This is book 6 in the Patrik Hedstrom series, set in Sweden, that I discovered a couple of years ago and that I really like. Huge thanks go to my oldest daughter Courtney for introducing me to this series.
STORY SUMMARY
Christian Thydell has always dreamed of becoming an author....and he finally has succeeded with his debut novel The Mermaid. It has received rave reviews and all of a sudden he is sought after for talk shows and news articles. So...why is he unhappy and emotionally distant like usual?
Erica Falk, a crime writer and married to lead detective Patrik Hedstrom, is the one who helped Christian discover his talents...she helped him all along the way and has recently discovered that he has been receiving threatening letters for over a year!
She begins to investigate the messages, as well as Christian's past/background. And then one of Christian's good friends, Magnus, disappears. His wife Cia and their two young children have no idea where Magnus could have gone. He was on his way to work, walking to his colleague's home where he always hitched a ride into work and never made it there.
Three months later, his body is discovered in the frozen waters of the local river.
And now, of course, Patrik is involved in solving who murdered Magnus and dumped his body into the river a few months earlier. His suspicions are confirmed that Magnus' death is related to Christian and 2 other friends, Kenneth and Erik. It's a very tangled web of friendships stemming from their childhood days. And a lot of family secrets regarding Christian, his foster parents, his biological mother, and the little sister his foster parents birthed, named Alice.
Kenneth becomes a victim and soon more secrets come to light...but every friend has received these odd threatening letters and yet none of them are willing to confess what really went on in their childhood and their relationships to one another.
Until Christian is found dead, by apparent suicide from the water tower in town.
What in the world is going on? Will Patrik and his police team solve this mystery from Christian's childhood? How does Erica's findings go along with Patrik's?
Just who is Christian Thydell anyways??
MY THOUGHTS
This was one fast paced book that took a long time in developing if that makes sense. It started out fast paced with a lot of characters introduced. As usual, the subplot of Erica and Patrik's marriage and parenting of Maja who is now 2 yrs old in this book (with Erica expecting twins!) was well developed and interesting.
The main plot was very fast moving but then (for me) seemed to get a bit bogged down with all the twists and turns as the story developed further.
After the half-way point, it picked up again once I discovered some more secrets about Christian's childhood. What a doozy of a thriller!
The cool thing is, I had guessed where the Christian character was going. I even had him "diagnosed" with the correct disorder that the author reveals towards the end of the book but I think it's largely due to my teaching young special needs students who had the same type of abandonment issues and abuse issues in their early childhood years. All in all, the average reader might not pick up on those clues and so the author does a great job with how readers find out exactly who the perpetrator is. It's quite well done!
Many themes are apparent in this story: single parenthood, drug use, bullying, obesity, abandonment, foster- family relationships, mental illness, personality disorders, friendships that endure, friendships that contain secrets, murder, suicide and the psychological impact that child abuse and bullying have on a person; past traumas and the affects into adulthood; family dynamics.
I love this series and with the ending of this book comes something that Patrik and Erica are going through....it is like a "cliff hanger".....book 7 should reveal what has happened.
In my opinion, this book is appropriate for ages 17 and older (due to some mature content).
On a scale of 1-10, with 10 being the highest, I rate this a 9.
