The Lost Child. Camilla Lackberg (Writer),Tina Nunnally (Translation). Harper (2013)

A very enjoyable, engaging and somewhat strange Swedish crime story. A man is shot in the entrance hallway to his apartment with no apparent motive. The investigation lead by Detective Patrick Hedstrom finds that Mats Severin was an intensely private man who did not seem to have any enemies who had recently returned to the seaside town of Fjallbacka as the council's financial director. Mats school sweetheart, Nathalie has also returned to Fjallbacka, she had moved to Graskar Island, known locally as Ghost Island. The investigation is thoughtfully managed and starts to focus on the event that preceded Mats return to Fjallbacka and when separate investigation in Stockholm starts to intersect with the one in Fjallbacka the satisfying sour conclusion is arrived at.
The plot mechanics of the main story are impressive, the reveals are carefully set up to hide as much as they show and the story moves in wonderful directions before convincingly coming back to a bitingly credible conclusion. The very large cast are energetic and full of life, Camilla Lackberg has a tremendous gift for concisely introducing and then developing her cast. She does not depend too much on continuity to support the series regular cast, they are given the space and time to make a full impression on any reader who is coming to this book cold. One of the very nice things about the book is the way that a genre staple, the incompetent police chief, is given significantly greater depth and humanity than usual. He may be incompetent, impulsive and largely lacking insifgt or foresight, he is also loving and vibrantly alive.
Critically this is a story about a number of relationships, some of which end with violent death, others of which are savagely damaged by past events and others of which are resilient and positive.
What makes The Lost Child somewhat strange are the ways that these relationships, some of which have a direct link to the major story line, some of which are essentially completely independent, are handled. There is an inescapable of judgement, harsh judgement, in the way some of these relationships are played out. Camilla Lackberg has a sharp and deeply critical eye of character weakness that leads to terrible decisions, the results of those decisions are never managed with forgiveness, grim justice is delivered to punish the weakness that lead to bad actions. It is weakness that is punished rather than deliberate malice, while that does get some measure of punishment. the greater load is carried by the weak.
While egotistical self importance does get a savage comeuppance, it is the more subtle weakness of the heart and mind that get the harshest weighting in the balance and the heaviest punishment. The weakness are not trivial, nor are the results of those weaknesses, still there is a steely lack of compassion in their treatment that is striking. There is a slight element of the supernatural in the story, Ghost Island has earned its name and it is used with care and subtle emphasis that never distracts from the harsh reality of the events.
Tina Nunnally translation is transparent, there is no sense that this story is anything less than entirely Swedish in its context, cast or atmosphere nor is there any sense that it was not in fact written directly in English. The translation allows the cast and the story emerge completely and forcefully.

The Stone Cutter. Camilla Lackberg, Steven T. Murray (Translator). HarperCollins (2010)

A gripping Swedish crime story that traces the impact of selfishness of every degree on a varied and engaging cast. In the small town of  Fjallbacka the body a young girl is pulled from sea by a fisherman,the postmortem reveals that it was murder not an accidental death. Detective Patrik Hedstrom leads the investigation which leads to to the girl's family, neighbors and closer to home. The plot mechanics are superb, the reveals are wonderfully staged and the final reckoning is as cold and dark as an night in the Arctic.
Camilla Lackberg has a wonderfully confident control of the story, using an extended cast and a long flashback that curl around each other until they finally touch with a savage understanding of how the past has driven the present. The cast are really well drawn, the smallest walk on part is given the same care and attention as the major player. Patrik Hedstron, a new father coping with the the complete upheaval of his life and trying to understand the new landscape he is in with his partner Erica while managing the investigation. Erica is trying to come to terms with being a mother and what it means to and for her, her friend Charlotte is the mother of the murdered child and has serious domestic problems of her own.
As the lives of the cast come under increased scrutiny and pressure they respond in very credible ways and begin to question long term choices and to re-assess their lives. Those who are capable of emotional movement are given the time and space to make new choices. Those who are set in selfishness get to follow their choices down to the bitter bleak ends they have made for themselves. Looming over the rest of the cast is an astonishing portrait of  monumental, poisonous selfishness that methodically distorts and consumes every other life that she is involved with.
The rest of the cast are measured against this character as she moved through the past and slowly into the present, her actions slowly setting the context for the events in the present. Camilla  Lackberg makes an intriguing choice with this character in comparison to the rest of the cast. She is an unbridled monster who sows destruction everywhere she goes, yet she carries the slightest of the consequences handed out to the others. The rest of the cast of fallible, weak and inherently selfish characters all suffer much greater consequences for their actions that she does. The sheer depth of her greed for self leaves no room for any sense of error or transgression, the rest of the cast have inklings, however vague, of the wrongs that have done. This gives their punishment a sharp edge that can actually cut into them.
A nice line of sharp humour keep the book from being unreadablely bleak and the way that the invincible self-regard of one of the cast is actually rewarded is a clever counterpoint to the main threads of the story. The translation by Steven T. Murray is transparent, this is clearly an Swedish story and cultural context, it reads in English without any distance, the reader is pulled directly in the lives and context of the cast.

The Preacher. Camilla Lackberg.Steven T. Murray(Translator). HarperCollins (2004)

A simple and superbly orchestrated plot and a large, active and engaging cast make for a gripping and hugely enjoyable thriller. In the small Swedish town of Fjallbacka, the discovery of the body of a young woman and the two skeletons marks the start of a very difficult case for Detective Patrik Hedstrom. While the case draws in a local and bitterly divided family, the Hults, the lack of clues makes progress agonisingly slow. When a second young woman disappears the the pressure on everyone involved grows to dangerous levels. The reveals are cunningly staged and the cast are given plenty of time and space to establish themselves. The conclusion is fiercely sad and fitting.
The shifting viewpoints among the large cast that allow the reader to see each cast member from their own point of view and from that of others creates a rich and varied context for the mystery at the heart of the story. The cast have independent lives beyond the mechanics of the mystery and as they reveal themselves the grip of the story intensifies. The actions of the cast as they respond to the crimes and to other pressures in their lives gives the crimes a depth and proportion. The increasing levels of collateral damage created by the old and new crimes is steadily revealed as the cast are forced to confront their own actions.
One of the very enjoyable aspects to the book is that the strongest feature of the police investigation is simple, unrelenting persistence. The obstacles the investigation encounter are incompetence and indifference much more than any clever criminality. The messy lives of the cast are sympathetically dealt with, with flashes of sharp humour that are a pleasure to read. A big generous story that is subtly disciplined and controlled, a great read.

The Ice Princess. Camilla Lackberg. HarperCollinsPublishers (2009)

An excellent crime story that proceeds at a leisurely pace and with a very large cast. A woman is found frozen in her bath in a small fishing town in Sweden, Erica Falck a writer who is in the town after the death of her parents was a childhood friend of the dead woman, Alexandra. Erica is a writer who is struggling with her current project and finds the idea of writing about the dead woman intriguing. She has never forgotten Alexandra and the sudden way her friendship ended. When it becomes clear that Alexandra has been murdered Erica's curiosity about her grows greater. Patrick Hedstron, the local detective investigating the murder finds his investigation crossing with Erica's in surprising ways.

Camilla Lackberg does not hurry the story in any way, it unfolds at a very deliberate pace with a very large cast being introduced and their actions and thoughts followed. The layers of people's lives that are revealed are carefully woven together to create a wonderful context for the action, the reveals are slowly released and they carefully create a picture of staggering cruelty and selfishness. The calm pacing of the book and the consistently humorous approach to her cast serves to finally underscore the bitter corruption that rests at the heart of the story.

This is a very engaging book, the cast are lively and very well described, they interact with each other very naturally and effectively and the time the author has taken with each of them is very well spent. Camilla Lackberg has a wry and most affectionate eye for the gap between what we want others to think of us and what we are really doing and Erica and Patrick are realised with great warmth. This is very high quality fiction and a superb crime story.