What I particularly admire in Ohlsson’s work is her innate skill at characterisation and how she so effectively draws the readers into the lives of her main protagonists. In ‘Silenced’ the character of Fredrika Bergman, still working with the police, spirals out as a new aspect is added to her character with the impending birth of her first child by her much older married lover of some years standing. There is a wonderfully drawn scene with Fredrika bowing to parental pressure and having to introduce Spencer to them over dinner with all the awkwardness and embarrassment of bringing home your first boyfriend/girlfriend as a teenager. On a more serious note, we get an accurate portrayal of an extremely focused and intuitive woman balancing the demands of the personal and the professional whose critical thinking always adds exponentially to the course of the investigation. Ohlsson’s skill is not limited just to her female characterisation as we follow the continuing path to self-destruction through Fredrika’s wonderfully tactless colleague Peder Rydh whose marriage has now deteriorated completely and whose lover has left him. Added to this is his conflict with a new member of the investigative team Joar Sahlin for reasons that I won’t spoil here and Peder’s steep path back to acceptance and reconciliation that the book takes us on. Alex Recht, the head of the investigative team is also subject to a heartrending and all too human story line throughout the course of a book whilst retaining his clear-headed and professional demeanour in the solving of this tricky investigation so this again adds another facet to Ohlsson’s consummate skill at characterisation.
An extremely engaging read all round and yet another example of why the Scandinavian crime scene is producing such a fine body of work for crime fiction fans. Long may it continue…
See more about Kristina Ohlsson here: http://www.thedarkpages.co.uk/books
(Thanks to Glen at Simon & Schuster for the advanced reading copy)
Ohlsson is on my radar but I haven’t yet read a book by her. I think I have a previous book by her languishing on my shelves to read. As you think she is worth a read I’m tempted to move it up my list.