In Harm's Way

The Publisher Says: A woman’s dangerous career comes to a chilling end in this spellbinding thriller by Viveca Sten, bestselling author of In the Heat of the Moment…

The body of world-famous journalist Jeanette Thiels is discovered the day after Christmas, frozen in a snow-spotted garden just steps from her hotel on Sandhamn Island. Detective Thomas Andreasson finds it highly unlikely that it was some bizarre accident. After all, the relentless war-zone correspondent was no stranger to conflict and controversy—both professional, and of late, very personal. Who would want to see her dead is another story.

Enlisting the help of attorney Nora Linde, his longtime friend on holiday, Thomas is anxious for the answers. But he and Nora show more don’t have to look far. The clues are leading them closer to home than they imagined. Jeannette may have made a career out of exposing corruption at the highest levels of world power, but she was also a woman with secrets of her own and they’re coming to light on Sandhamn. But for Thomas and Nora, unearthing the deeply rooted deceptions behind Jeanette’s death could now put those closest to her in harm’s way, too.

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

My Review,/b>: I now know more than I ever knew there was to know about pickled herring.

This is not an approving statement.

Again, we're police-proceduraling with Thomas and Margit. She's coalesced into more of a presence than I ever expected her to do, has our Margit; but I'm still not distracted from the mains by her involvement in investigations so I call the author's level of detail in limning her character good. The immigration issues facing Europe, the backlash from "cultural purity" proponents, the unbelievable, incredible hatred that some are consumed by for those not just like them all concatenate at the same time as Nora's Yule festivities on Sandhamn. (Why she includes the vile ex-husband is beyond me.)

After Iranian immigrant journalist Juliette dies in the snow outside her hotel on the island (you know, I love cozies and their settings, but the logical part of me says "the Swedes ain't idiots and this place would glow like Chernobyl on any statistical map of Swedish crime" like Midsomer would in England); it's not a horrible accident, of course. Juliette's work is digging into some unnerving and clearly unsavory stuff that the Powers That Be did not want exposed. Then Juliette's controlling Swedish ex-husband comes into the suspect frame; even his pre-adolescent daughter thinks he probably had some hand in her mother's death.

Enter Thomas and Margit as the lead investigators, and the police Scoobygroup we've seen before starts the interesting ferreting among the fallen leaves of this dogged, but hapless, woman's life. The work she'd been doing about the burgeoning nativist group that hates non-Nordic Swedes was reaching a critical mass and that's a reason to kill in that sick, twisted worldview. The issues between her and her ex keep the focus on the police's work in solving her poisoning; thus off the Nora parts of the plot. For those hooked in by Nora from the off, this story will feel frustrating. Her involvement in Thomas's case is pretty much nil; her plot strands are lawyering related, as her company is enmeshed in the colonial remnants of Sweden's centuries-old Baltic empire. This leads to some unpleasant, though legal, ways of making money, to Nora's deep disgust; her firm's head and she are due for a showdown over this shady, unethical entanglement (among other things, like misogyny and borderline harassment). As this echoes the main case's focus on the role of History in forming a place for better or ill, it wasn't a waste to include Nora. She doesn't play a role in the crime investigation but her moral musings and decisions do offer depth of field to the main idea behind the murder.

I am not a fan of the dithering "will-she-won't-she" style of storytelling I see all too much of in series reads. Why women should be presented as so weak as to constantly question their decisions about men is something I do not think we question as a trope nearly hard enough. Nora's ex shouldn't be up for rehabilitation after his emotional abuse of her. (Let's not even bring up The Slap. Might bring up my lunch wth it.) She's decided several books ago that the affair she discovered him having is the bridge too far. That should be allowed to be that. Her efforts not to estrange her ex-husband from their sons is admirable. But let's leave it as focused on the EX part and not so much the HUSBAND part.

That ongoing snark aside, the role of ethnicity in this story is very much the catalyst for some trademark idiotic behaviors among the investigators. Thomas in particular is, every book, doing something that unnecessarily endangers his life...and while I'm really not on board with his reunion with Pernilla, he DOES have an infant daughter to consider before haring off without backup to Get The Perp. And this time he's very much not alone, since one of the investigative Scoobygroup is an Iranian-born Swede whose dander gets up as facts of the case come to light. He decides, like his colleagues Thomas and Margit, to say "screw it" to rule-following and puts himself (and, one would think, any hope of bringing a successful prosecution) in danger.

Well, fiction ain't fact, and at least in the latter case I really got why the response was what it was.

I do want to offer one very major content warning: There is, in this entry, animal abuse that I found very upsetting. It is the reason that I rated this read lower than the one before it, when before this occurred, I was set to give it a solid four stars. I am, it's true, very averse to this subject matter, and others might not find the event portrayed as upsetting as I did. For my fellows in feeling that children and animals being harmed are not welcome events in my entertainment, be aware this occurs.

Snowy, Yule-y streets in the sweetly intimate island community of Sandhamn. The expected death. The inevitable successful resolution of the crime. The ongoing lives of characters I've come to care about. All the elements of damned fine read. And so it was.

Until the content warning stuff happened. I'll be continuing with the series but some luster got lost off my pleasure. show less

Knew who dunnit

Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book for review.

What I like most about Sten's books is they are not as dark and dreary as most of the male Nordic writers' police procedurals. Her characters are good and bad, likable and unlikable. This book is ultimately about hate and power, and what people will do to preserve and further both. Although I realized who the murderer was when an event in the victim's past was commented on, it did not spoil the book for me.

In the sixth Sandhamn book, journalist Jeannette Thiels books a last-minute room in a hotel on Christmas Eve, and is found dead the next day. Investigators Thomas Andreasson and Margit Grankvist are puzzled by the case. Why was she at the hotel, instead of spending the holiday with family or friends? How did she die? Her estranged husband is a likely suspect, but Jeannette’s work, reporting on far right anti-immigration groups, might have made her a target. The investigation leaves no stone unturned and had enough twists to keep me guessing up to the end. Meanwhile, Thomas’ friend Nora finds herself in a career crisis after uncovering corruption in a merger deal. In these books, Nora usually has little to do with solving the crime, show more but her storyline adds nice depth to the series. And of course there’s always a little cliffhanger that piques my interest in the next book ... show less

Richting het kwaad is het 6e deel in de Sandhamn reeks en is het laatste deel dat vertaald werd in het Nederlands tot op heden. Dat is echt wel een domper want de reeks is superspannend en doordat de personages echt onder je huid gaan kruipen, wil de lezer wel graag weten hoe het hun verder vergaat. Spijtig genoeg moeten we die wens dus even opbergen totdat er nieuwe delen vertaald worden.

Richting het kwaad voert ons terug in de tijd ten tijde van een legeroefening, waarbij we kennis maken met een groep jongemannen die een opleiding volgen om elite soldaat te worden. Elk heeft zo zijn redenen om deel te nemen (het prestige, opgelegde druk van ouders,…). De lezer ziet al snel in dat er praktijken plaatsvinden binnen het bataljon die show more niet door de beugel kunnen. In het heden wordt Thomas op een zaak gezet waarvan na verloop duidelijk wordt dat het iets te maken heeft met de oude compagnie van toen. Het verhaal sleept je weer mee en is net zoals de voorgaande delen een schot in de roos. Zeer jammer dus dat de volgende delen niet beschikbaar zijn in het Nederlands. Voor richting het kwaad geef ik graag 4.5 sterren.
https://elinevandm.wordpress.com/2024/09/16/richting-het-kwaad-van-viveca-sten-4.... show less

Review from December 2020 after reading previous installments:
When a journalist dies on Sandhamn in a snowstorm, it is at first assumed she froze to death. The autopsy, however, determines the presence of a poison from a bean often used in making bracelets. While the ex-husband's motive to kill the woman emerges as a front-runner, rumors the journalist might plan to expose an organization catch the attention of investigators as well. Thomas, Margit, and Aram feel they make little progress. A suspicious neighbor's injuries land him in the hospital, and the killer strikes again. The killer believes the woman's young daughter holds a copy of her mom's writing. Thomas and Margit must to find the killer before another victim turns up. show more Meanwhile Nora's bank boss pressures her to give the go-ahead on a project she feels might hurt the bank, but her investigation turns up no evidence of wrong-doing. Will she acquiesce or stick to her gut feeling? Knowing the back story for Thomas and for Nora helped me appreciate this installment more when I re-read it in order. Although the first victim died on Sandhamn, little action takes place on the island itself. I do not believe the writing is as tight as it was in the earliest installments. This one departed from the formula which seemed to be developing over the last few in the series. I think removing 50 pages with tighter editing would strengthen the novel.

Review from October 2018 before I'd read earlier installments:
A 400 page book with 107 chapters! The choppy organization disrupted the flow of the novel, making it difficult to follow. A journalist is found dead Christmas eve. Suspicion falls to her "ex" who retains custody of their child, but other suspects and motives exist. The police immediately notice the lack of a computer in the journalist's hotel room, leading them to suspect murder even before the autopsy reveals it. While I like the setting, I did not get a strong feel for it. The police did not seem very developed. I'm sure it's because it is a later book in the series, and I read no earlier installments. I received an advance electronic copy through NetGalley with the expectation of an honest review. (2 stars) show less

Det här är den första "Morden i Sandhamn"-boken jag har läst. Jag tyckte att den var ganska seg större delen. Först på slutet blev det riktigt spännande. Lösningen på mysteriet tycker jag var helt OK, men inte något som man som läsare hade kunnat räkna ut själv. Jag gillar mer när författaren ger lite ledtrådar så att man som läsare eventuellt kan lista ut hur det hänger ihop. Trots att boken var lite seg var den ändå lättläst, med korta kapitel och ganska mycket "back-story" om karaktärerna.

Todella paljon parempi kuin edellinen. Tykkäsin tosi paljon ja kirjaa oli vaikea laskea kädestä vaikka väsytti. Suosittelen.