Not as well written as Larsson and Mankell’s works, and rather formulaic. Still, good reading for the beach, if not the...
A middling mystery by Swedish economist turned novelist Läckberg, a phenom in Europe but hitherto unpublished in the United States.
The Germans have a word for the literary genre that sells madly across the continent: Schwedenkrimi, “Swedish crime novels.” Never mind that pioneer Peter Høeg is Danish; the fact remains that a small squadron of Swedish writers, headed by the late Stieg Larsson and the still-living Henning Mankell, and including Mari Jungstedt, Anna Jansson and Johan Theorin, have made a specialty of blending gruesome murders with seamy side portraits of modern Swedish society, outwardly well scrubbed and orderly, inwardly an ugly mess of avarice, incest and racism. Läckberg’s Sweden is a touch less nasty than all that, but the setup is the same: The little village of Fjällbacka—a real place on the country’s west coast—is nice to look at, very dangerous to look into. Erica Falck, a coffee-addicted writer gone to the big city, where she’s struggling with a biography of novelist Selma Lagerlöf, has returned to her village to attend to her late parents’ estate and try to find some peace and quiet in which to work. It’s an inspiring place, after all; writes Läckberg, “Each new season brought its own spectacular scenery, and today it was bathed in bright sunshine that sent cascades of glittering light over the thick layer of ice on the sea.” But darkness soon descends when Erica’s childhood friend, the ethereally beautiful Alexandra Wijkner, turns up dead, the apparent victim of suicide, now lying frozen in a bathtub in an unheated house. Why she would have killed herself is a question that Erica takes up as she prepares a memorial for Alex, a project that turns into a book, then an inquest, now in the company of another childhood friend, a detective. The two turn up the unexpected—which, of course, every fan of Schwedenkrimi expects—namely, the sordidness of the wealthy, the appalling effects of child abuse and the general mayhem that ensues whenever cabin fever sets in.
Not as well written as Larsson and Mankell’s works, and rather formulaic. Still, good reading for the beach, if not the sauna.Pub Date: June 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-60598-092-8
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Pegasus
Review Posted Online: June 3, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2010
Greed, love, and extrasensory abilities combine in two middling mysteries.
Coulter’s treasured FBI agents take on two cases marked by danger and personal involvement.
Dillon Savitch and his wife, Lacey Sherlock, have special abilities that have served them well in law enforcement (Paradox, 2018, etc.). But that doesn't prevent Sherlock’s car from hitting a running man after having been struck by a speeding SUV that runs a red light. The runner, though clearly injured, continues on his way and disappears. Not so the SUV driver, a security engineer for the Bexholt Group, which has ties to government agencies. Sherlock’s own concussion causes memory loss so severe that she doesn’t recognize Savitch or remember their son, Sean. The whole incident seems more suspicious when a blood test from the splatter of the man Sherlock hit reveals that he’s Justice Cummings, an analyst for the CIA. The agency’s refusal to cooperate makes Savitch certain that Bexholt is involved in a deep-laid plot. Meanwhile, Special Agent Griffin Hammersmith is visiting friends who run a cafe in the touristy Virginia town of Gaffers Ridge. Hammersmith, who has psychic abilities, is taken aback when he hears in his mind a woman’s cry for help. Reporter Carson DeSilva, who came to the area to interview a Nobel Prize winner, also has psychic abilities, and she overhears the thoughts of Rafer Bodine, a young man who has apparently kidnapped and possibly murdered three teenage girls. Unluckily, she blurts out her thoughts, and she’s snatched and tied up in a cellar by Bodine. Bodine may be a killer, but he’s also the nephew of the sheriff and the son of the local bigwig. So the sheriff arrests Hammersmith and refuses to accept his FBI credentials. Bodine's mother has psychic powers strong enough to kill, but she meets her match in Hammersmith, DeSilva, Savitch, and Sherlock.
Greed, love, and extrasensory abilities combine in two middling mysteries.Pub Date: July 30, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5011-9365-1
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2019
Slaughter (Cop Town, 2014, etc.) is so uncompromising in following her blood trails to the darkest places imaginable that...
Twenty-four years after a traumatic disappearance tore a Georgia family apart, Slaughter’s scorching stand-alone picks them up and shreds them all over again.
The Carrolls have never been the same since 19-year-old Julia vanished. After years of fruitlessly pestering the police, her veterinarian father, Sam, killed himself; her librarian mother, Helen, still keeps the girl's bedroom untouched, just in case. Julia’s sisters have been equally scarred. Lydia Delgado has sold herself for drugs countless times, though she’s been clean for years now; Claire Scott has just been paroled after knee-capping her tennis partner for a thoughtless remark. The evening that Claire’s ankle bracelet comes off, her architect husband, Paul, is callously murdered before her eyes and, without a moment's letup, she stumbles on a mountainous cache of snuff porn. Paul’s business partner, Adam Quinn, demands information from Claire and threatens her with dire consequences if she doesn’t deliver. The Dunwoody police prove as ineffectual as ever. FBI agent Fred Nolan is more suavely menacing than helpful. So Lydia and Claire, who’ve grown so far apart that they’re virtual strangers, are unwillingly thrown back on each other for help. Once she’s plunged you into this maelstrom, Slaughter shreds your own nerves along with those of the sisters, not simply by a parade of gruesome revelations—though she supplies them in abundance—but by peeling back layer after layer from beloved family members Claire and Lydia thought they knew. The results are harrowing.
Slaughter (Cop Town, 2014, etc.) is so uncompromising in following her blood trails to the darkest places imaginable that she makes most of her high-wire competition look pallid, formulaic, or just plain fake.Pub Date: Sept. 29, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-06-242905-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2015
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