16. The Black Path by Åsa Larsson

Category: 50 Books

16. The Black Path by Åsa Larsson

The third book in the Rebecka Martinsson/Anna-Maria Mella series. I don’t know how to talk about this book without mentioning possible spoilers. So if you’re sensitive to that sort of thing, read no further.

When last we left Rebecka she had sort of… lost her mind. In book three she mostly gets it back. She has a stay in a mental hospital, which is really glossed over. Then she goes back to Kiruna or Kurravaara or some place like that. She ends up working there as a special prosecutor. So now, finally, we see Rebecka and Anna-Maria working together professionally. They work well together. It’s nice to see two women working together with no weird competition thing going on.

The mystery in the book is fine. The murder has nothing to do with Rebecka, finally. However, I think that the whole Kallis Mining arc was WAY TOO DETAILED. The only way this will be forgiveable is if they come into play in the next book. If they don’t, more than half of this book is a waste of time. Parts of it seemed redundant. How many times do we need to flashback to Muari and Diddi in business school? Twice, maybe, if you want to do one from each point of view. Ms. Larsson writes very well, you can get the point she’s trying to make, and yet, she goes on and on about some of the things.

It might be that she goes into so much detail because she doesn’t want you to hate the bad guys? Because most of this story revolves around the bad guys. She goes into so much of their history. Maybe she does this so we don’t judge them too harshly? Because obviously they didn’t have the best family histories. I’ve noticed this in most of the Swedish crime fiction I’ve read, it seems like the victims, the bad guys, and the heroes all get equal time in the books. It’s just in this particular book the baddies seem to get way more time.

 And what about Ester? She seemed like such an interesting character, is she wasted too? If so, this bugs me.

And then the Rebecka/Mans love? I mean, throw me a friggin’ bone. I tread through hundreds of pages of business fraud/family histories/Ugandan warlord shenanigans and you only give me four pages of Rebecka and Mans? Are you kidding me? They’re treated more like an afterward than any sort of real part of the book. And it’s not that I want hot, juicy, sex scenes, okay? I just wanted something with more substance.

The author does mention that there will be more books in the series. It’s just they are not published yet. So I guess I’ll get a break from Rebecka for a bit.

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