Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Although a lifelong mystery reader, I had always shied away from Scandinavian mysteries. I tended to think in terms of “Scandinavian Noir”- grim, claustrophobic and cold. However, I’ve become quite fond of some over the past several months so was delighted to see a translation of Vivica Sten’s first Sandham mystery available as an Amazon Kindle First pick. I enjoyed “Still Waters” a lot. Not the least bit “Noir” (paranoid, seedy, dealing with corrupt officials, etc.), it was refreshing to read a modern true mystery novel that did not involve slavering serial killers murdering in bizarrely gruesome ways. Part traditional mystery, part police procedural, the book is well written with interesting, believable characters. I found the main detective, Thomas Andreasson, very good company with a strong “cast of supporting players”. Since this is a murder mystery of course there are murders :) But they are not excessively gruesome. There is little foul language and no graphic sex scenes. And although most of the book takes place on islands of the Swedish archipelago, events take place in summer months so no time was spent in snow and ice :) (For those geographically challenged as I am, the archipelago are the islands are off the east coast near Stockholm in the Baltic Sea.) On the downside, there were a few things that I found a bit tedious. First of all I thought the “who-done-it” was apparent fairly early on which made the “why-done-it” not too difficult to figure out. This made much of the investigation uninteresting. And I became irritated with the best friend’s marriage to a jerk which took up a lot of the story but since this is the first in a series, I suppose some foundation is necessary. Keeping track of Swedish names- particularly location names- was a little difficult. This may bother some US readers but I actually enjoyed it. I’m looking forward to the rest of the series becoming available in the U.S. I recommend this especially to those like me who are tired of the psycho serial killer stories that seem to have taken over the mystery field :)