2025 Book Review #31:The Stranger

 

This is book 4 in the Fjallbacka series, set in Sweden and featuring Patrik Hedstrom. This has been my favorite of the 4. 

STORY SUMMARY

A local woman named Marit, mother of teenaged Sofie, and partner with Kersten, is found dead in what appears to be a single car accident after she became drunk. The only problem? She never drank alcohol! Her blood results show a very high, toxic level of alcohol but everyone who knew her said she absolutely never drank. Plus, there are strange marks around her mouth, and on the car seat is a torn page from a children's book of fairy tales. 

Meanwhile, there is a reality show being filmed in town and as the cameras watch every move the contestants make, tempers begin to flare up among the cast members and a drunken party ends with one of the more unpopular contestant's death: a young woman named "Barbie" aka Lillemor. Now all eyes are turned to the cast and production crew.  Is there a killer among them?? 

Detective Patrik Hedstrom is finding himself unable to focus on the strange circumstances of the first case as there is pressure to solve this second case. Pressure from the production team, town council, media and his boss. Meanwhile, he is also supposed to be planning the wedding of him and his fiancee, Erica who is a mostly stay at home mom to their 8 month old daughter Maja, although Erica does spend some time writing as she is an accomplished author. 

While digging into the first case and several clues, Hedstrom and his colleague Martin Molin discover that several other unsolved murders have similar details and are spread across Sweden!!  Is there a serial killer connecting all of these unsolved cases?? And of course, Hedstrom is under the lights of the media as all eyes are fixed on this reality show and the murdered young woman from the cast.  Is this case related to the others?? 

MY THOUGHTS

This is a fast paced mystery with some  amazing character development.  The only thing I don't like that this author does, is the over used "F" word and other crass words.  I get it in order to set up a character and his/her crass language, but this was over the top excessive and a huge turn off for me. I find it uncreative and low class. 

That said, the plot is fantastic and interesting! 

I also love the sub-plots of which there are three but they're not difficult to keep track of and they do appear in the other books in the Fjallbacka series. Erica is planning her wedding to Patrik and Anna has finally successfully left her abusive ex-husband who is now dead and is living with Erica, Patrik and Maja with her children Emma and Adrian. In this book, something exciting happens with Anna but I don't want to reveal what it is as I don't want to ruin it for you.

Also, the police chief, Mellburg, has something happen and with that sub-plot, I correctly guessed what would happen!  I could see it coming even though he didn't. 😜

The killer...or was it killers......is another thing I guessed correctly.  At first I thought it was going to go another way, and then I thought, "nope, it's going to end up being ________". And I was correct.

The surprise twist at the end is tense, sad and dramatic but really well done given the background of the people involved. Again I don't want to reveal anything, as I don't want to spoil it for you. 

My oldest daughter read this book as a stand alone and said it was great and she was right!  You don't have to read the series to enjoy this fast-paced, who dun it? type of crime novel. 

In my opinion, this book is appropriate for ages 17 and older (due to some mature content regarding alcoholism and crass language).

On a scale of 1-10, with 10 being the highest, I rate this a 9. It would get a perfect 10 if not for the horrible over use of the F word.