, Rebecka Martinsson, a prosecutor in cold, sometimes-barren Northern Sweden, once again teams up with detective Anna-Maria Mella to solve the crime. But when Martinsson crosses a vain and incompetent prosecutor who wants the case, he takes it over, and she goes on vacation. Though she's off the case, she hasn’t quit looking into it. She thinks there's a correlation between the killings of several members of the same family: The woman, her son, her father and grandmother all died under mysterious circumstances. As Martinsson gets closer to the truth, she and the victim's grandson become vulnerable, bringing them closer to danger and the truth about all the killings. Larsson’s writings have the same dark and bloody bleakness that readers of Scandinavian crime fiction crave, and the details of the twin cases prove compelling. Even more interesting than the crimes themselves, though, are the day-to-day details of life in both present-day and turn-of-the-century Northern Sweden, where winter's brutality is a normal component of life. One warning: Sensitive readers may find some aspects of the novel disturbing. The real draws here are neither the crimes nor the accompanying mysteries, but rather the deeply compelling atmosphere.
The translation proves odd and stiff in places, veering between American and British colloquialisms, but this glimpse into Swedish life in the boonies is fascinating.Pub Date: Aug. 12, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-62365-139-8
Page Count: 352
Publisher: MacLehose Press
Review Posted Online: July 2, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2014
Share your opinion of this book
More by Åsa Larsson
BOOK REVIEW
by Åsa Larsson & translated by Marlaine Delargy
BOOK REVIEW
by Åsa Larsson & translated by Marlaine Delargy
BOOK REVIEW
by Åsa Larsson & translated by Marlaine Delargy
by J.A. Jance ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 2, 2019
Proficient but eminently predictable. Amid all the time shifts and embedded backstories, the most surprising feature is how...
Awards & Accolades
Likes
34
Our Verdict
GET IT
New York Times Bestseller
A convicted killer’s list of five people he wants dead runs the gamut from the wife he’s already had murdered to franchise heroine Ali Reynolds.
Back in the day, women came from all over to consult Santa Clarita fertility specialist Dr. Edward Gilchrist. Many of them left his care happily pregnant, never dreaming that the father of the babies they carried was none other than the physician himself, who donated his own sperm rather than that of the handsome, athletic, disease-free men pictured in his scrapbook. When Alexandra Munsey’s son, Evan, is laid low by the kidney disease he’s inherited from his biological father and she returns to Gilchrist in search of the donor’s medical records, the roof begins to fall in on him. By the time it’s done falling, he’s serving a life sentence in Folsom Prison for commissioning the death of his wife, Dawn, the former nurse and sometime egg donor who’d turned on him. With nothing left to lose, Gilchrist tattoos himself with the initials of five people he blames for his fall: Dawn; Leo Manuel Aurelio, the hit man he’d hired to dispose of her; Kaitlyn Todd, the nurse/receptionist who took Dawn’s place; Alex Munsey, whose search for records upset his apple cart; and Ali Reynolds, the TV reporter who’d helped put Alex in touch with the dozen other women who formed the Progeny Project because their children looked just like hers. No matter that Ali’s been out of both California and the news business for years; Gilchrist and his enablers know that revenge can’t possibly be served too cold. Wonder how far down that list they’ll get before Ali, aided once more by Frigg, the methodical but loose-cannon AI first introduced in Duel to the Death (2018), turns on them?
Proficient but eminently predictable. Amid all the time shifts and embedded backstories, the most surprising feature is how little the boundary-challenged AI, who gets into the case more or less inadvertently, differs from your standard human sidekick with issues.Pub Date: April 2, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5011-5101-9
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Feb. 18, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2019
Share your opinion of this book
More by J.A. Jance
BOOK REVIEW
by J.A. Jance
BOOK REVIEW
by J.A. Jance
BOOK REVIEW
by J.A. Jance
by C.J. Box ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 20, 2008
More of a western than a mystery, like most of Joe’s adventures, and all the better for the open physical clashes that...
Wyoming Game and Fish Warden Joe Pickett (Free Fire, 2007, etc.), once again at the governor’s behest, stalks the wraithlike figure who’s targeting elk hunters for death.
Frank Urman was taken down by a single rifle shot, field-dressed, beheaded and hung upside-down to bleed out. (You won’t believe where his head eventually turns up.) The poker chip found near his body confirms that he’s the third victim of the Wolverine, a killer whose animus against hunters is evidently being whipped up by anti-hunting activist Klamath Moore. The potential effects on the state’s hunting revenues are so calamitous that Governor Spencer Rulon pulls out all the stops, and Pickett is forced to work directly with Wyoming Game and Fish Director Randy Pope, the boss who fired him from his regular job in Saddlestring District. Three more victims will die in rapid succession before Joe is given a more congenial colleague: Nate Romanowski, the outlaw falconer who pledged to protect Joe’s family before he was taken into federal custody. As usual in this acclaimed series, the mystery is slight and its solution eminently guessable long before it’s confirmed by testimony from an unlikely source. But the people and scenes and enduring conflicts that lead up to that solution will stick with you for a long time.
More of a western than a mystery, like most of Joe’s adventures, and all the better for the open physical clashes that periodically release the tension between the scheming adversaries.Pub Date: May 20, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-399-15488-1
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2008
Share your opinion of this book
More by C.J. Box
BOOK REVIEW
by C.J. Box
BOOK REVIEW
by C.J. Box
BOOK REVIEW
by C.J. Box
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Hey there, book lover.
We’re glad you found a book that interests you!
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Trouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Trouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Don’t fret. We’ll find you.