Camilla Lackberg is a Swedish author of contemporary psychological thrillers. She has written ten books featuring crime writer Erica Falck and her police officer husband Patrick Hedstrom set in Camilla’s home town, the fishing community of Fjallbacka. The books can be read as stand-alone thrillers, but for extra enjoyment read them in order. That way you can follow the development of Erica and Patrick’s relationship from courting couple to parents as well as the members of Patrick’s police team as they experience love affairs, births and deaths.
The books make great Christmas reading as they are usually set in a snowy winter. In novel number one, ‘The Ice Princess’, Erica returns to her home town after the death of her parents and finds the body of her best friend frozen in a bath. Although contemporary, many of the Erica Falck series have plots which are rooted in the past, especially the Second World War. In my favourite story ‘The Hidden Child’ Erica finds an old Nazi medal amongst her dead mother’s possessions and uncovers some disturbing family history linked to present day murders.
I’ve just finished reading ‘Buried Angels’, No 8 in the series which also has its roots in WW2. A young woman returns to the island where her father ran a boarding school and where all her family except baby Ebba went missing and becomes the target of an arson attack. But like most of Camilla Lackberg’s novels the motive for present dangers are hidden in the past.
Erica Falck is both a joyous and frustrating character who struggles to balance her writing career with being a parent.
All the books in the series are well plotted and make a very satisfying read.
C J Browne 