[WARNING: Contains sensitive topics that some readers may find distressing!]
"It starts with just one body - the hands bound, the skin covered in marks.
Detective Superintendent Jeanette Kihlberg is determined to find out who is responsible, despite opposition from her superiors. When two more bodies are discovered, it becomes clear that she is hunting a serial killer.
With her career on the line, Kihlberg turns to psychotherapist Sofia Zetterlund. Together, they expose a chain of shocking events that began decades ago - but will it lead them to the murderer before someone else dies?" - Taken from the blurb.
This book is far from an easy read. For those who are easily upset by pedophilia, rape, murder, etc. I would advise you to not approach this book. However, if you're like me and find psychology and the human psyche fascinating - and love a good thriller - this is an amazing book! A collaboration of two Scandinavian authors, Jerker Eriksson and Håkan Axlander Sundquist, translated by Neil Smith, we are given a story about a strong, independent female police detective. Constantly undermined by every man in her world, she is determined to solve the murders of three young boys who no one in Sweden is missing.
As a feminist (and a human being) I found some of the topics in this book rather difficult to read, and I watch crime documentaries in the dark alone. The graphic descriptions of rape and sexual child abuse caused me to question every now and then if I genuinely wanted to continue reading, remembering that these things happen to real people and we cannot dismiss these things simply because they make us uncomfortable.
Spoilers Ahead!
So don't hate me if I get some of this information wrong, but we are going to start off by looking at the beginning, the first part of the book. We are introduced to a mysterious woman who has kidnapped a young boy, drugging him and hiding him in a house. We soon find out that this is not the first child she has kidnapped, as our protagonist, Detective Jeanette Kihlberg, is put on the case of a couple of mummified refugee boys. Now the story line of this book is rather jumpy, and even though I have just read it, somethings are still unsolved for me.
Victoria Bergman, the daughter of a known paedophile, Bengt Bergman, is the main character of our story. We don’t know it in the beginning, but Victoria is the core personality of Sophia Zetterlund, the young. Sophia Zetterlund the elder, is Victoria’s former psychiatrist due to her not coping with her childhood abuse from her father and his “friends”. Victoria has created multiple personalities in order to deal with the horrific events from her childhood, including being raped by her father and giving birth to their shared daughter as well as being forced to give her up.
In the present day, events unfold for Jeanette, both in her work life and personal life. She discovers that many people are involved in the dead children investigation, however, those people start to be murdered in brutal ways. Those involved were the “friends” of Bengt Bergman, and it is soon revealed that they were all part of a cult where they kidnapped (or “adopted”) and sexually abused refugee children – see where I’m going with this?
So, we have two murderers on the loose here, but Jeanette is struggling to get the commissioner’s attention as something is very suspicious. Many wealthy men play a big part in this case, and they are all being killed by someone who Jeanette thinks is involved in some way as well. But who? The story line gets very confusing when other murderers are introduced, in addition to Victoria’s many personalities. Who is real and who is made up is questioned throughout the book, and even though it is written in omnipotent third person, the reader is still left clueless.
The ending suggests that we may be given a resolution to the story of Victoria, however, I wouldn’t be kicking and screaming if we never get anything more from these authors. Even though some of the story felt a bit crammed at the end – think the final season of Game of Thrones where the producers just shoved random story lines in our faces that were not fully built. It was a difficult book to stick to content wise, but I really enjoyed the fast-paced story. For me it is really important to keep me interested in the book, if it goes on for too long being boring I may just switch off and stop reading it altogether. That did not happen here. I am a VERY slow reader, and in total I read this in like a week.
I gave The Crow Girl four out of five stars. One for its interesting story line, one for its character development, one for its fast paced action, and a final star because it held my interest for so long – I am still thinking about it and finding it difficult to move on!
★★★★☆
Get the book here!
Fantastic! I have bought the book and going to give it a try! Thank you.