Cover Image: The Exiled

The Exiled

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Member Reviews

Anna discovers a web of corruption and deceit in this taut thriller that hits topical subjects. It's a good read.

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The Exiled by Kati Hiekkapelto
5 stars!

A great read that kept me guessing and is oh so timely. This was my first read of a book by Kati Hiekkapelto, but it wont be my last!



Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley who provided this e-book in exchange for an honest review.

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When a Finnish police detective visits her mother in their homeland of Serbia, close to the Hungarian border, she can't help herself asking questions when the Roma man who stole her purse is found dead. Who was the young girl who was with him, and what has become of her? Anna's quest takes her into the despised Roma community and face to face with the refugee crisis as residents of the small town pull their secrets close around them.

Though the narration of this story isn't the smoothest (characters' emotional states sometimes seem off, and the dialogue can be a bit wooden), the setting is fascinating and the story is satisfactorily tangled. Anna is forced to confront the tragedy that led to her family's exile - her father, a police officer, was killed under dubious circumstances - and the contrast between her adopted Finnish culture and the prejudices and pleasures of her homeland is nicely drawn.

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Kati Hiekkapelto used refugees to make things personal for Anna Fekete when she visits her birth place in the Balkans on holiday and gets her purse stolen. She has many friends and makes more as she ends up investigating the theft. The girl in the read dress and her brother who was murdered play the biggest part of Anna's investigation. This book has many thrilling aspects that can be found in every country that has refugees. I would have my readers read this book.

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I had trouble getting into this story, despite it sounding like something that I would really enjoy. I really didn't care about the mystery or the characters, and the way it wrapped up wasn't satisfying or surprising. I also felt like it written in a rather stilted way, which may have been a translation issues.

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