Scandinavian crime: Camilla Läckberg
As with Karin Fossum, Camilla Läckberg was on my dad's useful list of Scandinavian women who write crime, and I was fortunate to find her first three novels in one ebook from the library (though I only read 2 before the loan expired). The Ice Princess and The Preacher were both gripping novels set in and around the small Swedish coastal town of Fjällbacka. Again, as in Fossum's Don't Look Back, there is that sense of small-town interconnectedness, the potential for gossip and everyone knowing everyone else's family background. However, there is no isolation here: Fjällbacka is a summer tourist destination, there are residents who've moved to the city (and some who've returned), and we occasionally follow characters to Gothenburg or Stockholm.
Having, as I said, only read the first two novels from a dozen or so years ago (and synopses of some more recent ones) it seems that the first volume, The Ice Princess, follows a different format. While the series as a whole seems to be referred to as the Patrik Hedström books, it's hard to say who is the central character in The Ice Princess, and Patrik doesn't appear for quite a while. We mainly follow the amateur investigations of Erica, a moderately successful non-fiction author who is temporarily in town sorting out her parents' house after their recent deaths. When her childhood friend Alex's body is found, apparently as the result of suicide, Alex's parents ask Erica to write an article about Alex's life. Speaking to Alex's friends and family, and dredging up her own memories and photographs, Erica begins to feel that something isn't right.
In The Preacher, the murder of a tourist seems to be connected to two twenty-five year old disappearances, and a divided local family. With the fresh death occurring at the height of the tourist season that most of the town depends on, the police are under pressure to clear it up as quickly as they can. If they don't melt in the heatwave, first.
With The Preacher, there is an explicit connection to 1979 (including flashbacks to events of that time), but the death in The Ice Princess also has its roots in past events, and according to my dad the third novel, The Stone Cutter, delves into the 1920s. This put me in mind of Robert Goddard and his novels based around family secrets, with the key to the present being obtainable only by solving a puzzle from the past, so the series may appeal to his readers.
Camilla Läckberg draws out the human side of the Tanumshede police force, whether it's Mellberg (the chief) with his comb-over, or young Martin's disastrous love life, we're reminded that they are people too. Patrik has his doubts and insecurities, mistakes are made and laziness creeps in with the summer heat. Because of that human side, there is a degree of natural humour in the books (in a similar way to Reginald Hill's Dalziel and Pascoe novels) and though there are descriptions of gruesome situations, the books are by no means bloody and grim.
Perhaps one of the things that initially drew me in to The Ice Princess when I began to read it was the herring connection. The book I'd finished reading the day before was Herring Girl by Debbie Taylor, set in North Shields and partly about the decline of the herring catch. In the early part of The Ice Princess, Läckberg talks about the decline of the herring catch in Fjällbacka (which I was delighted to discover is a real place) and how that changed the town, so it was interesting to see that mirrored on both sides of the North Sea. While I appreciate that not everyone will have such a niche interest, I think this series will have wide appeal with its engaging characters and well thought out thriller plots.