Helpful Score: 1
First Line: The evening was turning out better than expected.
No couple wants their party to end with thrown punches and jealous accusations, but the party thrown by Per and Helena in their cabin on Gotland ended exactly that way. The next morning, Helena's body is found-- she's been the victim of a brutal axe murder. Normally a quiet island that bustles when all the summer visitors arrive, Gotland puts Inspector Anders Knutas in charge of the investigation. Clues may be slow to piece together, but two more grisly murders follow in rapid succession. Knutas has his work cut out for him, and he has yet to decide if the presence of reporter Johan Berg is more help or hindrance.
After reading two of Johan Theorin's novels which are also set on the island of Gotland, I felt as though I were already familiar with the location, but Jungstedt's focus is on the towns and not the natural world. Through her descriptions of communities like Visby, I am now more aware of the history of the area.
I enjoyed Jungstedt's characterizations of Knutas and his wife as well as the reporter Johan Berg, but the secondary characters were two-dimensional and didn't really come to life. I also found the killer's motivations to be a bit cliched, and the police slow to jump at some rather obvious clues.
On the whole, however, I enjoyed Unseen and thought it shows quite a bit of promise. I'll be looking for other books in this series.
No couple wants their party to end with thrown punches and jealous accusations, but the party thrown by Per and Helena in their cabin on Gotland ended exactly that way. The next morning, Helena's body is found-- she's been the victim of a brutal axe murder. Normally a quiet island that bustles when all the summer visitors arrive, Gotland puts Inspector Anders Knutas in charge of the investigation. Clues may be slow to piece together, but two more grisly murders follow in rapid succession. Knutas has his work cut out for him, and he has yet to decide if the presence of reporter Johan Berg is more help or hindrance.
After reading two of Johan Theorin's novels which are also set on the island of Gotland, I felt as though I were already familiar with the location, but Jungstedt's focus is on the towns and not the natural world. Through her descriptions of communities like Visby, I am now more aware of the history of the area.
I enjoyed Jungstedt's characterizations of Knutas and his wife as well as the reporter Johan Berg, but the secondary characters were two-dimensional and didn't really come to life. I also found the killer's motivations to be a bit cliched, and the police slow to jump at some rather obvious clues.
On the whole, however, I enjoyed Unseen and thought it shows quite a bit of promise. I'll be looking for other books in this series.
