Book #41: Summertime Death by Mons Kallentoft
Summertime Death by Mons Kallentoft
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This is the second book in the Malin Fors series, and right from the start it is darker and more harrowing than the first.
The book opens with the discovery of a girl who has been raped, although she has no memory of who the perpetrator is. As the title suggests, there are murders too, although they don't occur until later on in the book. The book did get particularly gruesome when it reached its denouement.
The book followed a similar format to the first book, but gradually built up to an event that is more personal for Malin. It was something I had accidentally had spoiled for me by reading the blurb for the next book, but it was signposted throughout the book.
Despite the subject matter, I really enjoyed this book; the portrayal of Malin as a detective who is also mother felt very realistic, particularly when she realised the first victim was the same age as her daughter Tove. Later on she started imagining one of the murder victims as Tove.
The book also raised a lot of ethical issues too, addressing the fact that often rape cases get blamed on immigrants. In places the story felt like it was about a witch hunt, with two Asian men being accused of the crimes, and even attacked phyisically by one of the detectives.
This book also continued to include magical realism by having some parts told from the points of view of the dead victims. I noticed that among the switches from third person to first person, there were some paragraphs told from other points of view, usually the killer's.
I am definitely going to keep reading this series.
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