Victim Without a Face

July 18, 2016
Swedish screenwriter Ahnhem’s compelling if overly long first novel, a series launch introducing Det. Fabian Risk, explores social exclusion and its consequences. Risk has left Stockholm to return to his hometown of Helsingborg, but before he can unpack and settle his family, one of his high school classmates—a notorious bully—is found brutally murdered, both hands chopped off. When another classmate is killed (again, in hideous fashion), it’s clear that everyone in Risk’s class is a target—and Risk himself becomes a focal point for the killer. Risk is a fine detective with a strong dose of humility, but this killer is meticulous, leaving essentially no clues as the bodies pile up. Some scenes are grotesquely inventive (one victim is burned alive by a large magnifying lens), and the plot hangs together despite the many digressions. Patient readers with a taste for the gruesome will be glad they stayed the course of the book’s 600-plus pages.

August 1, 2016
Detective Fabian Risk has moved his family from Stockholm to his hometown in an attempt to hold his marriage together and have more time to spend with his children. But he has not even finished unpacking when he is called in by his new precinct. A man who was in his ninth-grade class has been murdered, in a grotesque manner. Other classmates turn up dead, and in each case their punishment seems to fit their crime against the prime suspect, who was himself a victim of extreme bullying. The killer's brutal revenge rivals that of Stephen King's Carrie (1974). This book is hard to put down. The plot twists are stunning. It is very dark and guaranteed to elevate your heart rate, but the reader is sustained by the humanity that survives despite the relentless depravity. This first title in a planned trilogy was an award winner in Sweden. It's the perfect recommendation for fans who cannot get enough of those Scandinavian coppers, especially Henning Mankell's Kurt Wallander and Jo Nesb's Harry Hole.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)

April 1, 2016

Screenwriter Ahnhem joins the Swedish crime brigade with a first novel whose initial victims were class bullies three decades ago. Alas, criminal investigator Fabian Risk, who's left Stockholm with his family to start a new job in his hometown, was a member of that class. He could be the next victim--but then maybe he's a suspect.

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

April 1, 2016

Insufferable Lord Bellington winds up dead after threatening to turn the community garden in Agatha Raisin's Cotswold village into a housing estate, and his son, Damian--in fact the chief suspect--hires Agatha to find the killer. Then police stumble across another body, and Agatha joins forces with handsome newcomer Gerald, conveniently a retired detective, to figure out what's happening. From New York Times best-selling author Beaton.

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.