Camilla Lackberg–THE PREACHER
Posted in 9a-2011 Reviews, Mystery, Thriller, Noir, Nordic Noir, Psychological study, Sweden on May 1st, 2011
Camilla Lackberg is the most profitable author in Swedish history, outstripping even Stieg Larsson in total book sales. Setting her novels in Fjallbacka, Sweden, a small fishing village in western Sweden (and her home town), Lackberg shows that even small fishing villages hold secrets, including murder. In this second novel in the Fjallbacka series, Chief Investigator Patrik Englund learns that six-year-old has discovered a woman’s naked and beaten body in a ravine. Underneath that body are the skeletons of two more women who disappeared in 1979. Autopsies prove that all three had been slowly tortured over the course of many days before merciful death interceded. Lackberg spends as much time on the lives and motivations of her characters as she does on plot development, and when yet another young girl disappears from town, Patrik and his crew (which also has frictions and rivalries) realize they may have a chance to find her before she dies of the same tortures which were inflicted on the previous young women. Good psychological insights by a young author.
