- I was in the mood for a crime story.
- I’m such a cover-lover. Again, another cover that made me want to pick up the book.
- The Likeness by Tana French
- The Indian Bride by Karin Fossum
- The Double Bind by Chris Bohjalian
Summary from GoodReads:
Returning to her hometown of Fjallbacka after the funeral of her parents, writer Erica Falck finds a community on the brink of tragedy. The death of her childhood friend, Alex, is just the beginning. Her wrists slashed, her body frozen in an ice-cold bath, it seems that she has taken her own life.
Erica conceives a book about the beautiful but remote Alex, one that will answer questions about their own shared past. While her interest grows into an obsession, local detective Patrik Hedstrom is following his own suspicions about the case. But it is only when they start working together that the truth begins to emerge about a small town with a deeply disturbing past.
My Review:
Sometimes my reading and TV watching (or just my reading) intersects in strange and mysterious ways. Just before picking up this book I was making my way through the first season of Castle, starring Nathan Fillian as the crime writer, Richard Castle. The episode I watched involved the murder of a young woman who was frozen solid, so when I began this book about a writer and a murder involving a young woman frozen in a bathtub I got a strange feeling of deja vu.
The similarities end there, however. I picked up The Ice Princess hoping that it wouldn’t be another Girl with a Dragon Tattoo and I got what I wished for. It was an interesting story but there were several things that bugged me.
Throughout the entire story some really major clues were glaringly ignored (specifically one involving the murder victim). They were ignored by the family, the police and the writer and it made absolutely no sense to me. Eventually I understood that by ignoring these clues the author was able to go back to them and tie everything together – but the omission was so obvious that it had me smacking my head and saying “DUH” to those involved.
It’s frustrating to me when, in order to have a huge twist, you have to drop glaringly obvious clues and then ignore them. A twist should be something no one sees coming.
It’s always fun to read about other cultures and it was interesting to see Sweden through the eyes of Ms. Läckberg and her characters, I just wish the mystery had been more of a mystery and less of a puzzle with an obvious twist.
I encourage you to check out the mysteries I’ve recommended above for some interesting settings and stories that will have you scratching your head and wondering.
Check out these review(s):
