It’s a two-fer! My bookclub chose The Ice Princess for our next book, and since the library only had a two-in-one version, I decided to read two stories. So, enjoy two reviews in one post.

The Ice Princess

The first book in the series, The Ice Princess is about the murder of Alex, who was frozen till she was literally like an ice-princess. The police are doing their own investigating, but Erica, Alex’s ex-best friend, has been asked to write something about Alex. Normally, that would make her an investigator too, but honestly, Erica doesn’t seem to be the key investigator – that’s left to the police officers, including Patrick, who used to have a crush on Erica.

One thing that stood out to me was the number of POVs that this story was told from. We don’t just get Erica and Patrick, we also get Patrick’s superior, Erica’s sister, and various other people involved in the case. It does give us a feeling like we’re getting a lot of information about the case, but I never did quite get how Patrick knew who to press to solve it in the end. Still, I really liked how the story took time to explore other avenues. Not all of it tied back to the case, but enough did that it felt like one cohesive whole.

So on the cover of the book that I’ve borrowed, it says “expert at mixing scenes of domestic cosiness with blood-curdling horror.” I’ve got the horror part, but not the domestic cosiness yet – maybe it’s because I prepped myself for a Nordic (?) mystery, but I got a lot of cool and ice. Perhaps the next book will prove different – I’m looking forward to that!

The Preacher

So I don’t know if it’s because I got used to the world of the book but I enjoyed this a lot more than The Ice Princess (which I already enjoyed). It takes place about a year after the events of The Ice Princess, in the heat of the Swedish summer. A dead body has been found, and two skeletons with it. When another girl goes missing, the police force must race against time to get to the truth.

Perhaps it was the season of this book, or perhaps it’s because Patrick and Erica are in an established relationship and having a baby, but I found this book a lot cosier than the first book. The scenes where family and acquantences come to impose of them because they live in a popular holiday spot were pretty funny and was very effectively juxtaposed with tragedy of Anna (Erica’s sister)’s situation. The Anna and her relationship subplot is turning into something that could tie the series together and give me a reason to read the next book.

As for the mystery, I found it a lot more exciting. I think this may be because the book had more chapters and so felt longer, which gave the book a lot of time to turn up the tension and then solve it. To me, this was a lot more satisfying than The Ice Princess and I enjoyed the twists and turns of the story. I also really liked how this mystery allowed us to peer into the workings of the police station.

Overall, I enjoyed these two mysteries. I’ve not really explored the Nordic mysteries, but this is making a good case for me to look further into this mystery sub-genre.