Review by Booklist Review
After the gut-wrenching cliff-hanger at the end of The Drowning (2015), series fans will rejoice to learn that earnest detective Patrik Hedstrom and his crime-writer wife, Erica, have returned to solve a seventh murder in their small Swedish resort town. When Patrik returns from medical leave, he's met with the murder of Mats Sverin, Fjällbacka's well-liked but private financial director. Sverin hadrecently resettled in his hometown after recovering from a brutal beating, but the team finds nothing linking that apparently random attack to his murder. Then, Patrik learns that Mats' last night was spent with his first love, Nathalie, who has unexpectedly returned to Fjällbacka with her young son. Patrik is certain that Nathalie is hiding something, but is her secretiveness tied to Mats' murder or her sudden reappearance? Läckberg weaves fine lines through this multilayered thriller, connecting a ghostly historic backstory, tragic portrayals of domestic violence, shady business dealings, and series regulars' various personal dramas. The result is a slice-of-life feel that lends a welcome lightness to the darker underlying story of control and abuse.--Tran, Christine Copyright 2016 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Läckberg, Sweden's bestselling "queen of crime," explores near-unspeakable grief in her stunning seventh novel set in the town of Fjällbacka (after 2015's The Drowning). Several mothers suffer in body and soul after losing their sons, in contrast to the happiness that detective Patrik Hedström and his wife, Erica, a true-crime writer, enjoy with their twin infant boys. Patrik is investigating the murder of Mats Sverin, the town's finance officer, who was involved with the restoration of a dilapidated old luxury hotel as a ritzy spa, a man many people liked but no one really knew. With her trademark impeccable psychological insight, Läckberg intertwines subplots that personalize the devastation wreaked by Sweden's drug trade, its biker culture, and its far too prevalent domestic abuse. Ghostly shadows from this searing entry will surely linger long in the reader's imagination. Agent: Joakim Hansson, Nordin Literary Agency (Sweden). (Oct.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Läckberg executes another exceptional multilayered mystery with this seventh entry in the series featuring Det. Patrik Hedstrom and Erica Falck. The abrupt, ambiguous final chapter to The Drowning is gradually clarified throughout this newest tale, which opens with a terrified young mother who's gone into hiding with her five-year-old son to a remote island called Gråskär (Ghost Isle). While Hedstrom works on solving the disappearance of Mads Sverin, a well-liked, albeit intensely private, financial director, he also has to deal with his own family's tragedies. Three ostensibly separate story lines converge into a stirring conclusion as connections are made between the characters and the island's history. Läckberg continues to craft fully fleshed-out, complicated characters with such telling details as Erica's prickly relationship with her sister or Patrik's questionable driving skills that terrify his coworkers. VERDICT Highly recommended for readers who love character-driven crime novels, especially followers of Nordic mysteries and Läckberg's growing fan base.-Deb West, Gannon Univ. Lib., Erie, PA © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Under all the massive weight of circumstance and suffering, the latest case for the sorely tried Tanumshede police is a tale of mothers and their children.The people of Fjllbacka call Grskr Ghost Island because of long-standing rumors that those who died out there never leave. But after the violent death of her overbearing husband, Fredrik, whose status as a wine importer merely provided a cover for his criminal activities, Nathalie Wester retreats there gratefully with her 5-year-old son, Sam, secure in the knowledge that Grskr is her island, their island. The friends and neighbors in Fjllbacka who have yet to discover Fredriks body have little time to worry about Nathalies welfare because they have troubles of their own. The towns finance officer, Mats Sverin, has been shot to death in the front hall of his own apartment, and his ancient status as Nathalies high school boyfriend seems a lot less relevant to Patrik Hedstrm, of the Tanum police, than his recent beating by a gang of toughs in Gteborg, where hed worked for the Refuge, a battered womens shelter, before returning to his hometown. And the family of Patriks wife, author Erica Falck, has sorrows of its own. Ericas younger sister, Anna, has been badly injured in a car crash and has lost the child shed carried nearly to terma boy shed hoped would knit her family closer together with that of Dan, her second husband. Now every mother and child on whom Lckberg turns her searching eye, from Mats mother, Signe Sverin, to Madeleine, a Refuge client who finds that Copenhagen isnt far enough from Sweden to flee her tormenter, is withdrawn, isolated, and endangered.The resolute avoidance of anything that smacks of exposition slows the pace to a crawl and makes it hard to sift the wheat from the chaff but also gives this glum tale a certain majesty. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
