Undertaker's Daughter

I hadn't read very many pages of The Undertaker's Daughter before I began forming an intense dislike for Ilka, the main character. She must be a prime case of arrested development: her mother knows Ilka's father better than Ilka ever will, but she hares off to Wisconsin like a bratty teenager because her mother couldn't possibly know anything. She's full of plans on what she's going to do once she gets there, but what does she actually do? Locks herself in her room, ignoring everyone all the next day, and when the person on the other side of the door finally gives up and shoves papers underneath, does she read them? Heavens no. She just signs them and shoves them back. Big mistake for the forty-year-old teenager.

She can't make up her show more mind what she's going to do. Is she going to go back to Copenhagen? Is she going to stay? Is she going to sell the business? Is she going to run it herself? I think the final straw for me was when she had a complete mess on her hands yet showed more interest in a date with someone she hooked up with on Tinder. My list of things that annoyed me about Ilka could go on for a day or two.

With my strong adverse reaction to the main character, you'd think I wouldn't have enough of my brain cells left to pay attention to the mystery. The mystery surrounding the cold case and the corpse in the cooler would have been far more engaging if the book hadn't been mired in page after page centering on the whiny Ilka. This is the start of a new series and ends on a cliffhanger. I don't think I need to tell you whether or not I'll continue with it. If you give The Undertaker's Daughter a try, I certainly hope you get much better mileage. show less

The Undertaker's Daughter is definitely something completely different from what I had expected when it comes to a Sara Blaedel book. For one thing, it did not feel like a thriller, more a mystery book. And, despite the serious subject did the book feel a lot more humorous than I had expected. You know the sad kind of humor when everything goes wrong, but in a funny kind of way. Like in this book when Ilka is out shopping for a coffin when the coffin that ass ordered wouldn't be delivered because of debts.

The book is, despite the lack of suspense still good. I breezed through the book and I found the book fascinating to read when it came to the difference between funerals in the United States and in Scandinavia. This is a book that does show more not answer all the questions, there is a cliffhanger in the end and I will definitely read the next book to know what will happen to the funeral home, and to find out more about Sister Eileen who seems very mysterious.

As for the unsolved murder, this is actually the books weakest point in my opinion. It's not like Ilka does much to solve the cold case, it's more that everything happens around the dead body that is found. Ilka is more a bystander than an active solver of the murder.

The best part of this book is definitely everything concerning the funeral home, Ilka trying to get to grips with her father's legacy and it will be interesting to read the next book to see what happens next.

I want to thank Grand Central Publishing for providing me with a free copy through NetGalley for an honest review! show less

Ilka Nichols Jensen is a forty-year-old Danish widow who has never come to terms with her past. Her father, Paul, was a compulsive gambler who left her and her mother, Karin, thirty-three years ago. For quite a while, Karin had to struggle to earn enough money to support herself and her daughter. When Ilke learns that Paul has died and that she is mentioned in his will, she flies to Racine, Wisconsin, hoping to find out more about the man she loved but never really understood. Much to her shock, she finds out that she is the new owner of her father's funeral home.

"The Undertaker's Daughter," by Sara Blaedel, translated from the Danish by Mark Kline, is an odd tale of a woman who is uncomfortable in her own skin. Much of her unease stems show more from her failure to persuade her father to maintain contact with her. She wrote many letters to him over the years, but he never replied. Although we empathize with Ilka's pain, she is irritating, immature, capricious, and not particularly likeable. Among her personality flaws is her inability to make up her mind. Will she stay in Wisconsin and try to resuscitate her father's failing business?

This novel is an awkward mixture of family drama and murder mystery. In addition to Ilka's financial and legal woes, Blaedel throws in a subplot about a former resident of Racine named Mike Gilbert, who was suspected of killing his girlfriend but disappeared before his guilt could be established. Now, his badly beaten corpse has been found and the police are looking for Mike's killer. The threads of Ilka's and Mike's stories loosely intersect, but the author fails to link the book's disparate elements plausibly or satisfyingly. "The Undertaker's Daughter" is disjointed and bleak, but it does have some redeeming features. The author captures the atmosphere of an economically depressed town, where small entrepreneurs are being swallowed up by their more prosperous competitors. In addition, Blaedel poignantly depicts the ways in which skilled and compassionate funeral directors lend support to grieving relatives. Ilke eventually comes to realize how rewarding it is to help devoted family members bid a final and meaningful farewell to their loved ones. show less

Ok, good beginning of a new series. This is an author I was not familiar with but I will definitely be looking for book 2.
Ilke, comes from Denmark to Racine, Wisconsin to claim the funeral home that has been left to her in her father’s will. This same father had left Ilke and her mother in Denmark when Ilke was seven years old.
By coming to Racine Ilke is looking to understand why her father left them and why he never contacted her. What she finds is a funeral home in very bad shape, financially about to go under. With very interesting employees, who aren’t what they seem.
There is a mystery, an old murder that is solved in the story line but it is peripheral to the introduction of Ilke as a series character.
I want to see where this show more goes, there are many unanswered questions and many different plot lines that could be developed. Nice to find a new twist. show less

With a slight mystery element, The Undertaker's Daughter by Sara Blaedel is an interesting novel about a Danish woman who unexpectedly inherits a funeral home in Wisconsin from her estranged father.

Forty year old Ilka Nichols Jensen is shocked to learn her father who abandoned her over thirty years ago has included her in his will. Ignoring her mother's advice to remain uninvolved with the inheritance, Ilka quickly heads to Wisconsin hoping to learn more about her dad but instead discovers the funeral home is in dire financial straits. With the help of Artie Sovino and Sister Eileen O'Connor, Ilka jumps right into planning funerals while trying to decide what she should do with the business.

Ilka is a bit of an inconsistent character as show more she tries to decide the future of the funeral home. One minute she is prepared to stay and the very next minute she is ready to book her return flight to Denmark. At the same time, Ilka is trying to understand why her father abandoned her and her mother and she is hoping to find answers among his belongings and the business.

Ilka's memories of her father are somewhat hazy and fleeting and seem to center around her dad's love of horse racing and his gambling at the racetrack. She only has the vaguest of clues about the events surrounding his move and her memories are filtered through her mother's animosity over the situation he left them in. Although Ilka gleans a few clues about his life in the US, she is puzzled by the information she has discovered nor can she make sense of some of the troubling items she has unearthed.

Although Ilka has no experience working in a funeral home, she has no choice but to help the bereaved lay their loved ones to rest. Although the few funerals she helps plan are somewhat mundane, the arrival of an unidentified homeless person's corpse embroils her, Artie and Eileen in a bit of a mystery. While the police do eventually discover who he is, his identity raises some very intriguing questions about a still unsolved murder from twelve years earlier. This mystery plays out on the periphery of the novel and even though Ilka is curious about what happened to the man, she does not play much of a role in the investigation.

The Undertaker's Daughter by Sara Blaedel is an easy to read novel with an unusual premise and a mostly likable but sometimes frustrating protagonist. The funeral home is an out of the ordinary backdrop for the unfolding story and it is quite obvious Sara Blaedel carefully researched the intricacies involved with the funeral business. While the current mystery is completely wrapped up, the novel ends with a cliffhanger about Ilka's father. Hopefully the next installment in the Ilka series will be less of a character study and more of a mystery. show less

Sara Blaedel’s ‘The Undertaker’s Daughter,’ is, unfortunately, the first novel in a series and not a stand-alone novel. While I’m an avid reader of series fiction, I prefer installments that come to a resolution and don’t end with ‘To Be Continued.’

That said, Blaedel, according to the PR blurbs, is highly successful in her home Denmark and in Europe. I assume that the translator, Mark Kline, has done an adequate job reflecting Blaedel’s style, but the novel is a flat read. There was no time that I felt compelled to go on reading. The plot moved very slowly.

Briefly, Danish widow Ilka Jensen leaves Copenhagen for Racine, Wisconsin, to sell the funeral home left her by the father who had abandoned her family. Ilka is show more rather matter-of-fact and flat and she seems to plod through her days at the business. Once there she meets her father’s ‘new’ family, the strangely reticent employees of the home, and deals with the clients and their families. Mysterious events are afoot, but everything is so murky and low key that at times I wanted to throw the book across the room. Had Ilka been there, I’d have thrown it at her just to get a reaction.

(A free review copy was provided by the publisher.) show less

Sara Blaedel has been called Denmark's 'Queen of Crime'. I've enjoyed her Louise Rick mysteries. Blaedel herself has moved to the US, and her newest novel mirrors that move.

In The Undertaker's Daughter, Dane Ilka Jensen inherits a funeral home from the father she hasn't seen in over thirty years. It's in Wisconsin, but she decides to travel to the US - perhaps she will learn more about her long absent father.

The book is set in and around the funeral home and funeral practices. This was a decidedly different setting, one that opens up lots of possible avenues for plotting. I was initially drawn to Ilka as she arrived in Wisconsin, but that changed a few chapters in. I allowed for cultural shock, but viewed her thoughts, actions and show more reactions odd in many situations. The two employees of the funeral home treat her badly and chastise her for not immediately jumping in and conducting business right away. She does, and I found it a bit of a stretch. The same with her non-reaction to their attitudes. I can't believe that the funeral business in Racine would operate in the manner depicted, but hey, who knows. Ilka discovers Tinder and finds some sexual outlets, but I found this part of her character felt forced and I never really bought it.

There is a murder of course, but I found it weak as was the investigation into it. Every supporting character seems quite enigmatic and I found the non-answers grew tiresome after awhile.

I had not realized that this was the first book in a planned series and found the ending rather abrupt and unsatisfying. It literally ends with the words..."To be continued." I'm not sure if this was written in Danish and then translated? It just didn't flow and felt very awkward, both in language and plotting. Sad to say, but this one was just okay for me. show less