ST. MARTIN'S MINOTAUR, 2008, ISBN 979-0-312-36668-1, 312 pagesTranslated from Swedish by Ebba Segerberg
An elderly professor has disappeared without trace from his home in Uppsala. And then two other seventy year olds are found dead. The first appears to have been planning suicide but some one beat him to it. Three missing or dead seventy year old men just feels a little too coincidental to Ann Lindell working with the Violent Crimes Squad of the Uppsala Police. As the team begin to look for a serial killer, they try to work out who the next victim will be. Will it be Queen Silvia due to visit the town in just a few days?
Interwoven in the investigation is the arrival of a new member in the team, and Ann Lindell's own struggle to prove that she can manage to be both a vital member of the team, and also a single mother. The problem is that Ann Lindell is not always a team player, she doesn't keep everyone informed of what she is doing or where she is, and often turns her phone off when she needs thinking time.
THE CRUEL STARS OF THE NIGHT has a couple of intriguing sub-plots that add dimension to the main characters and intensify the main action. A good solid read.
My rating: 4.0
There are 3 books in the Ann Lindell series:
1. The Princess of Burundi (2006)
2. The Cruel Stars of the Night (2007)
3. The Demon from Dakar (2008)
Review on EuroCrime of The Princess of Burundi by Maxine Clarke
Review on EuroCrime of The Cruel Stars of the Night by Karen Meek
I'm still waiting for this one from my local library so I haven't read it but have read THE PRINCESS OF BURUNDI and found it Ok without being superlative. The resolution of that one was annoying to me as it introduced a new character right at the end and you kind of wondered why you'd been reading about all these other people. It was also one of the bleakest books I've read in a very long time.
ReplyDeleteI'll lend you my copy Bernadette.
ReplyDeleteThanks for visiting Joannah, and for commenting.