Review: SILVER TEARS, Camilla Lackberg

• 
  this edition made available through my local library
  
• published by Harper Collins Publishers 2021
  
• sequel to THE GILDED CAGE
• ISBN 978-0-00-828379-7
• 322 pages

Synopsis (publisher)

One woman…
Faye Adelheim seems to have it all. The head of a global business, she lives in a beautiful villa in Italy with her daughter. But in reality, her life is far from perfect.

One man…
Faye’s ex-husband went to prison for murder. And now, he has escaped, with one thing on his mind. Revenge.

One fight for survival…
Faye will do anything to keep her family safe. But this will be the toughest battle of her life. And not everyone will live to tell the tale. 

My Take

This novel is the sequel to THE GILDED CAGE in which Faye Adelheim freed herself from her manipulative husband, and set up her company Revenge. The narrative of SILVER TEARS fills in some of the gaps in the earlier novel, and completes the story. You could probably treat SILVER TEARS as a stand-alone novel because the author does her best to summarise little strands of the earlier novel, but I think you are best to read them in order, as a pair.

My rating reflects some of the credibility problems that I had with the story line.

My rating: 4.4

I've also read

4.6, THE GILDED CAGE

Review: THE GILDED CAGE, Camilla Lackberg

• 
  this title made available as an e-book by my local library on Libby
  
• Publisher ‏ : ‎ HarperCollins GB (23 March 2020)
• AKA THE GOLDEN CAGE
  
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 352 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0008283729
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0008283728
• Translated by Neil Smith
• #1 in the Faye Adelheim series
• Sequel title: SILVER TEARS 

Synopsis (publisher)

A sexy, sensational novel with intoxicating vengeance and an unexpected tenderness’ ...

A woman who has everything…

People would kill to have Faye Adelheim’s life. She lives in a beautiful apartment, she has a gorgeous husband who gives her everything she’s ever wanted, and she has an adorable daughter who lights up her world.

Or does she?

So how is it, then, that Faye now finds herself in a police station?

The truth is about to come out…

The truth is that Faye’s life is far from what it seems. And now she’s been caught out. There’s no way she’s going down without a fight. The only question is – who will escape with their life?

My Take

Like many married women Faye Adelheim's purpose in life appears to be to make her husband's life easier. Few of those who know her know that she was originally the brains behind her husband's very successful business. But even her husband doesn't really know who Faye really is. But by the end of the book we, the readers, do.

This translated-from-Swedish crime thriller, by Sweden's "Queen of Crime" begins with much more erotic scenarios and action than we British/Australian readers are generally used to.  But keep going... all will become clear and I promise you an enjoyable and thought provoking read, even a bit of escapism.

A cleverly constructed novel chosen for our book group related to the theme of gaslighting.

Gaslighting is a form of manipulation that often occurs in abusive relationships. It is a covert type of emotional abuse in which the bully or abuser misleads the target, creating a false narrative and making them question their judgments and reality.1 Ultimately, the victim of gaslighting starts to feel unsure about their perceptions of the world and even wonder if they are losing their sanity. 

There is a sequel to the novel, SILVER TEARS, which I have already put my name now for. The copy that I read of THE GILDED CAGE had a promo for the sequel, which follows on from the twist at the end of THE GILDED CAGE.

My rating: 4.6

I've also read

4.5, THE STONECUTTER 

with Henrik Fexeus: 4.8, TRAPPED 

Review: TRAPPED, Camilla Lackberg & Henrik Fexeus

• 
  this edition made available by my local library
  
• Published by Harper Collins UK 2022
• ISBN 978-0-00-846419-6
• 535 pages
• translated from Swedish by Ian Giles

Synopsis (publisher)

An incredible new thriller you won’t want to put down!

A shocking murder…
It’s a case unlike anything detective Mina Dabiri has seen before. A woman trapped inside a magician’s box, with swords pierced through. But this time, it’s not a magic trick. It’s murder.

A case which twists and turns…
Knowing she has a terrifying killer on her hands, Mina enlists the help of celebrity mentalist, Vincent Walder. Only he can give her an insight into the secret world of magic and illusions.

A ticking clock to stop a serial killer…
Mina and Vincent soon discover that the murder victim has the roman numeral III engraved on her leg. The killer is counting down. There are going to be three more murders. And time is running out.  

My Take

I really am not good with extra long books. About half way through TRAPPED I had the feeling that I wasn't getting anywhere, and thought about returning it to the library unfinished. But I persisted, as I usually do, and I am glad that I did.

Mentalist Vincent Walder has been co-opted to join a Stockholm police investigation into two murders . The second body has been discovered in an illusionist's cabinet. From the moment he is included in the investigation team, Vincent clearly shows that he thinks "differently". In many ways he and detective Mina Dabiri, who is the one who invited him to join the team, are kindred spirits. But Vincent understands aspects of the murders that the "ordinary" detectives don't.

Eventually Vincent works out what the threads are connecting three murders but is unwilling to accept the evidence that there will be a fourth.

A cleverly plotted book with real elements of mystery.

I've also read 4.5, THE STONECUTTER by Camilla Lackberg

My rating: 4.8

About the authors

Born in 1974, Camilla Läckberg lives in a suburb of Stockholm with her three children. After graduating from Gothenburg University of Economics, she moved to Stockholm where she worked for a few years as an economist. However, a course in creative crime writing became the trigger to a drastic change of career. The same week her son was born in August 2002, her first novel Isprinsessan, (The Ice Princess) was accepted for publication. Camilla is now a worldwide bestseller renowned for her thrillers featuring Detective Patrik Hedström and his wife, crime writer Erica Falck. Her novels are al based in Fjällbacka, the small fishing village where Camilla was born. Her hobbies are cooking – she's written a cookbook with a chef called Flavours from Fjällbacka – and spending time with friends.

Henrik Fexeus is a Swedish mentalist, author and TV-host. Since 2005 he is a frequent guest, as expert on body language and non-verbal communication, in television and newspapers including for Expressen at the Swedish Crown Princess Victoria's wedding and for Aftonbladet during the US SuperTuesday 2016.

Review: SUMMERTIME DEATH, Mons Kallentoft

• this edition published 2012 (originally published in Swedish 2008) by Hodder & Stoughton
• translated into English by Neil Smith
• ISBN 978-1-444-72156-0
• 486 pages
• #2 in the Malin Fors series

Synopsis (Amazon)

In this chilling crime novel starring the elusive, tough-as-nails Swedish police superintendent Malin Fors, a combustive summer turns deadly.

IN THE ACCLAIMED MALIN FORS SERIES, EVERY SEASON IS PERFECT FOR MURDER.

The tiny town that Detective Malin Fors calls home is plagued by a sweltering heat wave and resulting raging forest fires. It is the hottest summer anyone can recall, and it’s about to become the most violent and grim, too. A teenage girl is found naked and bleeding in a city park, without any recollection of what has happened to her. Next, another grisly discovery is made on a lakeside beach, and the whole town is on edge. A serial killer walks among them, and while the families of Linköping withdraw to protect their young, Malin must uncover the secrets behind these crimes, potentially putting herself and her own family at risk in the process.

My Take

This novel was a little more noir, even grisly, than my normal choice of reading.

Having just survived a hot spell here, I could empathise with the skeleton investigation team which takes on the first case. The victim has amnesia so has no clue as to what has happened to her., and the team really has nothing to work on. Her parents have only just discovered she is missing.

Malin Fors' mind is distracted by the fact that her daughter Tove, approximately the same age as the first victims, has gone on a holiday to Bali with her father.

The central theme of the story is the relationship between fathers and their daughters.

Those who like a bit of paranormal in their crime fiction will undoubtedly like this book berrter than I did. The victims' voices, italicised, provide a commentary on the investigation, and that really stretched the bounds of credibility for me. So, just at the moment I probably won't be looking for #3.

My rating: 4.3

I've also read 4.3, MIDWINTER SACRIFICE

Review: BABYLON, Camilla Ceder

• published in Swedish 2010
• translated by Marlaine Delargy 2012
• this edition in English published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson 2013
• ISBN 978-0-297-86669-5
• 293 pages
• source: my local library

Synopsis ( Google Books)

Inspector Christian Tell and his team are called to the scene of a double murder. University lecturer Anne-Marie Karpov lies dead in her home, alongside her student and lover, Henrik.
The crime appears straightforward: Henrik's girlfriend Rebecca, a woman in therapy for her violent jealousy, had been spotted outside Karpov's flat, and her fingerprints are found on the door.

My Take

#2 in a police procedural series with central character Inspector Christian Tell. I reviewed the first, FROZEN MOMENT, in March 2011.

While this was a very readable book, it is not a stand-out for me, sharing many characteristics with the current batch of translated police procedurals: a middle aged police inspector who is a bit of a loner and whose team solves crimes more by intuition than by method. There's a new superintendent who puts the team offside right from the start and Inspector Tell feels challenged by him. Part of the book focusses on Tell's relationship with his younger girlfriend and a little of that went a long way.

The structure of the story is clever. At first the solution to the crime looks very straightforward but then the investigation turns up new evidence and it becomes obvious that the suspect could not have killed them. Other solutions are proposed and seem very plausible but don't quite fit the facts. Rebecca's flat is burgled, so then it seems that her dead partner Henrik holds the key.

For me, while I enjoyed the book, I had the feeling of being patiently led to the right answer.

My rating: 4.3

See a EuroCrime review by the later Maxine Clarke.

Review: ANOTHER TIME, ANOTHER LIFE, Leif GW Persson

• Format: Kindle (Amazon)
• File Size: 684 KB
• Print Length: 416 pages
• Publisher: Transworld Digital (March 15, 2012)
• translated by Paul Norlen
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services
• Language: English
• ASIN: B007BLO4D0
• Source: I bought it

 Synopsis (Amazon)

Stockholm1975. Six young people take the entire staff of the West German embassy hostage, demanding that the Baader-Meinhof members being held as prisoners in West Germany be released immediately. The long siege ends with the deaths of two hostages and the wounding of several others, including the captors. 

1989: When a Swedish civil servant is murdered, the two leading detectives on the case, Anna Holt and Bo Jarnebring, find their investigation hastily shelved by an incompetent and corrupt senior investigator.

1999. Lars Johansson, having just joined the Swedish Security Police, decides to tie up a few loose ends left behind by his predecessor: specifically, two files on Swedes who had allegedly collaborated on the 1975 assault on the West German embassy, one of whom turned out to be the murder victim in 1989. Johansson reopens the investigation and, with help from detectives Jarnebring and Holt, follows the leads - right up the Swedish political ladder...

Awarded Best Swedish Crime Novel by the Swedish Academy of Crime Writers on its original publication in 2003, Another Time, Another Life is an astonishingly accomplished and resonant thriller spanning twenty-five years, centred around the still-unsolved murder of Prime Minister Olof Palme in 1986.

My take

The synopsis above gives you a pretty good plot outline without giving everything away. So it remains for me to tell you what I thought of it. ANOTHER TIME, ANOTHER LIFE is #2 in a trilogy of police procedurals featuring detectives Bo Jarnebring and Lars Johansson. It is currently the only one of the trilogy to be translated into English.

To be honest it took me quite a while to get used to what appeared to be the author's sardonic tone. He seemed to have a very poor opinion of both the Swedish police and the secret police, the quality of their personnel and their investigative capabilities. Persson also explores the forms that corruption can take. Sometimes I found his cynicism unpleasant to the point of being distracting.

At times I felt lost in the descriptions of political events from 1975 onwards in Sweden in particular although I already had some general knowledge of them. The connections between the events of 1975, 1989 and 1999 weren't obvious at the beginning and made for quite a complicated plot.

Persson explores some interesting philosophical ideas too - among them that justice is not always best served by carrying out the letter of the law. Retribution can come in other forms and can even be self-administered.

Will I read another? I found the characters of Lars Johansson and Bo Jarnebring intriguing, and so I probably will, should another become available in English.

My rating: 4.4

See another review:
EuroCrime - by Laura Root

About the author

Leif GW Persson is the Grand Master of Scandinavian crime fiction. Over three decades, he has taken a scalpel to the political and social mores of Swedish society in his dark and complex crime novels. Persson is also Scandinavia's most renowned criminologist and a leading psychological profiler. He has also served as an advisor to the Swedish Ministry of Justice. Since 1991, he has been Professor at the National Swedish Police Board and is regularly consulted by media as the country's foremost expert on crime. He is the author of nine novels, all of which have been bestsellers in Scandinavia.

Review: NIGHT ROUNDS, Helene Tursten

• Originally published in Swedish as Nattrond in 1999. 
• Published in English translation by Soho Press 2012, translated by Laura A. Wideburg
• 326 pages
• Source: my local library
• ISBN 978-1-61695-006-4

Synopsis (Amazon)

Irene Huss is a former Ju-Jitsu champion, a mother of twin teenage girls, the wife of a successful chef, and a Detective Inspector with the Violent Crimes Unit in Goteborg, Sweden. And now she’s back with a gripping follow-up to Detective Inspector Huss.

One nurse lies dead and another vanishes after their hospital is hit by a blackout. The only witness claims to have seen Nurse Tekla doing her rounds, but Nurse Tekla died sixty years ago. Detective Inspector Irene Huss of the Violent Crimes Unit has the challenge of disentangling wandering ghosts and complex human relationships to get to the bottom of this intriguing case.

My take

This is #2 in the Irene Huss series, published out of order in English.

Criminal Inspector Irene Huss is a member of the Violent Crimes Unit in Goteborg, Sweden, so NIGHT ROUNDS is a police procedural with a Swedish flavour. 

The Lowander Hospital is a small private hospital run by Dr. Sverker Lowander, a family business inherited from his father. It has a very small number of rooms, although it has an operating room, but at nights and weekends is managed by only 2 or 3 staff. When the blackout occurs in the middle of the night there are 2 nurses on duty and one doctor. The blackout triggers the failure of a respirator in the ICU room and the generator fails to kick in. The ICU nurse is missing and is later found dead.

NIGHT ROUNDS has some interesting plot strands: the murder of one nurse on the blackout night, the disappearance of another, the appearance of a ghost, the relationships between members of the Violent Crimes Squad, and Irene's family which consists of twin 14 year old daughters and a chef husband. the Squad works in small teams, each focussing on particular enquiries and reporting back to the main group at the beginning and ending of the day.

I found the style a little unusual, and couldn't quite work out whether this was the result of Tursten's writing style or the translation. It is a very direct style of writing, not much adornment, and shortish sentences, with economy in description. There were some peculiarities of expression like the constant references to "morning prayers", the meeting of the Crimes Squad at the beginning of each day. I have seen this used in other crime fiction works, but not as commonly as this novel seems to imply.

And yet, I think NIGHT ROUNDS is good reading if you like police procedurals (which I do). The plot is inventive, well supplied with red herrings, and there feels to be plenty of local colour. And I do like the character of Irene Huss.

My rating: 4.4

The order of the series (courtesy EuroCrime)
Inspector Huss, Gothenburg

• Detective Inspector Huss	2003	1
• Night Rounds	2012	2
• The Torso	2006	3
• The Glass Devil	2007	4

My review of THE GLASS DEVIL contains mini reviews of  DETECTIVE INSPECTOR HUSS and THE TORSO.

Other sites to check

• review of NIGHT ROUNDS on Murder by Type
• In the Spotlight on Confessions of a Mystery Novelist
• Reviews on Scandinavian books
• Review on DJsKrimiblog of THE MAN WITH THE LITTLE FACE, not yet translated into English.

DVDs available of the television movies made by Yellowbird of 6 stories based on Helene Tursten stories, with apparently more to come. These appear to be immensely popular in Sweden.

Review: SHADOW, Karin Alvtegen

TEXT Publishing, Melbourne, 2009, written in Swedish 2007, translated into English by McKinley Burnett 2009, ISBN 978-1-921351-97-6, 311 pages

Gerda Persson had lain dead for three days by the time the home help discovered her body. Her decision that at her death she would reveal to the person who most needed to know a secret she had been burdened with for 35 years sets in train a sequence of events that destroys lives.

Thirty five years before a little boy had been left on the steps of the Skansen amusement park, apparently abandoned by his mother. For 35 years he has searched for his identity, and now he will find out.

The structure of this book is like the orchestral composition where one by one the players are introduced, each playing a slightly different theme, in their own world. And then the players come together, the composition gathers tempo, rising to a heart stopping crescendo. I saw none of the resolutions of the various themes in SHADOW coming, and they left me nearly breathless.
And then the final 3 pages, for me reminscent of that final line from T.S. Eliot's The Hollow Men, .."not with a bang, but with a whimper".

I'm staggered by the power of this book.
My rating: 4.9

Other reviews to check
Crime Scraps
Uriah Robinson says "The book succeeds on many levels but especially as a lesson that once you take that first shaky step away from the straight and narrow you have no idea where it may lead."
Euro Crime
Petrona says "As the novel reaches its climax, I was on the edge of my seat, my heart was pounding, and by the end I felt wrecked."

Awards

• Winner, Danish Academy of Crime Writers Award for Best Crime Novel
  
• Shortlisted, Swedish Academy of CrimeWriters Award for Best Swedish Crime Novel
  
• shortlisted, UK Crimewriters Association International Dagger

The latter shortlisting was the reason I've read it.

Previous novels

I've read, in pre-blogging days, two Alvtegen titles.

BETRAYAL, my rating 4.7
A psychological thriller where 2 stories converge: Eva discovers her husband is having an affair with her son's day-care teacher. She meets Jonas, a damaged young man keeping vigil in hospital over his girlfriend Anna who has been in a coma for nearly two and a half years. The stories run in parallel for most of the book, the tension mounting all the time, and then converge in a most unforesee-able way, with a chilling ending. Nominated for the Best Nordic Crime Novel in 2004.

MISSING, my rating 5.0
For the last fifteen years, Sybilla Forsenstrom has been living as the ultimate outsider. In breaking away from an oppressive girlhood, where her mother quashed thoughts and actions in the most passive-aggressive way possible, Sybilla has found a way to survive by drifting on the streets of Stockholm. Although she gets a monthly stipend--sent to a post office box--she hordes the money, never spending it. What money she does get is obtained by the occasional scam or two. The one that's worked the best of late for Sybilla is to waltz into a hotel restaurant, charm a well-to-do gentleman into buying her dinner and perhaps a night's stay in a hotel room.
When she meets Jorgen Grundberg at the Grand Hotel, the scam goes according to plan. But the next morning, Sybilla awakes to a horrifying nightmare. Grundberg is the victim of a ritual murder, and all the signs and physical evidence points to Sybilla as the killer. But she has no recollection of what happened.
This is the first of Alvtegen's novels to be translated into English.

There is another, SHAME, that I have not yet read.