I am just amazed when a debut author presents a crime thriller in a fresh way. Risks abound for it to be taken seriously as if getting published was not already an impossibly high hurdle to so many. Yet here we have a police procedural that is based in Sweden, that is original, inventive and so imaginative. At a time when psychology and close relationships seem to be the subject of every new book trying to replicate any female on a form of transport. Lina Bengtsdotter has approach the genre with a discerning gaze and written a remarkable novel. It is also a book deserving a second reading not because it is over complicated but to appreciate all the nuanced content. The author also had a number a flawed characters so in an imperfect world no-one in this fictional account, based on small town Sweden, measures up as an upright citizen. I loved the sense of secrets in a tight community where normally everyone appears to know each other’s business. A missing teenager in a settlement a couple of hours from the capital, sends two Stockholm detectives to support and lend their expertise. Gullsapång is where the drama takes place. It is also where one of the detectives grew up. It isn’t so much a return of the girl who did so well but a re-union to incomplete memories and thoughts that continue to trouble her mind and sleep. A wonderful story of broken lives and shattered dreams that is tense, thrilling and a refreshing pinch of truth.

The search for a missing girl in rural Sweden forms the backdrop to this intelligent crime story from Lina Bengtsdotter. A teenager, Anabelle, has not returned home from a wild party in a down-at-heel town in deepest Sweden. DI Charline “Charlie” Lager and her colleague Anders have been sent to investigate. Nearly everyone involved in this procedural is troubled. We first meet Charlie recovering from a monumental hangover and one-night stand. But that’s as nothing to the goings on in Gullspång, where the town’s teenagers are drinking nearly as much as their parents, everyone reliant on the local paper mill for a living, and under-age sex and drugs are very much on the cards. Inevitably the police initially get nowhere, but not everyone is being as helpful as they might. At the same time, Charlie is facing up to the face that she’s returning to the town of her childhood – somewhere she hoped she would never return to again. Everywhere you turn in this novel, there are ghosts of what happened before, and it probably wasn’t pretty. The book moves along quite nicely, and it has a structure that sends the reader forwards and backwards in time as we learn what really happened. I found the book highly readable, with it portraying a depressing picture of a part of the Swedish countryside that I found convincing.

Detective Charlie Lager is sent back to her hometown of Gullspang to help local police with the case of a missing 17 year old girl, Annabelle, who went missing after a party. As Charlie begins to investigate the case with her partner, Anders Bratt, she has to confront ghosts from her own past. Scandi Noir is not my usual genre, and I would say that this is more of a mystery than a crime novel. The investigation into Annabelle's disappearance is not the main focus of the book. We learn all about Charlie, and her early life with an alcoholic mother, and turning to drugs, alcohol and promiscuity in later life. Annabelle seems to be a good girl but we soon find out that she has her own secrets. The setting of the book is quite bleak,. There's nothing much to do in Gullspang, it seems, except drink! I thought the book was very well written, It is an English translation of a book originally released in Sweden,, and the translation is very good. I would like to thank NetGalley and the Orion Publishing Group for providing an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

This is the english translation of a popular book released last year in Sweden. The first of a series, it introduces DI Charlie Lager of the National Operations Dept. in Stockholm. When a young girl from the small town of Gullspång goes missing, she & colleague Anders Bratt are sent to help with the investigation. As we quickly learn, Charlie has a boatload of secrets. One of them is she actually grew up in Gullspång with her alcoholic mother Betty. And she’s spent most of her life suppressing the memories. Not a problem, she’ll just keep that to herself & do her job (& pack her medication). Besides, what are the odds she’ll be recognized after 20 years? Annabelle Roos is a smart, vivacious teenager who loves a good party. There’s not much to do in Gullspång except get together & drink. As far as she’s concerned, her future does not include sticking around. But until then, she has to survive small town gossip & her unstable mother. Turns out Annabelle has a few secrets of her own & after one night of partying, she disappears. The book has 4 story lines that alternate & gradually connect to the overall arc of the plot. The one given the least amount of space is the investigation into Annabelle’s disappearance. In other chapters we follow her over the course of her last few days leading up to the party. There’s also the story of Rosa & Alice, 2 young girls whose friendship takes a sinister turn. And lastly, we relive Charlie’s childhood as her return to town opens the floodgates on all those memories & events she’s worked so hard to forget. So here’s the deal. This author has some serious writing skills & the fact it is a debut novel just makes it all the more impressive. Kudos also go out to the translator. The prose is smooth & without the odd phrases or stilted dialogue I’ve come across in other translated works. But I think your enjoyment of this book may be tied to your reading preferences. This was a new author for me so I did a little reading up on her books & saw this tagged as a thriller. I would have to humbly disagree. If forced to give it a label, I’d say it’s a combination of family drama & suspense. I thought I was picking up a police procedural which I love to read but soon discovered the investigative aspect plays a minor role. This is actually Charlie’s story. And boy, does she have one to tell. I won’t get into details but since she fled Gullspång, Charlie’s life has been a steady stream of booze, pills & meaningless one night stands. And as we revisit the past with her, we come to understand why she has a few “issues”. The choice to make Charlie’s personal story the focus may have been because this is book #1 in a series & the author wanted to establish the character & her history. So when it came to rating the book, I chose to base it on personal preference & what I enjoy reading. It’s just a simple mismatch between book & reader & not a reflection of this author’s ability to craft a compelling story. If you’re a fan of character driven drama this should be right up your street. By the end the fates of Annabelle, Rosa, Alice & Betty are revealed & there are some surprises in store. As for Charlie….well, she’s got a long road ahead of her but you get the feeling she’s finally made peace with her past.

For The Missing introduces us to DI Charlie Lager, a detective in the Stockholm police force, who along with her colleague Anders Bratt is given the task of trying to find out what has happened to teenager Annabelle Roos. To do this however she has to return to her childhood town of Gullspång, a place she has not been to for nineteen years. I will admit that this is a different style of book to the ones I would usually pick up. Although you would expect it to be quite fast paced with the police trying to find Annabelle before it is too late, the writing style gives it a more sedate feel. This may be partly due to the book going between events of the past and the days leading up to Annabelle’s disappearance. At the start I was a little confused as to how the story of Rosa and Alice fitted in with the present but as you get further into the book it all becomes a lot clearer. The focus of the book is also more on the Charlie and Annabelle than the actual investigation in to the disappearance itself. That being said I found that I couldn’t put the book down as I raced to find out the ending. Charlie doesn’t like to share her personal life with her colleagues so it comes as a surprise to Anders when she finally admits that she grew up in the town that they are heading to. The choices she makes in her present life certainly seem tied to her childhood and the actions of her mother but she always make sure that they don’t affect her work. Despite her best efforts to keep her past to herself she finds that she is linked to the current events in a way even she didn’t expect. Annabelle seemed like your typical teenager rebelling against an overprotective mother, having lied about her whereabouts on the night she disappeared and maybe not being quite the innocent girl her parents believed her to be. The story of Rosa and Alice was the biggest surprise to me as what seemed like an innocent friendship actually had a more sinister conclusion and went some way to explain the actions of some of the characters throughout the book This is only the second translated book that I have read and I have to say that for a debut novel the author has certainly managed to create characters that draw you in, making you want to understand them and how they ended up in the situations that they did. The close knit community of Gullspång could relate to any small town so I think that also adds to its appeal. I will definitely look out for further books in translation by this author in the future.