I thought, or rather I hoped, there was a man in this horrifying equation. A man who manipulated [her], perverted her, preying on her weaknesses to turn her into a monster. But the missing part of that equation was a woman... [p. 219]
Set on Storholmen, an island in the Stockholm archipelago, this is a chilly and twisty crime novel by an author who, despite her name, is French: indeed, she's known as the Queen of French Noir.
Emma Lindahl is employed to appraise the art and antiques collection of the Gussman family, whose manor house dominates Storholmen. Nine years ago, Emma's sister Sofia died on the island, her body found hanging from a tree with a pair of scissors hanging around her neck in a manner suggestive of Viking ritual. Emma does not advertise this connection, but she's keen to discover what really happened. When another young woman is murdered nearby, she encounters Detective Inspector Karl Rosén, who investigated Sofia's death and who's mourning the disappearance of his wife. The third viewpoint character is a woman named Viktoria, a housekeeper at the manor house: she's worried about her daughter Josephine, and especially Josephine's friendship with Thor, the teenaged son of her employers.
Two major twists, both of which were built on solid foundations and were credible within the story: both of which had me gaping and paging back to see how, where... The relationships between Karl, Emma, Anneli (who runs a cafe on the island), Freyja (Karl's wife) and others occasionally felt shallow, but there were also moments of great emotional complexity. Very atmospheric, and good at explaining (sometimes overexplaining) Swedish idiom, culture etc. In particular, Swedish expostulations are followed by their translation. "För helvete. For God's sake."
I did not predict the outcome, even after the twists and their sub-twists: the Viking element was neither super-intrusive nor horribly anachronistic. A shame, though, that the victims were almost all young women. And I'm not wholly convinced by the motivation behind the 'sacrifices'.
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