Midwinter Sacrifice

Judy

Here we go again, with another dark Scandinavian thriller for fans of Jo Nesbo and Steig Larsson. This time it's set in Sweden, and the detective who must solve a brutal murder is, for a change, a woman.

Detective Inspector Malin Fors of the Linkoping Police is a single mother, who perhaps drinks a bit too much, but is blessed with acute female intuition

The book opens during the coldest winter in memory. As in most Scandinavian murder mysteries, the frozen landscape is an essential part of the story, a metaphor for desolation and despair. At the outset, a naked, dead man is found hanging from a tree on an ice-bound plain. He's also been brutally beaten, and Malin Fors immediately suspects he is the victim of a ritual murder. But why?

Fors identifies the victim as an eccentric loner, well-known in the town of Linkoping. He was a frequent target for abuse by local youngsters, as well as adults, tormented by them because he was obese and smelled bad

But Fors has to concentrate to separate gossip from hard fact. 'An investigation consists of a mass of voices, the sort you can hear and the sort you can't. You have to listen to the soundless voices, Malin. That's where the truth is hidden,' she is told.

And that is where this female detective comes into her own, because her instincts are extraordinary. She's a fascinating character, and extraordinarily well-drawn by a male writer, which is rare.

Richard

Midwinter Sacrifice is utterly gripping, with a superb plot. It is tense, dark, and suspenseful. I loved it. With her many personal problems, Malin makes for an intriguing and sympathetic character. Kallentoft's story is, I think, even better than Steig Larsson's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

Malin is the first police detective to arrive on the scene of a horrific spectacle: a naked, beaten man dangling from a tree. She concludes that the murder is perhaps the work of a sect, or cult. Meanwhile, bizarrely and totally unexpectedly, we discover that the hanged man has a voice. His thoughts appear on the page for us alone, the readers, to hear.'In a way, it's nice hanging up here. There's a good view, and my frozen body is swaying pleasantly in the wind. I can let my thoughts meander wherever they like. There's a calm here that I've never experienced before, that I never imagined might exist. My voice is new, my gaze too. Maybe I'm now the person I never had a chance to be.'

Creepy, that voice. Indeed, the language and the writing in this book is of very high quality. It is often lyrical, and frequently subtle. Murder mysteries are often written almost journalistically, but Midwinter Sacrifice has its own unique, wonderfully readable style. Linkoping is a small town, and Malin finds that uncovering the secrets of its inhabitants is tricky. The town may be one of Sweden's most advanced centres of technology, medicine and scholarship. But surrounded by a snowy winter landscape of trees and forests, Lindkoping also seems shut off and somehow frozen in time. Linkoping is a small town, and Malin finds that uncovering the secrets of its inhabitants is tricky. The town may be one of Sweden's most advanced centres of technology, medicine and scholarship. But surrounded by a snowy winter landscape of trees and forests, Lindkoping also seems shut off and somehow frozen in time

Midwinter Sacrifice - Mons Kallentoft