Hidden In Shadows (The Åre Murders Book Two) by Viveca Sten

 

Hidden In Shadows (The Åre Murders Book Two) by Viveca Sten.

Translated by Marlaine Delargy.

Published 5th December 2023 by Amazon Crossing.

Audio book narrated by Laura Jennings.

From the cover of the book:

Secrets, vengeance, and a brutal murder unsettle an idyllic winter paradise...

In the Swedish ski resort of Åre, crime is rare. Certainly nothing so brutal as the murder of Johan Andersson, a former Olympic skier found bound and beaten to death in the forest. According to his distraught wife, he didn’t have any enemies in the world. To Detective Inspectors Hanna Ahlander and Daniel Lindskog, the crime proves otherwise. But what could have provoked such rage? And in whom?

As Hanna and Daniel search for answers, Rebecka Ekvall, a vulnerable pastor’s wife, is trapped in an abusive marriage. Isolated from her congregation, she’s afraid of her husband and even more fearful for her life. Because Rebecka carries a fateful secret. But she isn’t the only one in Åre with something to hide.

As Hanna and Daniel continue to untangle the dark histories of a growing list of suspects, they realize that Johan’s murder is just the beginning of a disturbing case about survival and revenge—at any cost.

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Just a few months after the community of Åre was shocked by the killing of a teenaged girl, another murder in this quiet Swedish ski resort has everyone talking. Plumber, Johan Andersson, has been found battered to death in the snow. Everyone liked the personable former Olympic skier, and it seems impossible that someone could have killed him in such a brutal fashion.

Detective Inspectors Hanna Ahlander and Daniel Lindskog have a another difficult investigation on their hands...

Following on from the first book in the series, Hidden in Snow, this opens with the discovery of Johan's body, sparking a new murder investigation in Åre. Hannah and Daniel are on the trail of a murderer once again, but why anyone would want to kill a man who was apparently so well-liked is a mystery - until they discover that his gambling-addicted business partner had threatened Johan and his wife in the weeks running up to the crime. He seems the obvious culprit, but is the case really that simple?

The story unfolds through a number of narratives, as in the previous book, largely through the voices of Hannah and Daniel, and a character called Rebecka Ekvall, the wife of a pastor from the ultra conservative Light of Life church. It takes some time to discover quite how Rebecka's account of an abusive and controlling marriage fits into the big picture around Johan's murder, and Sten builds lovely suspense going back and forth between the complexities of the investigation, and Rebecka's worsening situation, before the threads of the plot cross over.

Additional narratives from Johan's wife, Marion, and Hannah and Daniel's colleague Anton are used cleverly - Marion's to provide a persistent little niggle in the back of you mind, and Anton's to add an interesting side-plot around his struggles with opening up about his sexuality (and his attraction to a witness in the case). I was less enamoured by Sten's decision to add the voice of Daniel's one-dimensional partner, Ida, to the mix.

It was great to see Hannah finding her feet in the wake of her personal and professional troubles, but I would like to see something more from the Daniel-Ida dynamic than the guilt-trip vs jealousy vibe. Either properly explore the issues that both of them have with some couple's counselling (could be interesting), or leave Daniel's constant buffeting between a rock and a hard place to the cop-has-difficulty-maintaining-a-settled-home life trope we all know and love. Two books in and it is getting tedious in a way that interrupts the flow of the story.

I really enjoyed how the pieces of this puzzle gradually come together though, especially when the significance of Rebecka's part in the plot is revealed. The tension in the final stages of the story is first-class, and I found myself holding my breath at more than one point as all the threads collide in the midst of a raging snow storm (just my cup of tea). The continuing themes of dysfunctional relationships, violence against women, and what goes on behind closed doors are explored well too.

Laura Jennings' capable narration carried me through this one, as in the first instalment, and I am looking forward to listening to her once again in book three, Hidden in Memories.

Hidden in Shadows is available to buy now in paperback, ebook and audio formats.

The Åre Murders series is currently available free for Kindle Unlimited subscribers.

About the author:

Viveca Sten is the author of the Åre Murder series and the #1 internationally bestselling Sandhamn Murders series. Since 2008, the series has sold close to eight million copies, establishing her as one of Scandinavia’s most popular authors. Set on the island of Sandhamn, the novels have been adapted into a Swedish-language TV series shot on location and seen by almost one hundred million viewers around the world.

Viveca lives in Stockholm with her husband and three children, but she alternates between Sandhamn in the summer and Åre in the winter, where she writes and vacations with her family.