Ben Kryst Tomasson

Frederik Forsberg is a Swedish inspector who spent a long time in Germany and now works in Göteborg (Gothenburg). A young girl is missing on one of the small islands of the archipelago on Midsummer's Day while a convicted sex offender has not returned from day-release, so Forsberg and his new team are on the case at once. The reader gets to know the girl's family, everyone hiding dark secrets, as well as Forsberg's new team who are an unlikely bunch. Forsberg himself has a hidden life, too, so there are a lot of aspects to the story.
While I loved the atmospheric beginning and was drawn into the case quickly, it all became too much after some time. With each chapter, the writing got worse, until it was a Nordic Noir caricature. The team is just too much overdrawn, Forsberg's complicated and highly improbable private life adds nothing to the story or to his character. There is too little pay off for too much reading of the same things again and again, and too much telling the reader instead of showing, especially when it comes to the contrasts between the sunny, idyllic archipelago landscape and the dark and merciless events happening there. As a reader, I feel that I'm not taken seriously if the writer feels the urge to rub my nose into things again and again.
I still wanted to finish because the initial premise is a good one and I liked the first third or so. There still are some surprise moments and the plot itself - until it becomes an overdrawn caricature - is interesting.
Apparently, this is supposed to be the first in a series, but I won't read the books to come.… (mehr)