DP54Cover - Deadly Pleasures

10
Deadly Pleasures
place married, mother-of-two Berit Assarson was seen
alive. Seven years have passed since Berit’s disappearance,
and her husband, Tor, and her best friend, Jill Kylén,
are trying to move on with their lives. Both harbor
lingering, foggy suspicions about Justine, as is young
Micke, whose father, Nathan, vanished while traveling
with Justine.
Mari Jungstedt
Series Character: Inspector Anders Knutas, Gotland,
Sweden
� UNSEEN (St. Martin’s, $23.95, 2006;
Doubleday, £11.99, 2007). After a gathering of friends
on the island of Gotland dissolves amid jealous accusations,
the source of the conflict, Helena Hillerström, vanishes
from her home, only to turn up the victim of a savage ax
murder.
� UNSPOKEN (St. Martin’s, $23.95, 2007;
Doubleday, £11.99, 2008). Detective Superintendant
Anders Knutas and his team look into the murder of the
alcoholic former news photographer Henry Dahlström. In
the course of their investigation, they discover evidence not
only that the man maintained a good income doing illegal
repair work for most of Gotland’s leading citizens but that
his death may somehow be linked to missing 14-year-old
Fanny Jansson.
� THE INNER CIRCLE (St. Martin’s, $24.95,
November, 2008). No plot summary available yet.
Camilla Läckberg
� THE ICE PRINCESS (HarperCollins, £17,99)
2008 The writer Erica Falck has returned to her home
town on the death of her parents, but discovers the
community in turmoil. A close childhood friend, Alex, has
been found dead. Her wrists have been slashed, and her
body is frozen solid in a bath that has turned to ice. Erica
decides to write a memoir about the charismatic but
withdrawn Alex, more as a means of overcoming her own
writer’s block than solving the mystery of Alex’s death. But
Erica finds that her interest in Alex is becoming almost
obsessive. She begins to work with local detective Patrik
Hedstrom, and the duo soon find that some unpleasant
secrets are buried beneath the comfortable surface of the
town.
Åsa Larsson
Series Character: Stockholm Attorney Rebecka
Martinsson
� SUN STORM (Delacorte, $22.00, 2006; THE
SAVAGE ALTAR in the U.K., Viking, £12.99, 2007 ).
Rating: B- [Reviewed by Larry Gandle] Viktor Strandgard,
a preacher of a church in northern Sweden called The
Source of All Strength, is found in the chapel viciously
slaughtered. His sister, Sanna, discovers the body and is
emotionally at a breaking point. She contacts her friend
Rebecka Martinson, a tax attorney in Stockholm, for her
help. When Sanna is arrested for the murder, Rebecka
seeks a solution to the crime in order to free her friend.
Naturally, the killer does not want to be discovered and the
closer Rebecka gets to the solution, the more danger she
places herself in.
SUN STORM is a solid amateur-detective novel
that is very strong on characterization. Rebecka must cope
with many personal issues, including dealing with Sanna’s
daughter, as well as her own job which is threatened by her
involvement in this case. Rebecka is a sympathetic character
and a strong heroine. The plot is carefully laid out and
the author plays fair with the reader who wants to solve the
crime along with Rebecka. The setting is well described as
the Aurora Borealis (the sun storm) flickers above the frigid
landscape of the small town. The plot could have moved
a bit quicker for my taste, but that is a minor criticism and
shouldn’t bother most readers. SUN STORM won Sweden’s
best first crime novel award when first published in Sweden
in 2003.
� THE BLOOD SPILT (Delacorte, $22.00, 2007;
Penguin, £6.99, 2008). Rating A- [Reviewed by Bev
DeWeese] Stockholm attorney Rebecka Martinsson, having
shot three people in an earlier book (SUN STORM),
has returned to her home town, Kiruna, for rest and
rehabilitation. However, a female priest, Mildred Nilsson
has been discovered hanging in the church, murdered, and
Rebecka is reluctantly pulled into the investigation. A
likeable but aggressive feminist and militant environmen-