Translated by Stephen T. Murray
Author Erica Falck has returned to her small hometown in Sweden to settle her parents' estate. On top of her grief over the loss of her parents, she is under a deadline for the biography she's writing. Taking a break to go for a walk, Erica is hailed by Eilert Berg, the caretaker for the home of her childhood friend Alexandra, a successful gallery owner. Berg has just found Alex dead of an apparent suicide.
When Erica visits Alex's parents, they are insistent that she would never have taken her own life, and they ask Erica to write a memorial article about their daughter. Her research into Alex's life brings her in contact with an unusual and large cast of characters including Alex's husband Henrik, Anders, a severely depressed artist, and Francine, Alex's sister.
Erica is spending time with Dan, an old school boyfriend, much to his wife's unease. She's being pressured by her sister Anna and her brother-in-law Lucas to settle the estate and sell the family home; even while she worries that Anna is an abused wife. To further complicate her life, Erica finds herself attracted to Patrik Hedstrom, the detective handling the investigation into Alex's death. As Erica and Patrik dig deeper into Alex's life, long hidden family secrets begin to surface, leading them on the trail of the murderer in this Swedish thriller.
THE ICE PRINCESS is a quick read that spends too much time on the personal and romantic relationships and not quite enough on the story. A bit disappointing, it doesn't have the same intensity as most of the books I've read by other Scandinavian authors.
Pub. Date March 2011
ISBN 978-1-4516-2174-7
416 pages
Paperback and eBook
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