La nuit de la Sainte Lucie, Amanda, 18 ans, disparaît. Elle est retrouvée quelques jours plus tard morte de froid sur un télésiège de la station d’Åre. Un roman policier dans le froid, la nuit et la neige de Suède, sombre, tendu et addictif, sur le thème des violences faites aux femmes. Le premier volume d’une nouvelle série de l’autrice qui met en place (un peu trop longuement) des personnages que l’on se réjouit pourtant de suivre. ( )

This story set in Sweden was originally written and published there and translated into English. I did assume from the constant Americanisms such as references to 'mom' etc that the translator was American but at the end of the book a note reveals that they live in the UK so that is odd.

The setting is the small skiing resort of Are and its neighbouring communities, and the description of the setting plus lifestyle - nearly everyone has snowmobiles for example - was quite interesting. However, I found the characters mostly irritating. Hanna, the lead female character, is a police officer who spoke out against a coverup of a murder by a fellow officer back in Stockholm. Her nasty boss gives her an ultimatum to move to another branch of the police force or be sacked, and she goes home to a second ultimatum - her boyfriend reveals his affair with another woman and she must move out of his flat.

Fortunately for Hanna, her wealthy and successful older sister Lydia has a luxury second home in Are and allows her to live there. Hanna spends the first part of the book in meltdown/self-pity mode (apart from some drastic action with her boyfriend's belongings as the reader learns later).

A young girl goes missing and Hanna drags herself out of her pit of misery to join in the search. Gradually she becomes interested and offers information to the police, gleaned from the sister of one of the policemen who doesn't want to pass on the information herself. As they are chronically understaffed with several vacancies, she eventually is offered a job. But for a while it looks as if she has self-sabotaged that option when she hears that her boyfriend has engaged a lawyer to sue her, making it highly likely she will lose the job.

Fortunately, sister Lydia is a fairy godmother, sorting out all Hanna's problems, which are often self-inflicted. It's handy that she's a top lawyer. She neatly resolves the problem with the ex-boyfriend off stage which I found rather unsatisfying. Why bother with that whole subplot if it is resolved with no real consequences?

The rest of the more developed characters are also deeply flawed. Without wishing to create spoilers, both parents who lose a child go into total meltdown and completely fail their remaining children. The man in charge of the local police department is constantly beating himself up because of failing to be home on time to look after his baby daughter and take some of the load off his partner, but this is the first time there has ever been a murder in the area and in theory the long hours would only be for a limited period, assuming the crime is solved. It's not as if she didn't know he was a policeman when she became involved with him.

One thing which should be flagged as a content warning for those who don't like reading about cruelty to animals, the story involves the death of a pet animal.

Altogether I found it a frustrating read. Hanna does gradually pull herself together and show herself a capable officer but she then self-sabotages that again by going off on a tangent without even calling in where she's going. And it gets tiring to have so many characters who are wallowing in self-pity etc. So I can only rate this as an OK 2 stars. ( )

Mit ihrer neuen Kommissarin Hanna Ahlander hat Viveca Sten eine gute Hauptfigur geschaffen. Am Anfang des Buches bricht ihre Welt zusammen, als sie am selben Tag ihre Arbeit und ihre Beziehung verliert. Eine Auszeit in Åre führt sie zufällig zum Fall eines vermissten Mädchens. Nach einer Lucia-Party kommt das Mädchen Amanda nicht nach Hause. Bei der Eiseskälte kann sie draußen im Freien nicht lange überleben. Wo ist sie also? ( )

Classic Nordic Noir - each central character has various levels of inner turmoil combined with personal life crisis but carries on with stoic determination. Multiple suspects, bad weather in isolated communities; all these things come together to make a good Nordic crime novel come to life. ( )

Good story ( )