28. The Ice Princess by Camilla Läckberg

spoiler alert. but i’m doing you a favor.

I’m shocked. The cover of this book boasts that this is an international bestseller. The back of the book says, “Ice-cold suspense from Sweden’s new Agatha Christie.” This book was not very good. Normally I’d say that maybe there was something lost in translation, but I don’t think that’s the (whole) problem.

And now a list of grievances:

1. It seemed like all the characters who were good guys were pretty/handsome. And the bad guys (or people you were supposed to dislike) were fat and ugly. There was this oversimplification that just felt lazy.

2. There was a subplot (Erica’s sister’s drama) that was never completed. Maybe there’s a sequel? Even still, there should have been SOME kind of mention at the end about it.

3. When one of the characters found a clue (Erica or Patrik) they would find it (in a trash can/drawer/whatever), look at it all, “A ha!” and then move on WITHOUT TELLING THE READER WHAT THE FUCK THEY JUST FOUND. This happened three times. Now, I’m not a mystery author, but I know the damn rules. In fact, you’re probably not a mystery author either, and I bet YOU could even make a guess at some of the rules, yeah? One of the rules is No Evil Twins (unless of course the Evil Twin is made known at the beginning). Another rule? Only One Secret Passage. This book had neither secret passages nor evil twins, but it DID break the rule of When the Detective Finds a Clue He shares It With the Rest of the Class.

Now look, I’m all for breaking rules. You want to use an evil twin at the end? Go for it. No one will ever take you seriously again, but go for it. You want more than one secret passage? Fine. It worked for Clue, didn’t it? But I swear on a stack of Edgar Allan Poe books, if your detective finds a clue, and you don’t tell the reader what the hell it even is until much later? That’s bush league. That is hack. That is insulting to the reader and I have no idea why this book was an international bestseller.

4. This book had the slowest pace of any crime fiction I’ve ever read. A slow pace doesn’t have to be bad as long as the story, characters, events are compelling. In this story nothing was compelling.

5. The love story fell flat. I appreciated that there was an almost normal love story going on in the book. But it didn’t add anything to the book. (This is different from most of the Swedish crime fic and it’s desolation and despair.) So I was rooting for the love story, but it, like the character studies (from Grievance #1) seemed too easy and therefore came across as lazy. Plus, they have sex 5 times in one night just like in a boddice-ripping romance novel. But without all the steamy details, which is fine because hey, it’s a mystery, not erotica, however, when you write something like that and give no steamy details but you’re all, “then they did it! like, 5 times!” it’s like it’s written by a 9th grader or something.

6. There was a part where something may have been lost in translation, but not in a, “that sentence makes no sense.” kinda way, but in a, “I think they left out a whole paragraph somewhere.” This big reveal is going on about the lady who was murdrered and her past. It was very important to the story. Then the detective is all, “I’m shocked she had been pregnant before!” and see, the problem is, not in any previous part of the book was this mentioned, nor was it mention in the preceeding paragraphs, where, i think, a paragraph or two must have been left out. because his declaration just made no sense, nor would he have known about her previous pregnancy if he had not just heard it from the character who was telling of the murdered girl’s past. What a piece of shit.

Sadly, the book was slow and boring. And because the clues were withheld and paragraphs of info seemed to be totally missing, I have to call this a disaster. Perhaps it’s a much better read in it’s native tongue.