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Sunday, May 6, 2018

Call Me Princess

When an online flirtation leads to a brutal rape, Detective Inspector Louise Rick gets put on the case.  The victim, Susanne Hansson, doesn't know her attacker's real name, and can't even give the police a good description of him. And Louise starts to think they might never catch this guy. Then another rape victim is found.  Only this time she didn't survive the attack. But it appears that she, too, met her attacker online. Now Louise must put herself at risk and enter the online dating world in order to catch this faceless predator before he rapes again.

Sara Blaedel writes a solid police procedural. It's set in Copenhagen.  And her main character, Louise Rick, is a good cop who's better at her job than she is with her personal relationships. I didn't like her best friend, Camilla, a journalist who also puts her job first, quite as much. The victim, Susanne, drove me crazy. And while the mystery itself is interesting, it isn't as suspenseful or as gripping as I hoped it would be. I also felt things wrapped up a little too neatly and a little too fast at the end.  Call Me Princess isn't a bad read, but it's not exactly an unputdownable page-turner either. Still, I liked it enough to give this author another try. (I think her novel The Forgotten Girls looks intriguing.) Be warned about this one:  there are two fairly graphic rape scenes in it. They are easy to skip over though, and the rest of the book isn't really dark or violent at all. In fact, as Nordic crime fiction goes, this one is fairly tame.

Happy Reading!



18 comments:

  1. Hmm, at this point if I am going to read a thriller, I need it to be unputdownable. But I do enjoy the atmosphere of nordic-noir books, so title is something to keep in mind!

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    1. If The Forgotten Girls ends up being better than this one then start with that one! :)

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  2. I’ve heard good things about The Forgotten Girls so I’m surprised to hear this one wasn’t great. Maybe it’s just not one of her stronger stories.

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    1. That's kind of what I'm hoping. Because The Forgotten Girls does sound really good. :)

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  3. Hope you like Forgotten Girls. I have found that if you like the lead detective, in this case Louise Rick, in a series it pays to give the series another chance.

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    1. That's why I thought I'd give this author (and series) another chance. See if the next one is better. :)

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  4. I'm not sure about this one given the graphic scenes you mention.

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    1. There's two of them, but like I said, they're easy to spot and skip over.

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  5. Not sure about this one but I think I'll probably read The Forgotten Girls first since I don't think I've read anything by this author.

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    1. Yeah, I'm going to give The Forgotten Girls a try and see if I like it better than this one.

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  6. I've read a couple of Louise Rick books that I've enjoyed, but I haven't read this one. I might look for The Forgotten Girls.

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    1. The premise of that one sounds good to me. So I hope it's better than this one.

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  7. I like my thrillers to be unputdownable, so I'll probably skip this one. I have also heard good things about THE FORGOTTEN GIRLS, so I'll still give this author a chance, just with a different book :)

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  8. I'm a little burned out on these type of books but it sounds like you found some good in it.

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    1. It wasn't the best read, or my favorite, but it was decent, and there were parts I did like.

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  9. I read this one a while back and did enjoy it but I do think The Forgotten Girls is a stronger story.

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