Camilla Lackberg - The Ice Princess

Returning to her hometown of Fjallbacka after the funeral of her parents, writer Erica Falck finds a community on the brink of tragedy. The death of her childhood friend, Alex, is just the beginning. Her wrists slashed, her body frozen in an ice-cold bath, it seems that she has taken her own life. Erica conceives a book about the beautiful but remote Alex, one that will answer questions about their own shared past. While her interest grows into an obsession, local detective Patrik Hedstrom is following his own suspicions about the case. But it is only when they start working together that the truth begins to emerge about a small town with a deeply disturbing past.

Comment: A friend offered this book to me on Christmas. I had already made the decision to buy it, so it was a very nice surprise to get it sooner. The story is a thriller, a elaborated story about the relationships and ties a group of characters has in a city in Sweden.
The story mixes up personal details on the lives of practically every character and if I recall correctly, almost everyone who is important for the story has a POV somewhere in the book. At first I thought this was a bit confusing because it means I had to take notice of many people at once and this gets tiring after a while, but the story is so fast paced that it's done in a subtle way. The characters are interesting and they all have some kind of personal issue that makes the story more alive instead of static. The character I liked the most was Inspector Mellberg, he is such a funny character in a more heavier set that I couldn't help laugh about his antics, he's totally stereotyped but great to read about.
The tone of the book tends to be darker than usual but I don't know if it's instinctive comparison on my part to other authors, but it didn't feel like that to me. I managed to feel a bit distanced from it, in a certain way. I don't think this was a bad thing because the mystery was well done, but it's something I noticed. Then, perhaps, it's the fact it's a trademark of Swedish writers as I felt a bit of the same while I was reading Stieg Larsson's trilogy.
In the end the book was great yes, I want to follow the "adventures" of the main couple, protagonists of the following books. Next month I'll buy them and eventually will read them too.