second in a series of Scandinavian mysteries about what people might get up to in the far north of Lappland, while wrestling with toxic masculinity problems and grisly murders to solve - and to commit. and lots of dogs and even a few wolves, all of whom get their own psych profiles too. you couldn't call it cozy but that's fine by me, i'm right in the mood. off to read the next one.... ( )

The brutal murder of a female priest at the height of the Swedish midsummer brings attorney Rebecka Martinsson face to face with a nightmare as she is drawn into the investigation and into the heart of a lethal mystery.

This was slow to start and draw me in but eventually it did. Rebecka was hard to like as she was psychologically recovering from a traumatic situation and rather emotionless. There were a lot of characters who had a reason to want the priest dead. Most seemed to have some issue in their lives that made them a bit angry or down. I was left with some questions at the end and would’ve liked to know more about several characters. This was an interesting, noir read. ( )

I'm beginning to think Larsson hates her principal character Rebecca. Already suffering from PTSD she returns to her home town where she sustained the trauma she ends up trapped under a house in the dark before realizing her newest simple friend has been murdered outside the house. Grim! ( )

This is the second book in the Rebecka Martinsson series and in retrospect I perhaps shouldn't have left so long between reading the first one and this one. It took a little while for some details of the first book to come back to me and a little while for a few of the characters to re-emerge in my mind.

I think that this is probably the main reason that the first half of the book was a little slow for me to get through. It wasn't until I finished the book that I realised that the first half wasn't just 'OK' it was just that I was struggling to pick up on some of the little things that were happening. If I had been forced to rate the book after the first 200 pages I probably would have given it 2/5.

Once I got into the second half of the book and I had settled into it things got much better. The story moves along at a good pace without hitting a fast speed. There is also a nice story that runs alongside about a she-wolf and her battle for survival. At first I thought this was a bit pointless but it is a nice touch and ties in with the main story quite well.

The characters are what really stands out in this book. There obviously is a plot but this is more character based than plot based and that gives it a different feel to most 'crime' books. I put crime in quotation marks because I think labeling this a crime novel does it a dis-service. There is far more going on that just being a standard crime novel.

Larsson clearly decided to take a bit of a risk in a few areas. The book starts in a very similar way to the first, there is the murder of a priest and the setting is the same as the first book. It doesn't feel repetitive however so I guess the risk worked out. There are also some interesting character choices, sexuality is explored and there is a mentally retarded character.

Martinsson isn't your normal heroine, she is suffering from what I would assume is PTSD from the first book and seems on the edge of a complete breakdown. This makes her fairly anti-social towards most of the others in the book but it also makes her a bit difficult to identify with. I imagine that Larsson has used some of her own emotions when dealing with the 'city girl' returning to the countryside where she grew up and feeling like an outsider aspect.

There were a few things in the book that really had a emotional impact on me.

I don't think the book is quite a 4/5 for me but it is a bit more than 3/5, however I decided that 3/5 is probably about right. It was a decent read and I finished the last 350 pages in one afternoon/evening. I look forward to reading the third book in the series.

Oh, everyone seems to have a cat or dog. ( )

This is book number 2 of Larsson's series, with the first one's story hanging over everything. Perfectly enjoyable, but should've started with the first. Got that now, and started; having finished this one.
An odd mystery, but very interesting characters, the kind you care about. ( )