The Ice Princess [Paperback]

Camilla Läckberg (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1, 2008

Returning to her hometown after the funeral of her parents, writer Erica Falck finds a community on the brink of tragedy. The death of her childhood friend, Alex, is just the beginning. Her wrists slashed, her body frozen in an ice-cold bath, it seems, at first, that she has taken her own life. Erica conceives a memoir about the beautiful but remote Alex, one that will help to overcome her writer's block as well as answer questions about their own past. While her interest grows to an obsession, local detective Patrik Hedstrom is following his own suspicions about the case. But it is only when they start working together that the truth begins to emerge about this small town with a deeply disturbing past-

--This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. At the start of Läckberg's haunting U.S. debut, the first of her seven novels set in the Swedish coastal town of Fjällbacka, biographer Erica Falck returns home to sort through her deceased parents' belongings and work on her next book. But this is not the same hometown she grew up in. Summer tourists are turning the former fishing village into a thriving resort, and Erica's controlling brother-in-law is pressuring her to cash in by selling the family home. The apparent suicide of childhood friend Alexandra Wijkner contributes to Erica's grief. Once inseparable, they drifted apart before Alex's family abruptly moved away, and Erica feels compelled to write a novel about why the beautiful Alex would kill herself. Läckberg skillfully details how horrific secrets are never completely buried and how silence can kill the soul. A parallel between the town's downward spiral and the fate of one of Fjällbacka's wealthiest families adds texture. (June)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Booklist

*Starred Review* Murray, who has translated the works of both Henning Mankell and Stieg Larsson, adds another Scandinavian crime star to his résumé with this subtle rendering of Lackberg’s debut, a number-one best-seller in Sweden and the winner of France’s 2008 Grand Prix de Littérature Policière for Best International Crime Novel. Erica, a thirtysomething biographer struggling with her latest book, deals with her grief over her parents’ untimely death and her mixed feelings about returning to her hometown after years in Stockholm. On a whim, she visits her childhood friend Alex only to find her dead in the bathtub. The grieving parents ask Erica to write an article about Alex for a local newsletter, which forces her to try to make sense of her friend’s life and death. As Erica delves deeper into Alex’s past, she begins to work with a local police officer, Patrik, another childhood friend, and together they uncover secrets that some people would greatly prefer were left secret. Set in winter in the coastal town of Fjallbacka, the novel uses the off-season quiet in the small village—many of the houses are empty—to create a chilling atmosphere in which silence drives suspense. This excellent thriller is a must-read for fans of Scandinavian crime literature and will especially appeal to those who enjoy Asa Larsson’s Rebecka Martinsson novels, as Rebecka and Erica are of a similar age and both return to the remote villages of their childhoods. --Jessica Moyer --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 400 pages
• Publisher: Harpercollins Pb (April 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0007253931
• ISBN-13: 978-0007253937
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 5.9 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (77 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #322,260 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

74 of 82 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Sweden's answer to Agatha Christie? Not so much., December 30, 2009

By 

Rachel (Melbourne, Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Ice Princess (Hardcover)

I'm a huge fan of Scandinavian crime fiction, and Sweden has produced some sensational authors: Henning Mankell, Stieg Larsson, Liza Marklund, Karin Alvtegen (and this is not an exhaustive list). While Camilla Läckberg shows some promise, she has a long way to go before she can be considered of similar calibre.

The novel's premise is intriguing: writer Erica Falck's best childhood friend, with whom she lost touch, dies suddenly, apparently by her own hand. As Erica, in tandem with another childhood friend (and eventual love interest), local copper Patrik Hedström, look into the circumstances further, they find that the explanation is not so simple. Inevitably, they uncover secrets that have been hidden for decades.

The claustrophobic small town setting is relatively well drawn, and the novel started off really promisingly. Unfortunately, there are a number of issues with it that interfere with the flow of the story. Another reviewer has commented on the numerous "filler" scenes, full of redundant information, which bog down the narrative - for example, too frequently we have a scene where Character A tells Character B the same information that the reader has already been told on the previous page. Similarly, while Patrik and Erica are engaging characters, I really did not care about their incipient romance and Erica's repetitive musings on "Does he like me? Will I look fat in this?" became tedious (yes, we even have a Bridget Jones-esque scene where Erica debates whether to go with the lacy undies or the supportive nanna knickers, and just in case we don't get what has inspired this scene, Bridget Jones is helpfully referenced in the text ... mildly amusing at best, but did not advance the plot one jot, and should have been cut). Nor, for example, did we really need to know about the romantic history and family life of Patrik's friend, Robert the forensic scientist - he only appears in a few pages of one chapter. I found myself skimming those scenes. Further, I felt that the themes of domestic violence and child abuse were not explored quite as well as they could have been, and dealt with quite simplistically. The big reveals towards the end felt rushed and somewhat anticlimactic.

The character development is a bit patchy, partly because there is far too much telling rather than showing, and too many POV shifts. Erica herself, and Nelly Lorentz, a wealthy widow with an apparently inexplicable interest in the deceased's victim's family, are the most well developed and interesting. Patrik is the standard nice guy, bordering on Marty Stu territory. By contrast, Erica's sister Anna's husband, Lucas, is a cardboard cutout villain, with no trace of the charm that supposedly led Anna to fall for him in the first place. While we frequently see him only through the eyes of Erica, who can't stand him, there is no complexity to him at all; this subplot would have been much more effective had he and Erica been on good terms, with Erica slowly becoming uneasy that things are not quite right. In fact, I think this storyline would have been better dealt with standing alone; it really had little relevance to the major plot.

The prose is uneven, especially the dialogue, with characters speaking in an often stilted and unnatural way and overusing each other's names; seriously, no-one in real life talks like that unless they're a telemarketer who rings you in the middle of dinner. I acknowledge this could at least partly be due to the translation, but unfortunately I don't read Swedish so cannot compare it to the original. Either way, some judicious editing would have helped.

I've given it three stars because it is a reasonable, not too demanding holiday read. However, despite what the publisher's spiel claims, Läckberg is not yet any threat to Agatha Christie based on this effort.

35 of 41 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars 3.5* - slow-paced yet engaging mystery, November 10, 2009

By 

Z Hayes (TX, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Ice Princess (Hardcover)

I am a fan of Scandinavian mysteries, and count Karin Fossum, Henning Mankell, Arnaldur Indridason, Johan Theorin, Mari Jungstedt, and Yrsa Sigundadottir, among others, as my favorite authors. Camilla Lackberg's "The Ice Princess" is an interesting read, though it is slow and plodding in parts. The story is set in a seemingly idyllic fishing town in Sweden, where a beautiful and reclusive young woman, Alex, is found dead in her parents' home, seemingly a suicide, with her wrists slashed in the bath-tub. Erica Falck, a biographer and Alex's childhood friend is the second person to discover the body and this sets the stage for her eventual deep involvement in the case. Together with policeman and old school friend, Patrik Hedstrom, the pair do their best to solve the mystery (independent of each other and later together) when it turns out that Alex's death was not due to suicide but murder.

The story unfolds very slowly, there really is no fast-paced action here. What readers get instead is a meticulously-detailed plot with lots of twists and different story arcs, all weaved together in a fine example of story-telling. Erica is a complex character - having had a strained relationship with her mother (who apparently was indifferent to Erica), she has become very protective of her married, younger sister Anna, who is under the control of her domineering husband, Lucas. Erica shies away from serious relationships with men, which changes when she meets old school pal Patrik and they begin investigating the case informally. Patrik is the nice guy who gets along with everyone and who digs deep to get at the truth. There are many other characters in the story - beginning with the murder suspect & resident drunk Anders, Anders' mom Vera, society lady Nelly, the dead woman's wealthy husband Henrik, Erica's high school sweetheart Dan and many more.

As the story unfolds, dark secrets are unearthed, revealing some very troubling and horrifying family secrets that some would prefer stay buried. I found "The Ice Princess" to be a satisfying read, though it could have done with better editing as some parts seemed more like "fillers" and only served to slow down the story. I do look forward to reading Ms. Lackberg's other novels.

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars 3.75 out of 5 Stars, March 30, 2011

By 

Jennifer O. "bibliophile" (Texas) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Ice Princess: A Novel (Paperback)

I may be the only living female who hasn't yet read Stieg Larsson's Millenium Trilogy. So, when Lackberg's new book is compared to the Scandinavian publishing phenomenon, it doesn't register much with me.

Maybe that's a good thing. There's nothing to compare The Ice Princess to. I'm not a reader of the recent craze of Swedish noir, though I will venture into Henning Mankell territory next week. Thus, this novel will be considered strictly on its own merits.

The Story:

Erica Falck moves to her hometown of Fjallbacka, Sweden after the death of her parents. A writer, she is attempting to finish her fourth biography when she discovers the death of her childhood friend, Alex. Found in a tub of nearly frozen water with both wrists slashed, Alex's death sets off an investigation to which no one person is exempt. Erica is drawn into the tragedy and mystery surrounding the life and death of her estranged friend. Along with Patrik Hedstrom, a police detective assigned to the case, Erica finds out more about the quiet close-knit seaside community than she ever wanted to know.

The Review:

There was so much going on in this thriller. A prodigious amount of colorful characters: from the eccentric elderly Mrs. Petren, who uses thousands of Santas and a state of the art coffee machine to ensure a steady stream of guests; to the aging socialite Nelly Lorentz, who is somehow involved in Alex's death; to Alex's sister, Julia, who is grieving in a very unusual way.

Lackberg touches on a number of issues--domestic violence, child abuse, negligence, mental illness, and adultery--without devolving into the typical moralistic fare. Every detail of human nature is spot on, except the voice of the victim of domestic violence; in this case, it seems Lackberg consulted case studies and assigned the voice of the psychologist to the victim herself.

In addition to that, there was an awkwardness to some of the sentences; I don't know whether that was caused by the translator or the author herself. It's nothing especially jarring, just an awareness of the bump in the flow.

In addition to that, one of my chief complaints is that the deceased character seems to be the one most filled with life. Alex is well defined, which distinguishes from most of the other characters. Even Erica's voice didn't seem quite her own (as much as the author's) until about 100 pages in, when the writing noticeably improves and the story becomes more gripping.I've heard that Lackberg's writing improves with each new book, so I'm interested to see how the next one goes.

This story was engrossing, the characters profound, and the atmosphere well drawn.

The Opinion:

Aside from those negatives, The Ice Princess is a fast, light read that will keep you racing through the pages to find answers that will make your jaw drop. Seriously.

3.75 out of 5 stars