STORY SUMMARY
Patrik and Erica Hedstrom are married and live in Fjallbacka Sweden. Patrik is a detective on the local police force and Erica is a true crime author who has just given birth to twin boys, Noel and Anton. They join big sister Maja, age 2.
Patrik gets a new case when the twins are just 4 months old and it involves the murder of a local financial director named Mats (Matte) Sverin. Mats is a man that everyone seemed to like. Yet nobody really knew much about him or his personal life. He worked for a multi-million, high-profile health club/resort taking over an old abandoned building known as Badis.
It seems as though he had something to hide.
Who murdered Mats? How does Mats relate to the young mom named Nathalie who is living on Ghost Island with her 5 yr old son Sam?
Meanwhile, there is another plot going on in the book. It takes place in 1871-1875 and involves a young married woman named Emelie who is pregnant by her husband Karl. It was actually a gang rape that got her pregnant (Karl and his friend Julian). The men are lighthoue keepers and Julian lives with Karl and Emelie. This part of the story involves ghosts who "live" on the island.
Does this relate at all to the present day? And if so, how?
MY THOUGHTS
This book was way too long and could have been shortened to get to the wrap up. I found it got very bogged down with the whole "ghost story" premise and just didn't capture my interest, yet I wanted to see what would happen.
I haven't done as much daily reading the last month as I normally do as I've been very active physically with workouts and hiking trips. That might have had something to do with it. But I finally decided to just skim through the ending and I'm glad I did. It's not a spectacular plot. I did love that the main characters who appear in all of the Hedstrom novels were further developed and we find out what happens to Anna who is recovering from an emergency C section and the death of her one week old baby boy, and is Erica's younger sister.
I only found a couple of editing errors and the use of the F word was minimal.
I'm hoping the 8th book in the series is better. It will be awhile before I choose that one as I need a break from this type of novel. The main themes were quite dark: murder, gang rape, suicide in both stories, depression, post traumatic stress disorder, drug addiction, newborn death. At almost 500 pages, I expected something better.
In my opinion, this book is appropriate for ages 17 and older (due to mature content).
On a scale of 1-10, with 10 being the highest, I rate this a 7.
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