Cover Image: Stone Coffin

Stone Coffin

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Member Reviews

(I received a free copy of this book from Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.)

One sunny summer morning a young woman and her six-year old daughter are run over by a car. Both are killed immediately. Is it an accident, or did someone kill them on purpose?
The same morning the husband of the deceased young woman disappears. During the police investigation, it turns out that the husband had recently bought a property that nobody knew anything about. A few days later a macabre discovery is made in a forest nearby.

This is the seventh book in the Ann Lindell mystery novel series. I haven't read any of the others but I don't think that affected my review.

I picked this book for reading because of the blurb by Henning Mankell: "Kjell Eriksson's crime novels are among the very best." That is a pretty big rap and one that caught my attention. One wonders if Mr Mankell actually read this book or if he was just doing it as a favour for another Scandinavian author...

This was a slow and tedious read. A plot that meandered around the story, with sub-plots that really went nowhere. The ending was an ending that wasn't. No conclusion. No resolution.

Just disappointing, to be honest.


Paul
ARH

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This author has recommendations by Henning Mankell stating he is a star of Nordic fiction Sure. I have read quite a few different Nordic noir authors, and this is not one of the best ones. Perhaps something is lost in the translation or the books are edited well, but the two books by this author that I have tried to read have been very tedious going.

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Thank you Martin’s Press and Netgalley for providing me with an ARC in exchange for my honest review.
I have come to realize that this book is book number 7 in the series, however, I could follow the story and I did not feel that I was missing prior information. The book starts out with a heartbreaking murder of a mother and her 6 year old daughter who walking to the cemetery to visit the grand mother’s grave on the anniversary of her death as they have done for the past 6 years.
The main detective Ann Lindell, is on the case and is trying to find out who killed them and why. The story has a lot of twists and turns and the you will never see the end coming. When I finished the book, I realized that the full mystery has not been solved ye, I guess I will have to read the follow up.

This book is a Swedish mystery which is very different from North American novels in general. The personal lives of the characters are weaved into the story which some readers may find distracting and feel as if the story is not moving along. However, this is the style and it allows the Kjell to develop the characters and I felt that I got to know them much better.
Overall a great read and the end is yet to come….. stay tuned.

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Good introduction to Scandinavian noir for those not up to The Girl... triology.

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Thank you to Netgalley, the publisher and the author for the opportunity to read this book in return for my honest review.

I wish I had realized this was book 7 in a series, I hate starting in the middle of a series. That being said, I feel I would like to read the first six books now. I enjoyed this book. I loved Detective Ann Lindell, I cannot wait to read more books starring her. It was an interesting story and reading it from Ann's perspective was exciting. I liked that everything didn't get wrapped up at the end, I had questions, it made it somehow more realistic.
Great book.

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I blame myself for not realizing that this was book number 7 of a series and perhaps that is why I disliked it so much. I thought the whole story was painstakingly long and drawn-out and I thought the "side-story" about the detective just really got in the way of trying to enjoy a mystery which was a mystery at first and then not and then towards the end it was again?!? I just did not enjoy anything about this story.

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