Johanna Mo

Hanna Dunker fled Öland 16 years ago after her father was convicted for a brutal murder of a local woman. She tried to make a new life for herself in Stockholm, joined the police and even had a pretty good career but the death of her father (since released from prison) and her own dark thoughts ended that part of her life. So she is back on the island and when we meet her, she is about to start her new job - in the Kalmar police department (which also covers Öland).

Any hope that the past show more is forgotten disappears when the first case she gets is the murder of her best friend's son, Joel - while people in town seem to know very well exactly whose daughter she is.

I liked the dynamic between Hanna and her new work partner Erik (although at times I wanted to yell at her to stop being so paranoid, I also could see that she needed time to actually trust someone). It is a slow burn of a novel - with the investigation and the glimpses in Hanna's past connecting in unexpected places (and with some chapters showing us what really happened the night Joel died). It takes awhile for the story to feel cohesive but that mirrors Hanna's mind so it works well.

The one thing that really did not work as well for me was her constant worry about her father's case. It is obvious that the trial did not bring up all of the details and there is something else to be found but there was too much foreshadowing which goes nowhere (probably it will pay off in a later novel but...).

I liked the descriptions of nature and the island and the region - it is not a part of Sweden I know anything about and I enjoy learning about new places. This is a first novel and it shows - the characters sometimes slip into being more of a collection of bullet points than actual people and sometimes things go too far into an attempt to give them life but that is not unusual for new authors and tend to smooth out (or not - some authors never grow out of this phase but the better ones either do or find a way for their books to work despite that).

It is not a perfect novel but it is a good start of a series and it made me want to return to the series - which is pretty much all you can hope for from a first book in a crime series. show less

De nachtegaal van Johanna Mo is het eerste deel van de Eilandmoorden reeks en was ook mijn eerste kennismaking met Mo’s werk. We maken kennis met Hanna Duncker die na een jarenlange afwezigheid opnieuw naar haar geboortestreek terugkeert. Een warm welkom verwacht ze echter niet en krijgt ze ook niet van de inwoners. Haar vader werd immers enkele jaren geleden veroordeeld voor de moord op één van de plaatselijke bewoners en sindsdien heeft ook Hanna een stempel opgedrukt gekregen. Hanna show more krijgt als rechercheur al meteen af te rekenen met een zeer moeilijke zaak als het lichaam wordt aangetroffen van Joel, de zoon van Hanna’s beste vriendin. Het motief waarom de jongeman dood moest, is voor iedereen een raadsel. Johanna Mo kaart heel wat actuele thema’s aan in dit eerste deel en we lezen ook vanuit verschillende standpunten. Het verhaal is niet superspannend, maar het sleepte me wel mee. Het einde was ietwat simpel misschien, maar het verhaal van Hanna’s vader lijkt me nog wel een staartje te gaan krijgen. Dat zal ongetwijfeld iets voor deel 2 zijn – De schaduwlelie. Voor De Nachtegaal geef ik 4 sterren.
https://elinevandm.wordpress.com/2023/09/07/de-nachtegaal-van-johanna-mo-4/ show less

Maybe 2.5. I'm always up for a promising Scandi noir, and if it has a reasonably intelligent female lead and it's not about a serial killer, all the better.

Mo has set up an interesting premise: discontented detective Hanna Duncker escapes from Stockholm to return to the island where she grew up. Trouble is, her self-destructive alcoholic father (now dead) was a famous local case, found guilty of a nasty murder. No one has forgotten, and few (including her hostile brother) understand why show more she'd want to come back. So Hanna is the target of suspicion, animosity, and curiosity as she is immediately plunged into investigating the death of a teenaged boy - who is the son of her girlhood best friend, from whom she has been more or less estranged for years. This spreads uneasy tendrils into old relationships, old misunderstandings, and old troubles, as well as forcing Hanna to cope with the challenges of forming new friendships and partnerships on and off the job. She's not very good at that. Nor - in spite of what we are told - is she a particularly brilliant cop. Her detecting is pretty prosaic, insights are few. And - yeah, I know, it's Scandinavian - she BROODS. She's depressive, self-absorbed, and hard for her colleagues to connect to - and, unfortunately, for readers too. So the pacing is sluggish, repetitive, and everything takes too long. At least three characters repeatedly find that they "don't have the energy" to talk to a spouse, answer the phone, go to dinner. The grieving mother of the victim weeps and climbs into bed and pulls the covers over her head. For pages. Over and over. And this debut novelist does not seem to have learned about eliminating stuff that neither moves the story nor evinces character: Hanna walks through the door, puts down her keys (with a sidetrip into how her mother didn't like anyone to put keys on a table), goes through the living room into the kitchen, opens the cupboard, takes down the instant coffee, puts the kettle on the stove... Okaaaay, enough already!

The chapters head-hop: Hanna, her colleague Erik, grieving mom Rebecka, Rebecka's son Joel... and then a kind of clumsy twist of an ending. And all the while, Hanna's dad's murder conviction is lurking in the shadows, because, well, maybe that wasn't quite what it seemed as well. Stay tuned for #2. I'm in no hurry, though.

I will give Mo credit for getting her birds right. Yes, nightingales will sing at night. Yes, there is a bird called a black-winged stilt (we have black-NECKED stilts in is US; same family), and yes, it would be an uncommon bird worth chasing for a Swedish birdwatcher. And she gets the lapwing right too. So, chops for ornithological details. Some of us care about these things... show less

This is the second volume in the Island Murders series, and since I had plenty of time to listen during the long train rides, it was a pleasure to follow this mystery.
Hanna has studied her father's investigative files intensively, but before she can get a complete picture, she faces a professional challenge: she receives a desperate call from Jenny Ahlström: Jenny's husband and her fourteen-month-old son have disappeared without a trace. All of Öland participates in a large-scale search, show more while Hanna and her colleague Erik Lindgren search for a motive in the missing father's life. One lead eventually leads to an empty house. Could this be the key to the case? A race against time begins for Hanna.
The investigation is protracted, and Hanna can't shake the thought of her father's crimes. Why is someone trying with all their might to prevent her from finally finding out the truth about her own father? show less