Stone Coffin

Ann Lindell #3

by Kjell Eriksson, Ebba Segerberg (Translator)

Shortlisted for the Prize for Best Swedish Crime Novel.

On a sunny morning in June, a young woman and her six-year old daughter are run over by a car on the road to Uppsala. 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 in the Dominican Republic, something that nobody knew about. A few days later a macabre discovery is made in a forest nearby.

Eriksson has been nominated for the Best Swedish Crime Novel many times. Stone Coffin is the seventh novel in his critically-acclaimed and internationally-loved series.

Genres: Mystery, Fiction, Crime, Thriller, Scandinavian Literature, Sweden, Nordic Noir

303 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2001

About the author

Karl Stig Kjell Eriksson is a Swedish crime-writer, author of the novels The Princess of Burundi and The Cruel Stars of the Night, the former of which was awarded the Swedish Crime Writers' Academy Best Swedish Crime Novel Award in 2002. They have both recently been translated into English by Ebba Segerberg.

Series:
* Ann Lindell Mystery

Reviews

[Gisela Hafezparast · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really love this series. This book is much more plot centered than others, focusing on the horrific murders of a family. Whilst the reasons for the murders unfolded very slowly, I felt Eriksson presented the murderer to us early in this book, but until very much at the end, I was never sure. At some stage I even thought it was a red herring. The "side" topic this time was ethical research, a topic close to my life. I think this could have featured a bit more, but clearly this book is where we really start to understand Lindell's relationship with Edvard and why it would never have worked. I unfortunately have read these books all in the wrong order, but it is still great to discover what makes Lindell and the other detectives tick. Love it. Already started another one, alas in the wrong order again.

[CL · Rating 3 out of 5]

A mother and her six year old daughter are run over. Ann Lindell and crew are sure this was a deliberate act so they try to locate the husband who is missing. As they search for him they find her has purchased land, has a girlfriend, and there is a questionable bank transaction. As Ann attempts to solve the case she just has more questions unanswered questions. It can be read as a stand alone story but some of the references made me think that this is a series that it would have been more enjoyable had I read the first books. I would like to thank the Publisher and Net Galley for the chance to read this ARC.

[Bookread2day · Rating 4 out of 5]

I can see why Kjell Eriksson has been nominated for the best Swedish crime novel. I couldn't put Stone Coffin down. It broke my heart Emily was born and the very next day her grandmother died. Every anniversary of her death they walked to the church and laid flowers on her grave. Tragically when Josefin Cederen and Emily was on their way to the church they were both run over and killed. Was it an accident or was it done deliberate? To add to the twist on the same morning that the mother and daughter were killed in a hit and run, Josefin's husband went missing. The story is quite sad as Josefin was pregnant when she died. Can the story take more twists? Josefin's husband had a lover. Inspector Ann Lindell is leading a murder investigation. Did the husband kill his wife and child? If he did what would be his motive? Next I would like to read Open Grave by Kjell Eriksson.

[Melissa Borsey · Rating 2 out of 5]

I received a copy of this book from Netgalley in exchange for my honest review. 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.

[Feline · Rating 1 out of 5]

wenn der autor noch einmal eine frau mit den worten „ihre brüste waren klein…“ introduced flipp ich aus
#fail

[William Koon · Rating 1 out of 5]

Remember how in The Plague, they discovered how to make life seem longer? You went to a lecture in a language you did not know. You waited in line for a show you did not wish to see and when you came to the front of the line, you left. If you want your life to seem very long, read Stone Coffin by Kjell Eriksson..

Now the cover of the book has a blurb by Henning Mankell which states the author is a star of Nordic fiction Sure. It reminds me of a friend who got by on writing praises for bad books when he was in a fallow period himself. No, I don’t believe he is a creative writing teacher. He does, however, make the mistake of having a prologue.

Well, what happens? Five people get killed. Detective Ann Lindell gets pregnant from a one night stand, which shows some people will have sex with anyone since she is about as unattractive as any character I have come across in cotemporary crime fiction. She has to tell her true love Edvard about her pregnancy as he lies in a hospital room because he almost drowned.

“I love you,” he said quietly and she saw tears in his eyes. “I knew it without a doubt when I lay there in the water. I can’t live so far away from you.” “It’s not yours,” she said and she didn’t understand where she found the words or the strength.” I can’t understand the style.

Oh, and one of the victims might have also been pregnant. But then again one of the dead men did not drink gin.

Those are details. Eriksson drowns you in an endless catechism of useless details that do nothing other than fill up the book.

Oh, and there’s a multinational pharma company who is exploiting cute primates of some sort, but again this theme loses your interest before the nearly five hundred pages peter out into nothingness.

So we don’t have much of a plot, the characters are dull, but how about the dialogue? Try this.

“Lindell tried to see something behind the words but found nothing.”

I found nothing as well in this very boring book, except unresolved issues, red herrings, and smoking guns which shot nothing but blanks.

[Maria Beltrami · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un incidente stradale che non è un incidente, un suicidio che non è un suicicio, una scia di morte che come sempre nasce dall'avidità e dalla mancanza di rispetto nei confronti degli altri.
Ma siamo in Svezia, e quindi il lato sociale ha una speciale rilevanza in questo romanzo, a partire dalle gravidanze tormentate che legano vittime e protagoniste.
Molto piacevole.

[Jorgen Lundgren · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent read. First one by the Swedish author Kjell Eriksson but definitely not the last one. Very well written with a great finish. Realistic which is scary. Mycket bra gjort Kjell.

[Elizabeth Sulzby · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am re-reading this book and it is striking me how many books it holds within it! So many parts of it are very familiar to me but it is the complexity of the plotting that grips me in re-reading. To me, this book reads as the life story of Ann Lindell. And I am angry that we got to see so little of Gabriela Mark alive, a complex and hidden person who had yet been a great project manager with physical and emotional disabilities after a car crash in which her husband was killed and she herself gravely injured. Yet she had become a careful vegetable gardener!

It is somewhat odd that there are animal rights activists in this story and yet the injure and starving elk calf is left by Lindell in the woods with its mother. Gabriela had written notes about the calf's injury but the reader did not know it was an elk. Elk dung features broadly in Mark's attack and murder and sounds in the woods could be a murderous human or this elk pair. And a human shoe print was close by a big chuck of elk dung!

Elderly Viola is still alive in this book and has decided to will her belongings (except a large clock) to her boarder Edvard, Ann's on again/off again lover. Before I did this re-reading, I had read about the end of Viola's life. I don't remember what Ann does about her pregnancy and I am resisting looking ahead.

Loneless weighs greatly for the police and other people in this book.

[Linda Branham · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great story
It begins when a mother and her young daughter are run over and killed. The detectives are deeply affected. Ann Lindell is the main detective and is going through a troubling time in her life.
As they begin to try to determine who killed the mother and child, other situations begin to develop - are they connected?

[Miki · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book will not take to your happy place. In fact, it could make you burn your happy place, shave your head, and sow your fields with salt. It's that depressing.

[Chomsky · Rating 3 out of 5]

Il grande successo del giallo scandinavo ha portato alla ricerca di nuovi autori da presentare ai lettori e Kjell Eriksson è uno di questi giallisti meritevoli d'attenzione.

Purtroppo in italiano sono stati tradotti solo due libri,“Il giardino di pietra”, terzo atto di una serie di dieci romanzi incentrati sulla poliziotta Ann Lindell e il quarto “La principessa del Burundi”.

Un tragico incidente che causa la morte della moglie e della figlia di un ricercatore farmaceutico mette in moto un'inchiesta che nel tempo porta alla scoperta di reati agghiaccianti e ai responsabili di altri due delitti.

Anche se le indagini sono condotte coralmente la protagonista è Ann Lindell, investigatrice dalle buone intuizioni ma che attraversa un difficile periodo sia fisico che psicologico e che stenta a capire la trama degli omicidi.
Ambientato principalmente ad Uppsala, città storica svedese poco frequentata dai giallisti, e, lateralmente in Spagna e nella Repubblica Dominicana il giallo è convincente nello sviluppo della trama e nella denuncia sociale perché rappresenta un mondo, come ricordava Raymond Chandler, in cui i gangster possono dominare le nazioni e poco manca che governino le città , anche se non raggiunge i livelli di Henning Mankell ma difetta di ritmo e di fluidità essendo monotono e legnoso.

Tutto sommato un buon giallo che poteva diventare ottimo con un po' più di velocità e di incisività.

[Joy · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars.

I thought this was recommended somewhere, but I can’t remember where! (It doesn’t look like it was mentioned in Crime by the Book and it also wasn’t mentioned in CBTB’s interview with Ragnar Jonasson, so I’m perplexed about where I heard of this.)

This one grew one me, and it really gathered in momentum, for sure. It was ultimately very intense and had multiple different story lines going on. I would say the lead characters weren’t developed the way I usually like, but I do think they were developed very much in keeping with Nordic crime noir, and I think I can make my peace with that here. I’m trying to decide if I will read further in this series. I might… but I also see some negative GR reviews of the next one, so TBD…

Lastly, I’ll note that not only did I find a few typos in this book, but it also didn’t seem like it was a really strong English translation—at least of American English, anyway. I was surprised by this at first, but then I realized this was, I think, the first book in this series to be translated to English, so they may have been giving it a bit of a whirl and not bringing in the big guns? There were just a number of phrases and wording choices that no one would ever say in normal American English, and that just kept reminding me that I was reading a translation.

[Antonella Montesanti · Rating 3 out of 5]

Un bel giallo nordico.
Si lascia leggere volentieri fino a metà, poi perde un po' di quell'adrenalina che tiene incollato il lettore fino all'ultima pagina.
Nel complesso la trama è buona, i personaggi sono ben delineati, anche se parecchio freddi, tipica atmosfera nordica, fredda come i personaggi, il ritmo incalzante dei primi capitoli scema pian piano.
Un giallo discreto comunque consigliato.

[A Reader's Heaven · Rating 2 out of 5]

(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

[Mike Cuthbert · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kjell Eriksson could be, and undoubtedly has been, criticized for letting the personal lives of his detectives play too large a role in his mysteries. In the case of this Swedish novel, however, Ann Lindell, his lead detective in Uppsala, has innumerable personal problems and a major distraction: her love life that may be about to be resolved. Edvard, a mysterious figure in many ways, has come back into her life sporadically but she, nearing forty, wants some permanence and hopes it can be with him. Interrupting her misery over undetermined plans and her future, a horrific event occurs which results in a young pregnant woman and her daughter being killed by a hit-and-run driver. Her husband, Sven-Erik Cederén, disappears. The search for him is delayed while all the police focus on finding the driver who killed Josafin, his wife, and daughter. Lindell senses something is wrong with her and eventually decides that she is pregnant. She is vomiting, her breasts are sore and she remembers a one-night drunken stand with a nobody named Bengt, but she is on the Pill. What could have happened? At the risk of giving you a spoiler, I must say that Ann never takes a pregnancy test to confirm her state. She allows herself doubts throughout the novel, but never takes that confirming step. She even spends an idyllic weekend with Edvard in his hamlet on the island of Gräso and contemplates living there, leaving Uppsala. Edvard moves on to his life and Ann moves back to trying to find the killer. She even ends up in Malaga, Spain, to track down connections with Cederén’s business. She has little success there but finds some links to the eventual solution of the case. In the meantime, Gabriella Marks, Cederén’s mistress, is murdered, Cederén’s body is discovered after a seeming suicide attempt and the case becomes even more complex. Or is it now THREE cases? Throughout the plot, Lindell’s colleagues are portrayed in all their humanity, particularly Haver, a young detective whose wife suspects him of a lust for Lindell. That he accompanies her to Spain does not help, but nothing happens. The most touching relationship she has is with an almost-retired officer named Ottosson who is almost like a father figure to her. So much so that he is the first one to whom she admits her fear that she is pregnant. Too much soap opera? Not in Eriksson’s hands as Lindell tries to focus and proceed on the three fronts she is faced with while dealing with her desires for a different life. Maybe. There is an indeterminacy about Lindell throughout the novel that adds to the suspense. She is a very sympathetic heroine and a good detective; a perfect focus for an excellent novel that operates on several levels at once, all satisfactory. This is the seventh Lindell novel. It begs for an eighth if for no other reason than to find out if she is suffering a false pregnancy! Very exceptional writing by an excellent and sure-footed crime writer.

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Eriksson wrote sensitively from his detective Ann Lindell's POV, keeping many balls up in the air as he traced a hideous crime that involved a multinational drug company. Great character analysis and swiftly moving plot whose loose ends were all the more realistic for not being tied up at the end. Bravo!

[Elisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I chose to read this ARC and all opinions in this review are my own and completely unbiased.
This is my first novel by Kjell Eriksson, which is surprising since I am a big fan of Nordic crime. The story mentions some of Ann Lindell's previous cases, but you don't need to know the backstory because the plot is perfectly self-contained. It is also unpredictable and the ending truly surprised me. The characters are well developed, even if I haven't gotten to know them through the previous books. If anything, some parts slowed down the action because they focused too much on the characters and their feelings. And this is probably where having read the previous novels helps, since I wasn't attached to Ann and her personal relationship wasn't as important to me. I kept wishing she'd just go back to solving the murder. In any case, it was interesting to get to spend a Midsommer's Eve with her, learning more about Swedish traditions. Regarding the murder investigation, it was really interesting and kept me turning the pages. As a last note I must say that I found the translation a little distracting. When a translation is good, you don't notice that the story was originally written in a foreign language but in this case I kept going back and trying to figure out what the author had really said in the original version. Still, I will add this series to my TBR because now I want to know what happens next.

[Ashley Gillan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book has great potential, but doesn't to the exciting action promised in the description. It's more a crawl through an intriguing-enough mystery, rather than an action-packed escapade.

The book follows Ann Lindell, who is investigating the murder of a woman and her young daughter soon be husband is tracked down, and his fate leaves more questions than answers. Why would a successful young man on the brink of taking in some big money run down his family? Or if he didn't do it, who did?

Sounds good right? This book had so much potential but gets bogged down in the personal trials of the investigative team and action that unfolds fairly slowly. The action never really gets going and the mystery just ends up....solved. They figure it out and move on, I guess.

I wasn't too worried about who the culprit was by the end of the novel - but I was interested to see how it all fit together. More because I did like the idea of the novel, and wanted to see it through. But I wasn't turning pages frenetically or anything.

And there is an interesting twist, don't get me wrong. But the pace of the novel is so slow. It really takes away from the excitement that you get from most thrillers and police procedurals.

Plus, because it's a series, the personal issues presented in the novel don't get solved. They're left for the next installment - boo!

So, I don't know what to say about this one. It has the potential, but it's not there yet. Not my cup of tea.

[pennyg · Rating 2 out of 5]

A Swedish police procedural with a female detective in the lead translated by Ebba Segerberg. The book surprisingly begins with a prologue in sunny Dominican Republic. A tragic murder in Sweden leads to a trail of long reaching tragic events. Turmoil in the personal life of the detective adds to the complications of the case she is working.

This is the third book in a series and maybe I should have started with the first. I just picked this up at random, the story has some interesting aspects and a serviceable mystery but I never really warmed up to the characters or the writing style. Could be me not the book.

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

I just learned this is the seventh book in the series, but my first. Another reviewer commented that this is the warmest and most personable title thus far which is quite amazing as every character is remarkably stoic. Recommended for readers who enjoyed the Kurt Wallander novels--Ann Lindell is his female counterpart in the larger town of Uppsala. This volume is slower and paler, but very similar in content, plot line, and personality. Kudos to the English translator. I thought it was quite well done.

[Gary Van Cott · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought this was a fairly good book. Unfortunately, it is number three in the Ann Lindell series but has only been published in translation recently. Numbers one, two, and five have still not been translated. It focuses more on Ann Lindell then the next book, The Princess of Burundi, and that is a good thing. It adds more detail to her back story. I found some odd things about the translation, the best example of which is using a completely unfamiliar German term for art nouveau.

[Walter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love to read Eriksson and his familiar police officers. Mystery at its best.

[Jane Opper · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful book! Scandinavian crime stories are my favorite genre.

[Judie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stone Coffin is a page turner - found it hard to put down.

[Christina · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked the investigation and I liked the way the novel weaves into the story the personal situation of inspector Ann Lindell, who is trying to decide how she feels about Edvard Risberg, a farmer who lives on the island of Gräsö. The description of the flora and fauna of the region made me fall in love with Gräsö, even though I have never been there.

"The narrow gravel road up to Viola and Edvard's house would be surrounded by woodland geranium and Queen Anne's lace and--in the drier areas--yarrow and German catchfly." (95)

"A brimstone butterfly searched for nectar in the head of a harebell." (110)

Other passages referred to wolfsbane and linden trees (214), to stands of alder and to goldmoss sedum and thyme (117).

I loved the following description of the relationship between Ann and Edvard, which made me think of the Song of Songs:

"Once he had said something about her being as beautiful as a field of wheat. She had started to cry because she had realized the meaning and depth of this metaphor. He was a farmworker who read beauty in the landscape, that which could not be put into words, that which could be perceived only as a joyful intoxication or a peaceful gratitude for the gifts of life. That is to say, love. She wanted to be his ripened field of wheat." (255)

These passages have nothing directly to do with the police investigation, but they set up a contrast between the pastoral setting of Gräsö, where people work together and help each other, and the violent and consumerist society of the Swedish city, where people eliminate anyone who gets in the way of making money. Midway in the book, Ann thinks about this contrast: "To live your life with the hope that love can forge a connection to other people. In her work she had seen what the absence of this could lead to" (119).

[Simona Moschini · Rating 5 out of 5]

Davvero bello. E se considerate la mole di gialli nordici, e segnatamente svedesi, che mi sono sciroppata negli ultimi anni, credo di essere attendibile.

Critica e casa editrice italiana ci fanno sapere che Eriksson (classe 1953, di gran lunga antecedente all'attuale infornata di bestselleristi svedesi, e gran bell'uomo a giudicare dalla foto del risvolto di copertina) va annoverato nella scuola narrativa "realista" svedese.
Realista, sì, se si riferiscono alla bucolicità delle descrizioni della natura (il vento selvaggio da nordest, la femmina d'alce con il piccolo ferito che non sopravvivrà all'inverno, la dura vita dei pescatori, i fruscii sinistri del bosco...).
Un po' meno per quanto riguarda la caratterizzazione dei personaggi e le (rare) scene d'azione, che risultano sempre, gli uni e le altre, un po' troppo sfocati e imprecisi rispetto alla curiosità del lettore, difetto del resto comune alla maggior parte degli scrittori di queste lande.

D'accordo anche se per realismo si intende invece la struttura umana ma non consolatoria di questo giallo, in cui non tutti i nodi verranno al pettine, non tutte le vittime avranno giustizia, e gli inquirenti arriveranno a pochi passi dalla verità, fermati da questioni di extraterritorialità e da intromissioni politiche. Così come realista è la descrizione delle strategie esistenziali della protagonista Ann e di altri personaggi significativi, che commettono errori - imprudenza, distrazione, frettolosità, imprecisione - sia nel lavoro che nella vita e spesso si ritrovano a gestirne le dure conseguenze.

Avvertenza per i romantici: vi verrà voglia di andare a vivere in una fattoria sul mare come il rude Edvard o in un cottage nel bosco come la tormentata Gabriella.

[Cathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the second crime novel I've read by Kjell Eriksson. His Open Grave hooked me last year. Like his style, Swedish setting, characters, detective team and especially Detective Ann Lindell.
Stone Coffin has rare episodes of joy and happiness, but for the most part there are layers of sadness, from the hit and run of a woman and her small daughter, the profound effect on her parents, on the investigating team (similar community in fave author Camilla Lackberg's stories) and on those who knew of her; disbelief that the missing husband Sven-Eric killed her; a heaviness consumes everyone when a witness, and lover of Sven-Eric is found strangled; the promising relationship between Ann and her guy Edvard, severed at Christmas and resuscitated at Midsummer weekend culminates in the moments they each know they love one another but all hope blows up when Ann discovers she is pregnant, and not by Edvard.
These convergent storylines: who killed Josefin Cederen and her girl, Emily, who killed the lover, Gabriella, and how did Sven-Eric end up gassed in a car in the woods, Ann's progressing nausea and wide-eyed realization of her pregnancy after thinking it was just the herring and indulging in liquor at midsummer all bring to the fore loneliness, detachment, the power of love and of jealousy and who would kill as a matter of course, of survival.
While the team believes the connection is shady financials, the purchase of a property in the Dominican that causes Sven-Eric to go off the rails at his company, Medforsk or the confrontation at a local t.v. station to reveal animal testing gone wrong at the company, it is another track altogether that they must all pursue, one where relationships are revealed, where emotions are laid bare.
Through it all Ann is becoming unhinged, a first for her. So many new feelings have overcome her. She loves her career but suddenly the death of Josefin and Emily has shaken her, has made her see the case and her life in a different light. She is losing her cool, so she thinks. A baby. Does she want it. And Edvard. How will she tell him and what will it do to their new feelings for one another.
In so many ways Eriksson blends the case/s, brings new depth to the recurring characters, reveals the killer/s in a unique way and like the powerful boiling sea and sky that is the backdrop we are swept to, overwhelmed, at the ending, a fitting one, but...
There are painterly moments, moments of great poetry, 'The sea was almost completely calm...the peacefulness of the water and the pastoral idyll of this early morning caused her to swallow, deeply moved. So beautiful, so breathtakingly beautiful. Nature smiled at her and seemed to say: I envelop you in my finest clothing, my beloved.' pg 117
This is a great crime series, intelligent with an engaging narrative and characters we can feel deeply about. All good.

[BeesReads · Rating 3 out of 5]

A mother and daughter are killed by a car in a way that suggests murder. A search for the father who is the main suspect begins. Father was employed in a bioresearch company operating between Sweden and Spain. Needless to say things are not what they seem.
I had two goes at this book, first go I found elements of the translation grated - can't put my finger on it but it seemed like a Swedish person with excellent English had done the translation but it hadn't had another edit by a native English speaker. There was also a totally gratuitous mention of male genitalia - just a one off - and seemed to have been plonked in at the end of the prologue for absolutely no reason whatsoever. This kind of thing annoys me. I'm not a big fan of gratuitous, badly written sex scenes in novels that do absolutely zero to move the story along (ie most of them). This wasn't even that! Anyway, after abandoning the book then the first time, I gave it another go about a month ago and finished it. A good workmanlike story with a few twists.

[Marcie · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's been quite awhile since I gave a book five stars. I've been to many of the places in the book - Sweden, Malaga and Ronda, Spain. The author is on the nose with his description of both the places and the people. Most Scandanavian mysteries are brooding and violent - still, I am a fan of Mankell and Nesbo. That said, I hugely appreciated that Kjell Eriksson did not describe the murders that take place in the story. Some authors have moved from mystery into the horror genre by doing this. The characters are well-developed and very human. I'd not realized that this book was part of a series, and had no problem following it. That said, I now want to go back to the first story and discover how these characters evolved. And I have to say again that the author captured the cultures of both Spain and Sweden. Two thumbs up.