The Lost Boy

Starred review from August 1, 2016
Läckberg, Sweden’s bestselling “queen of crime,” explores near-unspeakable grief in her stunning seventh novel set in the town of Fjällbacka (after 2015’s The Drowning). Several mothers suffer in body and soul after losing their sons, in contrast to the happiness that detective Patrik Hedström and his wife, Erica, a true-crime writer, enjoy with their twin infant boys. Patrik is investigating the murder of Mats Sverin, the town’s finance officer, who was involved with the restoration of a dilapidated old luxury hotel as a ritzy spa, a man many people liked but no one really knew. With her trademark impeccable psychological insight, Läckberg intertwines subplots that personalize the devastation wreaked by Sweden’s drug trade, its biker culture, and its far too prevalent domestic abuse. Ghostly shadows from this searing entry will surely linger long in the reader’s imagination. Agent: Joakim Hansson, Nordin Literary Agency (Sweden).

Under all the massive weight of circumstance and suffering, the latest case for the sorely tried Tanumshede police is a tale of mothers and their children.The people of Fjallbacka call Graskar "Ghost Island" because of long-standing rumors that "those who died out there never leave." But after the violent death of her overbearing husband, Fredrik, whose status as a wine importer merely provided a cover for his criminal activities, Nathalie Wester retreats there gratefully with her 5-year-old son, Sam, secure in the knowledge that Graskar is her island, their island. The friends and neighbors in Fjallbacka who have yet to discover Fredrik's body have little time to worry about Nathalie's welfare because they have troubles of their own. The town's finance officer, Mats Sverin, has been shot to death in the front hall of his own apartment, and his ancient status as Nathalie's high school boyfriend seems a lot less relevant to Patrik Hedstrom, of the Tanum police, than his recent beating by a gang of toughs in Goteborg, where he'd worked for the Refuge, a battered women's shelter, before returning to his hometown. And the family of Patrik's wife, author Erica Falck, has sorrows of its own. Erica's younger sister, Anna, has been badly injured in a car crash and has lost the child she'd carried nearly to term--a boy she'd hoped would knit her family closer together with that of Dan, her second husband. Now every mother and child on whom Lackberg turns her searching eye, from Mats' mother, Signe Sverin, to Madeleine, a Refuge client who finds that Copenhagen isn't far enough from Sweden to flee her tormenter, is withdrawn, isolated, and endangered.The resolute avoidance of anything that smacks of exposition slows the pace to a crawl and makes it hard to sift the wheat from the chaff but also gives this glum tale a certain majesty. COPYRIGHT(1) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Starred review from September 15, 2016

Lackberg executes another exceptional multilayered mystery with this seventh entry in the series featuring Det. Patrik Hedstrom and Erica Falck. The abrupt, ambiguous final chapter to The Drowning is gradually clarified throughout this newest tale, which opens with a terrified young mother who's gone into hiding with her five-year-old son to a remote island called Graskar (Ghost Isle). While Hedstrom works on solving the disappearance of Mads Sverin, a well-liked, albeit intensely private, financial director, he also has to deal with his own family's tragedies. Three ostensibly separate story lines converge into a stirring conclusion as connections are made between the characters and the island's history. Lackberg continues to craft fully fleshed-out, complicated characters with such telling details as Erica's prickly relationship with her sister or Patrik's questionable driving skills that terrify his coworkers. VERDICT Highly recommended for readers who love character-driven crime novels, especially followers of Nordic mysteries and Lackberg's growing fan base.--Deb West, Gannon Univ. Lib., Erie, PA

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.