This is a nonstop crime investigation as Joona Linda is determined to locate a missing woman and find a killer. It's almost comical how single-minded Joona is, to the point that he just walks away from people as he thinks about the case. No one has authority over him, but it's entertaining to have Joona be able to follow absurd-sounding solutions rather than being shot down by an overbearing supervisor.
There are at least three themes being pursued and the action alternates among them. I got impatient with the breaks in the search for the missing woman, but kept hoping the strands would come together in a meaningful way. I got my wish as her disappearance is tied to the sale of Swedish weapons to Darfur, Africa, and finding her will result in stopping the sale.
The audio version is wonderfully narrated by Saul Reichlin. His presentation adds to the excitement of the action and his accents made the characters more realistic. ( )

I read book one in the series featuring Joona Linna and enjoyed it. Book two, The Nightmare has been sitting on my shelf for ages so decided to give it ago.

This plot follows two sisters, one is found dead and the other is on the run with her boyfriend. For me I am now 150 pages in and I am just not getting on with it. Firstly the book is a chunk of 500 pages which isn't normally a problem but this time I'm finding it a bit daunting. Reading other reviews some are saying the book is too long and I just don't fancy reading something that hasn't engaged me.

One star is probably a bit unfair, but as the book is going to be a DNF with no incentive to pick up at another time, the one star is how I rate this situation. ( )

The tension in Lars Kepler's novel, "The Nightmare" was like a snowball rolling downhill gathering snow as it went until it was a size of a glacier. For the last third of the book, I put everything aside just listening to narrator Mark Bramhall become all the people in the story. The experience was refreshing. ( )

Really compelling mystery with a really strong ending (except for the very last paragraph, which was a weird change in tone). I liked this sequel more than book one, particularly because Joona plays a bigger role in this one and I like him as a character. As soon as I finished this book, I went to the library to get book three. Compared to other mysteries, this one definitely keeps me intrigued and I actually care about the characters when they're put in harm's way.

Some things that keep this from being a full five stars are
1) in parts of Penelope's storyline, it didn't seem like the people she interacted with acted like real people. Like when Bjorn and her are on the run and clearly in trouble, everyone they come across acts horrible to them even though they're clearly in need, which just didn't seem true to me, especially with how outlandishly terrible they behave
2) The stakes of the plot are super high and involve a lot of important people and I personally like mysteries that are a bit smaller scale because they seem more grounded to me.

But otherwise, this was really good and I highly recommend this series, at least these two books. These authors know how to right tension and rising action so well that I just fly through these books, even though they are quite long. Definitely give this series a shot if you're thinking about it. As I said, I've already gotten book three (The Fire Witness) from the library and plan to read it really soon. I would love to be caught up with this series when the English translation of the next book comes out in January so let's see how quickly I can read these next books! ( )

I hate to review books I didn't actually finish. Unfortunately, I gave up after 150 pages, because I gave up hope of getting into it. The writing (or possibly the translation) is very awkward--for some reason, the use of the present tense with a 3rd person omniscient point of view kept grating in a way I can't quite describe. After 150 pages of a thriller, I should feel like I've gotten some kind of mystery to get my teeth into. Instead, I'm treated to 3 page chapters that don't add up to anything and a main character who has given me no reason to care about him or to think that he's a great detective--aside from a couple of things that were obvious and the declarations of other characters.

The novel looks and feels like 2 people sat down and decided to write The Next Great Scandinavian Crime Series. It looks and feels like a slickly wrapped, empty box. ( )