The Ice Princess an Icy Swedish Mystery

I read this book back in January after buying it from Barnes and Noble with a gift card I got for Christmas. The story of The Ice Princess is by  Swedish author Camilla Lackberg and is the first book in a detective mystery series. Camilla Lackberg is a talented writer and it’s been translated into many languages including English obviously. I don’t think I’ll be buying the whole series but I might check out the second book to see if it’s something I want to continue reading.

Pros

Camilla Lackberg does a great job of setting the mood and atmosphere of her story. It takes place in the Swedish village of Fjällbacka. It also sets the tone of it being very cold. The plot is very good, Erica is a writer that lives alone dealing with family issues such as her sister being forced by her abusive husband into selling their childhood home. On top of that Ericas friend from childhood, Alex died a gruesome death in a frozen bath tub. The slash marks on her wrists and the knife in Alex’s hand indicate a suicide. It is quickly debunked that it was murder. With the help Patrik Hedstorm whose the love interest they will find out who did it. Who did it is obviously a shock.

Cons

Unfortunately there are cons with this book. I felt that you could skip several pages and you wouldn’t miss a thing. The writing and plot was excellent but unfortunately the story had a lot of unnecessary details and things that just didn’t move the story along or had nothing to do with the story. I felt like the sister being abused, I know it obviously happens but it didn’t really add anything to the plot. I also didn’t really care to see her sisters point of view. Some Amazon reviewers even mentioned that there are paragraphs describing what a couch looked like that had nothing to do with the mystery. I do like Erica and Patrik’s romance, but even then it could have been condensed a little too. I wanna tell them, “Folks we have a mystery to solve! Let’s get a move on!”

Overall its worth reading. Like I said I don’t see myself buying the series, but I will most likely check at least book 2 out from the library to see if the series gets better. I am intrigued. Camilla Lackberg knows how to be descriptive and have a good plot and set up the story, she just needs to condense parts and decide is this character or scene going to move the plot forward.