Viveca Sten
Author of Still Waters
About the Author
Image credit: 2013-05-22 In Kungsträdgården (King's Garden) in Stockholm. Photo: Frankie Fouganthin.
Series
Works by Viveca Sten
Lügennebel: Ein Fall für Hanna Ahlander | Viveca Stens Polarkreis-Reihe jetzt bei Netflix (Die Åre-Morde, Band 4) (2025) 3 copies
Armahtaja 2 copies
Weihnachtsmord auf Sandhamn: Zwei Kurzkrimis (Thomas Andreasson ermittelt) (German Edition) (2012) 2 copies
La scelta 1 copy
Sommermorde auf Sandhamn: Zwei Kurzkrimis (Thomas Andreasson ermittelt) (German Edition) (2018) 1 copy
Lügennebel. Ein Fall für Hanna Ahlander: Lesung mit Vera Teltz (2 mp3-CDs) (Die Åre-Morde) (2025) 1 copy
Blutbuße. Ein Fall für Hanna Ahlander: Lesung mit Vera Teltz (1 mp3-CD) (Die Åre-Morde) (2024) 1 copy
Nora Linde 01: Still Water 1 copy
Nora Linde 03: Guiltless 1 copy
Grænseløberen 1 copy
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Birthdate
- 1959-06-18
- Gender
- female
- Occupations
- Chefjuristin bei der schwedischen und dänischen Post
- Relationships
- Sten, Camilla (daughter)
- Nationality
- Sweden
- Birthplace
- Stockholm, Sweden
- Associated Place (for map)
- Stockholm, Sweden
Members
Reviews
Rating: 3.5* of five
I downloaded this onto my Kindle when it was a Kindle First offering about three years ago. It finally snagged my attention. I think it finally got me because, when I opened it, I read this:
THOMAS!! RUN!! Run fast and run far, no good can ever come from show more a place where the coffee is so bad that *retch* tea *shudder* is a better beverage option!
*glowers Blightyward* Y'all got nothin' to say here, Brits, you gave the world chattel slavery, John Bull, and cricket, and kept National Health Service, Cornwall, and Prince Harry!
Thomas Andreasson is from the Stockholm archipelago's unfashionable bit, or at least it wasn't fashionable when he was a lad. His world has been upended in so many ways in recent months, his life as a husband and father is over without warning or any desire for it to be so, his best friend Nora is suddenly among murderers on their shared childhood home of Sandhamn, and he's got no clues to solve the suspicious death followed by sure and certain murder, followed by *very* suspicious death and bring the killer to justice.
So he plods along, doing responsible policework, following leads that don't lead, until he is weary of the routine as well as of the whole enterprise of staying alive. We switch PoV characters a good bit in this book, but Thomas is the policeman so he gets most of the tedious legwork in the story. His senior partner, Margit, is dying to spend the short, sweet Swedish summer with her husband and teenaged daughters somewhere south. This case is foiling her desire to get away. Interestingly, Thomas has no issue with Margit being the lead in the case; he's never once shown being resentful of her authority, but once feels a bit downhearted when she corrects an error he's made...because he made the error, not because a woman corrected him. This was refreshing.
One lead, found by Thomas' lovely young colleague (and clearly intended to be love interest) Carina, takes him and Margit to a self-made man's home on Sandhamn. Thomas' past on the island makes the appearance of the house grating to him, and Margit's social conscience shows up for a pleasant interlude:
We see that a lot on the South Shore of Long Island. It's the arrivistes buying old cottages and slapping down out-of-proportion McMansions onto their zero-lot-line dreams of seaside living. Drearily familiar to anyone living by a water feature. Thomas doesn't like the house and really doesn't like the man in it...there is something *wrong* with a person who moves to a strong, distinctive community like Sandhamn and flouts every tradition and norm that makes the place itself!
But then there's Nora, whose roots on Sandhamn go way back before even Thomas' do. She doesn't like this new reality at all, and doesn't like the cultural shift it represents. She feels it as an affront to her core principles, as we're told directly:
Sandhamn is more than a place to Nora, it's a life and a lifestyle she feels is hers down to her very core. These values agree with mine. I approve of them and wish there were more Noras in the world.
So what the hell drew her to the insensitive clod of a scion of the booboisie that she married?!
I found this infuriating. Which is it, Author Sten, Nora's a modern woman or a housewife? She started their marriage with compromises on where they'd live, what he'd be expected to do as a parent, and somehow thought he'd magically divine that she was seriously convinced he'd do the same for her?! Why?! How?! Begin as you mean to go on, Nora. Was it Mary Poppins who said that first, or just most famously? Anyway, there was absolutely no reason to think Henrik would ever be anything but his parents' son, since he never made a single solitary peep of dissatisfaction with them and the way they live(d) their lives. Oh! Oh! And then there's her best friend, Thomas, whose reaction to Henrik should've made Nora run screaming:
There's no way in hell that didn't show in Thomas' responses to Henrik over the years. So lay off the shockhorror about the way the reactionary poltroon responds to your desire to do something for yourself, lady, he's never been different and expecting him to change will only make both of you and your kids angry and upset and end up in divorce. Skip the middle bit: Get the divorce, start the new life, and make sure the kids know *why* mommy left daddy without rancorous vituperative invective flowing from you. Him, you can't affect. As should be obvious to you by now.
The two sleuths are close friends and each has made a hash of their personal life. This isn't familiar at all, is it. But it's an evergreen for a reason, since it gives the author a great line of attack to keep series readers reading. Nora's marriage is doomed, Thomas' relationship with Carina is doomed, the whole island of Sandhamn...faithless to the crime statistics for Nordic countries...will soon be hip deep in dead bodies, much more will be made of Nora's diabetes (which figures in the action but not the resolution of this book), and if there is a just and merciful gawd Nora's mother-in-law will be savagely torn to bits by ravening wild dogs on live television.
Translator Delargy, based in the UK, uses some tricks to keep the prose feeling uniquely Sten's own. One is the use of a nonstandard form of the verb "to get hold (of)", viz. "ahold." In spoken words I'm not averse to this formulation of the verb, but it abounds in this book and I found it irksome after the sixth or seventh usage. It's purely a personal twitch, no knock on the skills Delargy brought to bear on the Englishing of the book. I am on record many places as despising the unnecessary and ungainly "u"ification of perfectly simple words like "valor" and "honor" so I needn't go into why that made me flinch every time I ran across it. Delargy does a creidtable job making Sten's words readable in English, and that's no mean feat, so kudos to you Madam.
The world has lots and lots of gritty Scandicrime. You can hardly open your Kindle without being offered some more gritty Scandicrime. What the world doesn't have is cozy Scandicrime. Sten's involving debut novel is both pine-scented Scandi and cozy, sense-of-place crime. I like that about it and it's what will cause me to seek out the next book in the series.
So switch your mental gears to Swedish cozy. Step out of the Vauxhall and into the Volvo station wagon. show less
I downloaded this onto my Kindle when it was a Kindle First offering about three years ago. It finally snagged my attention. I think it finally got me because, when I opened it, I read this:
The department’s coffeemaker produced a liquid that was positively toxic. How Margit could knock it back in such quantities was a mystery. Thomas had switched to drinking tea for the first time in his life because of it.
THOMAS!! RUN!! Run fast and run far, no good can ever come from show more a place where the coffee is so bad that *retch* tea *shudder* is a better beverage option!
*glowers Blightyward* Y'all got nothin' to say here, Brits, you gave the world chattel slavery, John Bull, and cricket, and kept National Health Service, Cornwall, and Prince Harry!
Thomas Andreasson is from the Stockholm archipelago's unfashionable bit, or at least it wasn't fashionable when he was a lad. His world has been upended in so many ways in recent months, his life as a husband and father is over without warning or any desire for it to be so, his best friend Nora is suddenly among murderers on their shared childhood home of Sandhamn, and he's got no clues to solve the suspicious death followed by sure and certain murder, followed by *very* suspicious death and bring the killer to justice.
So he plods along, doing responsible policework, following leads that don't lead, until he is weary of the routine as well as of the whole enterprise of staying alive. We switch PoV characters a good bit in this book, but Thomas is the policeman so he gets most of the tedious legwork in the story. His senior partner, Margit, is dying to spend the short, sweet Swedish summer with her husband and teenaged daughters somewhere south. This case is foiling her desire to get away. Interestingly, Thomas has no issue with Margit being the lead in the case; he's never once shown being resentful of her authority, but once feels a bit downhearted when she corrects an error he's made...because he made the error, not because a woman corrected him. This was refreshing.
One lead, found by Thomas' lovely young colleague (and clearly intended to be love interest) Carina, takes him and Margit to a self-made man's home on Sandhamn. Thomas' past on the island makes the appearance of the house grating to him, and Margit's social conscience shows up for a pleasant interlude:
Apart from the white eaves and steps, every last piece of timber was nauseatingly green. Without the eaves and steps you could easily have imagined you were standing in front of a giant marzipan cake. Only the rose was missing.
"I’ve never seen such a fine example of nouveau riche." (said Margit)
We see that a lot on the South Shore of Long Island. It's the arrivistes buying old cottages and slapping down out-of-proportion McMansions onto their zero-lot-line dreams of seaside living. Drearily familiar to anyone living by a water feature. Thomas doesn't like the house and really doesn't like the man in it...there is something *wrong* with a person who moves to a strong, distinctive community like Sandhamn and flouts every tradition and norm that makes the place itself!
But then there's Nora, whose roots on Sandhamn go way back before even Thomas' do. She doesn't like this new reality at all, and doesn't like the cultural shift it represents. She feels it as an affront to her core principles, as we're told directly:
It gave Nora the unpleasant feeling that everything was for sale. Everything could be bought or sold.
Sandhamn is more than a place to Nora, it's a life and a lifestyle she feels is hers down to her very core. These values agree with mine. I approve of them and wish there were more Noras in the world.
So what the hell drew her to the insensitive clod of a scion of the booboisie that she married?!
Henrik just didn’t get it. He was blind and deaf to any hint that his mother might not be the best mother-in-law in the world. Nora gave in.
Now she had been offered her dream job, and he didn’t even seem to want to discuss it. It wasn’t fair.
Why challenge Henrik, instead of paying attention to the clear signals he had given her?
I found this infuriating. Which is it, Author Sten, Nora's a modern woman or a housewife? She started their marriage with compromises on where they'd live, what he'd be expected to do as a parent, and somehow thought he'd magically divine that she was seriously convinced he'd do the same for her?! Why?! How?! Begin as you mean to go on, Nora. Was it Mary Poppins who said that first, or just most famously? Anyway, there was absolutely no reason to think Henrik would ever be anything but his parents' son, since he never made a single solitary peep of dissatisfaction with them and the way they live(d) their lives. Oh! Oh! And then there's her best friend, Thomas, whose reaction to Henrik should've made Nora run screaming:
There was an underlying distance between the two men that never quite disappeared in spite of the fact that they had known each other for a long time. Henrik’s upper-middle-class background and deeply conservative values didn’t exactly improve matters.
There's no way in hell that didn't show in Thomas' responses to Henrik over the years. So lay off the shockhorror about the way the reactionary poltroon responds to your desire to do something for yourself, lady, he's never been different and expecting him to change will only make both of you and your kids angry and upset and end up in divorce. Skip the middle bit: Get the divorce, start the new life, and make sure the kids know *why* mommy left daddy without rancorous vituperative invective flowing from you. Him, you can't affect. As should be obvious to you by now.
The two sleuths are close friends and each has made a hash of their personal life. This isn't familiar at all, is it. But it's an evergreen for a reason, since it gives the author a great line of attack to keep series readers reading. Nora's marriage is doomed, Thomas' relationship with Carina is doomed, the whole island of Sandhamn...faithless to the crime statistics for Nordic countries...will soon be hip deep in dead bodies, much more will be made of Nora's diabetes (which figures in the action but not the resolution of this book), and if there is a just and merciful gawd Nora's mother-in-law will be savagely torn to bits by ravening wild dogs on live television.
Translator Delargy, based in the UK, uses some tricks to keep the prose feeling uniquely Sten's own. One is the use of a nonstandard form of the verb "to get hold (of)", viz. "ahold." In spoken words I'm not averse to this formulation of the verb, but it abounds in this book and I found it irksome after the sixth or seventh usage. It's purely a personal twitch, no knock on the skills Delargy brought to bear on the Englishing of the book. I am on record many places as despising the unnecessary and ungainly "u"ification of perfectly simple words like "valor" and "honor" so I needn't go into why that made me flinch every time I ran across it. Delargy does a creidtable job making Sten's words readable in English, and that's no mean feat, so kudos to you Madam.
The world has lots and lots of gritty Scandicrime. You can hardly open your Kindle without being offered some more gritty Scandicrime. What the world doesn't have is cozy Scandicrime. Sten's involving debut novel is both pine-scented Scandi and cozy, sense-of-place crime. I like that about it and it's what will cause me to seek out the next book in the series.
So switch your mental gears to Swedish cozy. Step out of the Vauxhall and into the Volvo station wagon. show less
In the Name of Truth is the eighth book in the Sandhamn Murders series, and the last one available in English as of this review. After a disappointing seventh book, I was pleased to find Viveca Sten back on form again, with a complex and satisfying mystery that also manages to actively involve all of the principal characters. Nora Linde, now a prosecutor for an government economic crimes unit, is heading up a high-profile trial involving two former business partners. The outcome of the trial show more is in jeopardy due to unreliable witnesses and a lack of crucial evidence. Thomas Andreasson is investigating the disappearance of a young boy, who happens to be the son of one of the business partners. Evidence points to a known pedophile, but is this an isolated incident, or somehow connected to the dispute between the business partners? As Nora and Thomas advance their respective efforts, they both also face significant challenges in their personal lives which keep them from giving full attention to their work.
I was happy to see Nora get equal billing with Thomas in this book. In previous novels, her storyline tended to hum along in the background, focused on her role as a single working parent. While she occasionally brushed up against the crime investigation by providing some little-known fact that helped advance the case, she was rarely a central figure. I hope In the Name of Truth is the beginning of new things for Nora’s character. Too bad I have to wait for English translations to find out ... show less
I was happy to see Nora get equal billing with Thomas in this book. In previous novels, her storyline tended to hum along in the background, focused on her role as a single working parent. While she occasionally brushed up against the crime investigation by providing some little-known fact that helped advance the case, she was rarely a central figure. I hope In the Name of Truth is the beginning of new things for Nora’s character. Too bad I have to wait for English translations to find out ... show less
I enjoy the Sandhamn Murder series because of its setting in the Swedish Archipelago, and its strong cast of characters. Over the series arc, the mysteries have become more sophisticated and suspenseful. But despite that, this seventh book was my least favorite. To begin with, it opens 5 years after the end of the previous book, and cliffhangers from that book have been neatly resolved “off camera.” I had to pause and make sure I hadn’t skipped a book. The murder mystery initially show more appeared to focus on an unidentified arson victim, but attention quickly transferred to the building’s owner, a newly-arrived outsider mixed up in shady business dealings and generally up to no good. Identifying the victim and the arsonist seemed to take a back seat, which just felt wrong.
In the author’s note, Viveca Sten acknowledges that this book was difficult for her to write due to personal circumstances at the time. The 5-year time lapse also coincides with the time between published books, which makes me wonder whether the decision to bring her characters up to the present day was a function of the delay, or a convenient way to move beyond certain plot developments. Either way, I think I’ll just write this book off to Sten’s circumstances during the creative process and move on to the eighth book, which was recently released in English. show less
In the author’s note, Viveca Sten acknowledges that this book was difficult for her to write due to personal circumstances at the time. The 5-year time lapse also coincides with the time between published books, which makes me wonder whether the decision to bring her characters up to the present day was a function of the delay, or a convenient way to move beyond certain plot developments. Either way, I think I’ll just write this book off to Sten’s circumstances during the creative process and move on to the eighth book, which was recently released in English. show less
Rating: 4* of five
The Publisher Says: Soon to be divorced, attorney Nora Linde is finding her way as a single mother, and even falling in love again, when she’s asked by her childhood friend Detective Thomas Andreasson to help in a disturbing investigation. Marcus Nielsen, a university student, has apparently committed suicide, but it’s what he’s left behind that’s so suspicious and damning: his research into the Coastal Rangers, an elite military group where, in 1976, a young cadet show more died under questionable circumstances, a sadistic sergeant went free, and a case went cold.
When two of Nielsen’s contacts are also found dead—and diaries of their torturous training turn up missing—Thomas and Nora are certain that whatever happened three decades ago is unforgivable. And for someone who wants to keep those secrets buried—unforgettable. Now they must fight against time to expose a cover-up that hasn’t yet claimed its last victim.
I RECEIVED THIS AS A GIFT. THANK YOU.
My Review: Much more Thomas-centered than the previous book. The crime here, in the present day, is deceptively simple...a suicide by hanging that a grieving mother cannot bring herself to imagine is what it seems.
Surprise! It isn't what it seems.
Nora's main involvement is to be asked by Thomas to look into the some aspects of the modern case as there's a personal connection to her. As her divorce approaches finalization, she's still playing nice with the family she's almost escaped from when her son's got a birthday party coming up. On the plus side she's got someone new in her life (who's actually also her tenant). The main item that contains what we all need to know about this tragedy's historical roots is, again, a found diary with deeply relevant clues. This repetitive trope would normally be grounds for a whole-star deduction in my rating schema. The reason it isn't? The sociology of military service subplot grabbed me hard. Not incidentally, in this entry Thomas and his partner Margit come more together as a detecting team for me, relying more on each other than in the last book. I'm not all the way sure why it happened now, but their previously slightly tenuous working relationship became more solidly grounded in pursuing the sadistic, evil killer.
Thomas's last-book accidental dousing, to undersell its seriousness, and subsequent loss of toes, his stint in rehab after the accident, and his reunion with self-centered Pernilla-the-ex, all make this entry in the series much more in his focus than last time. I'm still in the camp of thinking these are more Scandicozy than Nordic Noir stories, though the awful, sadistic murderer...serial killer, actually...is matched for ferocity by the "unexpected" addition of another guilty party. I won't at all say the existence or identity of the second party was surprising. It was believable, inasmuch as any mystery story's believable.
What beggared my belief was Thomas, near the end of the book (though not the story, see below), doing something that NO rational person would do who had all the information he possessed. It was stupid of him to risk so much for no commensurate possibility of gain. As it turned out, the result of his risk-taking was...tidy...but only for now, or I miss my guess. (In other words, I don't really believe it is what I read on these pages.)
The end of the book isn't an ending so much as a stopping place. There's obviously a lot more to the life-stories I'm invested in; but I am also reasonably sure there's more of the entanglements that came to light in this book to come in future entries. They're just too temptingly dangling loose for those strands not to lead somewhere new.
Again, don't start here but don't skip this one...Thomas and Pernilla have a BIG surprise for us that you won't want to miss out on. show less
The Publisher Says: Soon to be divorced, attorney Nora Linde is finding her way as a single mother, and even falling in love again, when she’s asked by her childhood friend Detective Thomas Andreasson to help in a disturbing investigation. Marcus Nielsen, a university student, has apparently committed suicide, but it’s what he’s left behind that’s so suspicious and damning: his research into the Coastal Rangers, an elite military group where, in 1976, a young cadet show more died under questionable circumstances, a sadistic sergeant went free, and a case went cold.
When two of Nielsen’s contacts are also found dead—and diaries of their torturous training turn up missing—Thomas and Nora are certain that whatever happened three decades ago is unforgivable. And for someone who wants to keep those secrets buried—unforgettable. Now they must fight against time to expose a cover-up that hasn’t yet claimed its last victim.
I RECEIVED THIS AS A GIFT. THANK YOU.
My Review: Much more Thomas-centered than the previous book. The crime here, in the present day, is deceptively simple...a suicide by hanging that a grieving mother cannot bring herself to imagine is what it seems.
Surprise! It isn't what it seems.
Nora's main involvement is to be asked by Thomas to look into the some aspects of the modern case as there's a personal connection to her. As her divorce approaches finalization, she's still playing nice with the family she's almost escaped from when her son's got a birthday party coming up. On the plus side she's got someone new in her life (who's actually also her tenant). The main item that contains what we all need to know about this tragedy's historical roots is, again, a found diary with deeply relevant clues. This repetitive trope would normally be grounds for a whole-star deduction in my rating schema. The reason it isn't? The sociology of military service subplot grabbed me hard. Not incidentally, in this entry Thomas and his partner Margit come more together as a detecting team for me, relying more on each other than in the last book. I'm not all the way sure why it happened now, but their previously slightly tenuous working relationship became more solidly grounded in pursuing the sadistic, evil killer.
Thomas's last-book accidental dousing, to undersell its seriousness, and subsequent loss of toes, his stint in rehab after the accident, and his reunion with self-centered Pernilla-the-ex, all make this entry in the series much more in his focus than last time. I'm still in the camp of thinking these are more Scandicozy than Nordic Noir stories, though the awful, sadistic murderer...serial killer, actually...is matched for ferocity by the "unexpected" addition of another guilty party. I won't at all say the existence or identity of the second party was surprising. It was believable, inasmuch as any mystery story's believable.
What beggared my belief was Thomas, near the end of the book (though not the story, see below), doing something that NO rational person would do who had all the information he possessed. It was stupid of him to risk so much for no commensurate possibility of gain. As it turned out, the result of his risk-taking was...tidy...but only for now, or I miss my guess. (In other words, I don't really believe it is what I read on these pages.)
The end of the book isn't an ending so much as a stopping place. There's obviously a lot more to the life-stories I'm invested in; but I am also reasonably sure there's more of the entanglements that came to light in this book to come in future entries. They're just too temptingly dangling loose for those strands not to lead somewhere new.
Again, don't start here but don't skip this one...Thomas and Pernilla have a BIG surprise for us that you won't want to miss out on. show less
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