Real Rating: 3.25* of five

The Publisher Says: What’s a lie among friends? It’s murder—in this riveting thriller by Viveca Sten, bestselling author of Tonight You’re Dead…

It’s Midsummer’s Eve, the celebration of the longest day of the year, and on Sandhamn it’s the longest party of the year. But the fun comes to a dead halt when a young reveler is murdered, a teenage girl is found drugged and dazed on the beach, and other young women vanish. So far, what links the victims is a mystery. For Nora Linde and her new boyfriend, Jonas Sköld, the crimes are personal: one of the missing girls is Wilma, Jonas’s daughter. And her disappearance could test Nora and Jonas’s relationship in ways they never expected.

Thrust into the investigation, they soon discover that it’s more than a case of bad blood between friends. But the truth, which has receded into a haze of carousing, drugs, and liquor, is getting harder to see. If Nora and Jonas are going to find out what happened to Wilma, they’d better do it fast—before the ebbing tides sweep away all the terrible secrets of that night on Sandhamn Island.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: Another more Thomas-centered book, therefore more police procedural-like than the cozy-er Nora-centric ones...but only slightly. Thomas and Pernilla have a new daughter, and experience the stresses of parenthood all over again (remembering this is their second child together, and their long separation came after the first child's death). Thomas is the lead investigator on the murder-and-disappearance case that involves Nora's new boyfriend through his daughter being among the girls who've vanished from the high-octane Midsummer's Night revelries. Given that he was really not happy about saying yes to her badgering pleas to be allowed to party with the cool kids, he's an absolute wreck.

Wilma, Nora's boyfriend's daughter, is part of a crowd that Nora finds troubling. They're privileged, spoiled brats who use lovely Sandhamn and its close-knit community as a backdrop for irresponsible chemical-fueled partying. Nora's ex-husband and his milieu of privilege come forcefully to mind as she tries to assist Thomas in his attempts to bring a young man's murderer to justice and return the missing young women to their insanely anxious families. Her worries for her own young sons and their futures enter into the story as well. The awful ex is, unsurprisingly given that he's in the social milieu of the dead boy's parents, sticking his oar in. It seems life sans Nora isn't the fun that life with her was. She, unlike Thomas vis-a-vis Pernilla, isn't having it. This gets all the yay from me after his abusive behavior in an earlier book.

The main thread of the story, though, is Thomas and policing partner Margit methodically working to solve the case without significant details. These are all locked in the heads of the spoiled, drunk, high kids whose reactions to a dead guy and some missing gal-pals is basically to whine about being asked questions by old farts in uniforms instead of being allowed to get away from all this boring shit on Papa's yacht.

Ick ptui.

Thomas, in spite of needing to be focused on the case, is of course just as eager as the brats are to get the whole thing over with so he can go home and play with his new daughter. (I'm still deeply conflicted about this rapprochement with Pernilla, whose presentation of self makes me suspicious.) So the detective, his sidekick, and the witnesses are all conflicted and not clearly focused on the tragedy that's occurred. That presents a problem for me as a reader.

The dead boy's father, the young hellions doing the partying, and to an extent Nora's stepdaughter-adjacent person Wilma, are all really unsympathetic characters. Their collective story is woven of multiple strands of neglect and indifference coupled with overaffluence and its deleterious effect on the moral compasses of the privileged. Where this led me as a reader was into a lot of "Thomas should be home with his new baby and Margit ought to slap all of 'em" eyerolling. The author seems in a funny way to share my impatience because the end of the book feels like a rush to wrap up the threads, so isn't all that satisfying. I can assure my ma'at-lovin' readers that there's resolution to the death and the disappearances too. There will be no black armbands in the Linde ménage. I'm hopeful that Jonas, with Nora, won't repeat his mistakes and Nora will continue to shun her vile ex-husband.

This book is very much not my favorite in the series to date, and skated perilously close to becoming a DNF on several occasions. The power of Thomas and Nora as people I believe could exist and whose flaws I can invest in as I watch them overcoming, or trying to, their effects powered my drive through the read.

YMMV, of course. ( )

It’s the Midsommer Festival on Sandhamn Island. Tourists have flocked to the island. For the teens and college agers, it’s the biggest party of the year. The well-to-do have borrowed their parents’ million dollar yachts and sailboats. Alcohol and drugs abound, not only on the high—priced sailing vessels, but also on the beaches.

The local police force work double and triple time to keep it in bounds. But the next morning, the body of a rich young man is found, partially hidden, making murder a certainty.

Of course Thomas, with his knowledge of Sandham investigates.

After a cliff hanger of an ending in the previous book, we have jumped ahead in time and at the beginning of the story, Thomas has remarried his ex-wife Pernilla and is enjoying being a father to baby Elin.

Nora has also found love with her tenant, Jonas. But Jonas’s daughter Wilma resents Nora, and Wilma is also missing the night after the Midsommer Party.

This is a thriller within a mystery as the father of the murdered boy is told that his son’s best friend is the suspect. Frustrated by the slowness of the police investigation, the father decides to take justice into his own hands.

As usual, there were some good twists and turns to the tale. The characters are engaging, and Nora and Thomas continue to evolve and grow.

Definitely a series that I’ll continue reading. ( )

Midsummer weekend on Sandhamn includes a lot of teenage partying. Jonas' daughter stays out past her curfew, and he spends the entire night searching for her. One girl loses the rest of her party and is finally joined by one in the shelter to wait until parents can come. But worst of all, one boy is found dead with a head wound caused by the repeated bashing of a stone against his head. The deceased's father vows revenge on the person who killed his son. Thomas and Margit investigate along with the help of other team members. The author seems to be using similar elements to previous books in this book. Unfortunately it makes the plot seem a little stale. ( )

It’s a crowded midsummer weekend on Sandhamn as partygoers flock from the city to Stockholm’s archipelago. A teenage boy is found dead, and the investigation focuses on the friends who were with him that weekend, many of whom were too drunk to have even been aware of what was happening around them. It’s a challenge for the investigative team, and made more difficult when it looks like a member of law enforcement may have been involved in some way.

This was a solid entry in the Sandhamn murder series featuring investigators Thomas Andreasson and Margit Grankvist, and Thomas’ friend, Nora Linde. Nora’s involvement in the investigation is minimal and even her personal storyline takes a back seat in this novel, but there were still some interesting developments in her life as well as Thomas’, which I’m sure will continue to evolve in the next book. ( )

When several teenagers go missing in a vacation town, with one eventually turning up dead, it’s up to Detective Thomas and his fellow police officers to piece together what happened. Viveca Sten crafts an interesting crime drama where the pieces don’t fall into place until the very end.

It took me about ten chapters until I felt truly pulled in (they’re short chapters) but once I was, I couldn’t put it down. The pacing was quick, switching from character to character and scene to scene, and I enjoyed the buildup to who was dead. A lot of authors don’t allow for that. This way you actually get to know the other characters and build a level of connection to them so when it’s revealed that their loved one is dead, there’s more weight and substance there.

I have one minor gripe and it may be more a pet peeve than anything negative. There are very few things, in real life and in books, that annoy me more than people jumping to conclusions. Watching the police and the victim’s father do just that, I couldn’t help but get a little detached from the story. I ultimately got my satisfying ending though so I didn’t let it bother me too much.

Overall an enjoyable summer read, and I have to give props to the translator as well. I don’t speak Swedish so I can’t compare the English to the original, but everything felt cohesive and of the same voice throughout the story.

3.5-4 stars ( )