The Lost Village by Camilla Sten

 

The plot:  Documentary filmmaker Alice Lindstedt has heard stories about the small Swedish mining town of Silvertjarn her whole life. It's where her grandmother grew up. It's also the town from which 900 people disappeared in 1959, including her grandmother's parents and younger sister, Aina. No one's ever solved the mystery of Silvertjarn. But Alice is determined to try. She's got some help in her film crew Emmy, Robert, Max and Tone, who has her own connection to Silvertjarn. Alice also has all of her grandmother's sister's letters from that time period. She hopes to find more clues to what happened in the abandoned village. But she is not prepared for what awaits her and her crew in Silvertjarn. None of them are.

My thoughts:  There's a lot to like about this novel. The mystery surrounding the inhabitants of Silvertjarn is both eerie and interesting, as is the remote setting itself. And Sten ably intersperses Alice's narrative in the present with short scenes from her great-grandmother's POV in the past. I liked the way the two narratives added layers and suspense to the mystery. But I felt like it took forever for Alice and the others to explore the more interesting parts of the abandoned village, and Alice's drama with Emmy, her former college friend, got old fast. But when things start to go wrong for the crew, the pacing does pick up. Overall, this one reads well, and I appreciated how the mystery gets wrapped up at the end. Is it all believable? No. but I thought it was entertaining. 

Happy Reading!

Spring Tide

     The Beach Case.

It sounded so trifling, he thought. A beach and a case. So harmless. But he himself had never called it the beach case. He thought it degraded one of the most repulsive murders he had investigated. It sounded like a newspaper headline. He himself had always referred to the case as the Nordkoster. Concrete. What a policeman would say.

     And unsolved.

This is the cold case police student Olivia Ronning decides to investigate over her summer break, partly because it's a case her father once worked, partly because the murder victim, a pregnant woman drowned by the spring tide, was never identified. But it's not an easy case on which to find out any new information; Olivia's father is dead, and the other officer who investigated the murder is missing. Still, Olivia is persistent. She even makes a special trip to Nordkoster Island. But the more questions she asks, the closer she comes to some very ugly truths...and to certain people who do not want her digging up the secrets of the past.

There are several other story lines in this Scandinavian crime thrillers: some young toughs have not only been beating up the homelss, but filming the horrific attacks to post online, and protests have ramped up against Bertil Magnuson, one of Sweden's richest and most influential businessmen, and his illegal mining practices in Africa. But while there's a lot to keep track of, authors Cilla and Rolf Borjlind do an expert job of weaving all the separate parts together into one compelling and suspenseful thriller.  I really liked Olivia as a character, along with Jelle, one of the homeless men. And I found the overall mystery intriguing. Some of the twists I guessed, but there were others I didn't. At 473 pages, Spring Tide is a long read, but it's also a good one. I never bogged down once. Here's hoping the Borjlinds write more just like it!

Happy Reading!

R.I.P.

"It was in the middle of that summer of endless rain that the first child went missing. It all started on a Tuesday, an odd sort of day that could have passed like any other, but ended up being one that profoundly changed the lives of a number of people."

Title: Unwanted by Kristina Ohlsson
Genre: Mystery/Suspense
Length: 353 pages
The Peril: It starts with a child's abduction from a Stockholm train. At first, the police suspect the girl's father. But when the little girl ends up dead, with the word 'Unwanted' written on her forehead, Inspector Alex Recht and police officer Fredrika Bergman soon realize they're hunting for a manipulative and ruthless murderer instead.

My thoughts: I loved the pacing; this novel begins on Monday, ends on Sunday, and never slows down once in between. The characters are nicely complicated, too, especially Fredrika who's new to the squad and not exactly a people person. In fact, the other members of the squad don't think she's suited for this job at all, but it's Fredrika who spots connections in this case that the others don't. I liked her a lot. I also liked the mystery itself; it's compelling and unpredictable--the moments with the murderer are especially chilling, but not graphic or explicit, which I really appreciated. The subject matter is a little dark, though. All in all, this is a great R.I.P. read (which stands for Readers Imbibing Peril). I'm hoping to read three more books with thrills and chills before the end of October. What about you? Read any good mysteries lately?

Happy Reading!