Book Review: Killer Deal by Sofie Sarenbrant

Book

Killer Deal by Sofie Sarenbrant, published May 10, 2016, Stockholm Press
Genre: police procedural, thriller

This is the third in the Emma Skold crime series by the Swedish author, and the first to be translated into English. You can tell something about the first books as things seem to have moved along for Emma, the Stockholm detective. She has moved on from her former love, Hugo, and is now in a relationship with a new love, Kristoffer, who is in real estate.

Not only is Emma heavily pregnant with her first child, but she continues to work, becoming engrossed in solving the latest crime - the death of a wealthy man in his own home. The dead man's wife, Cornelia, has been physically and emotionally abused for years and, because of this, is the prime suspect in the murder. But there are more twists and turns in the plot, so that you can't expect the real culprit till the very end.

Well written with well developed characters, the book tackles sensitive themes of domestic abuse, loss, and revenge. It ends with a cliff hanger, a plot hook that makes you want to read the next in the series.

Objective rating: 4.5/5
I received a complimentary copy of this book from Meryl Zegarek Public Relations, Inc. for review.

Book Beginning: The House on Primrose Pond by Yona Zeldis McDonough

The House on Primrose Pond, contemporary fiction by Yona Zeldis McDonough, published February 2, 2016 by NAL

Book beginning:
It's two p.m. on a freakishly warm afternoon in January. Susannah Gilmore reluctantly looks up from her laptop. Standing in the doorway of her home office is her husband, Charlie. "Have you seen what it's doing outside?" he asks. She nods, attention drifting back to the screen. "It's sixty-nine degrees." 

"The January thaw, right?" She's read about this someplace, though she can't recall where. 

"Whatever. We should take advantage of it, though. Let's go for a bike ride before the kids get home."

Book description:
Historical novelist Susannah Gilmore is captivated by an unexpected find in her late parents’ home: an unsigned love note addressed to her mother, in handwriting that is most definitely not her father’s.

Page 56:
Houses had lives and houses kept secrets. She'd already stumbled upon two of them. If she kept up her search, what else might she find? 

What intriguing book beginnings have you found this week? 

Memes:
The Friday 56. Grab a book, turn to page 56 or 56% of your eReader. Find any sentence that grabs you. Post it, and add your URL post in Linky at Freda's Voice. Also visit Book Beginning at Rose City Reader.

Trips With a Cozy Mystery

Books, knitting, and a cruise - these June cozies could make for good armchair travel! Also visit Mailbox Monday for other bloggers' new books.

Books of a Feather: A Bibliophile Mystery #10 by Kate Carlisle
San Francisco book-restoration expert Brooklyn Wainwright’s latest project is for the birds, but it may have her running for her life. 

Knit to Be Tied: A Knitting Mystery #14 by Maggie Sefton
In Fort Connor, Colorado, Kelly Flynn and the Lambspun Knitters must come together before their whole town unravels.

Title Wave: Booktown Mystery #10  by Lorna Barrett
While her bookstore, Haven’t Got a Clue, is rebuilt following a devastating fire, Tricia Miles and her sister, Angelica, decide to book a cruise for some much needed R&R. but they’re going to need their life jackets because a murderer has also booked passage

These are on my summer to-do list. Have any cozies planned for early summer?

First Chapter: LaRose by Louise Erdrich

Bibliophile By the Sea hosts First Chapter, First Paragraph every Tuesday. Share the first paragraph(s) of your current read or book interest, with information for readers

LaRose by Louise Erdrich, published May 10, 2016 by Harper. 
A contemporary tale of a tragic accident, a demand for justice, and a profound act of atonement with ancient roots in Native American culture. 

First paragraph, first chapter:

NORTH DAKOTA, LATE SUMMER, 1999. Landreaux Iron stalks a deer along the edge of the property bordering his own. He shoots with easy confidence - but when the buck springs away, Landreaux realizes he's hit something else, a blur he saw as he squeezed the trigger. When he staggers closer, he realizes he has killed his neighbor's five-year-old son, Dusty Ravich. 

Dusty was best friends with Landreaux’s five-year-old son, LaRose.... Following an ancient means of retribution, he and wife Emmaline will give LaRose to Dusty's grieving parents. “Our son will be your son now,” they tell them. But a vengeful man begins raising trouble, hurling accusations of a cover-up the day Dusty died. (publisher)

Would you keep reading, based on the first paragraph and the book description? 

Sunday Salon: Mockingbird by Charles J. Shields

Welcome to the Sunday Salon where bloggers share their reading each week. Visit The Sunday Post hosted by The Caffeinated Bookreviewer.
Also visit Mailbox Monday and It's Monday, What Are You Reading? hosted by Book Date. 

They are still forecasting a bit of frost and a slow moving cold spell, in the middle of May! Guess that's why they don't recommend planting annuals till after Memorial Day, May 30. We have had to take out and bring in our potted plants at night, depending on the temps.

A lovely new book I am reading right now:

Mockingbird: A Portrait of Harper Lee: from Scout to Go Set a Watchman by Charles J. Shields, published April 26, 2016 by Henry Holt & Co. An extensively revised and updated edition of the bestselling biography of Harper Lee, reframed from the perspective of the recent publication of Go Set a Watchman. 

Thr first four British crime novels featuring Detective Helen Grace, by M. J.Arlidge that I'm eager to get into, starting with #1. Hope they are not too noir.  

A surprise win:

The Wangs vs the World by Jade Chang, to be released October 4, 2016 by HarperAvenue. 

What's on your reading desk this week? 

Saturday Snapshot: White Bell Flowers

To participate in Saturday Snapshot: post a photo that you (or a friend or family member) have taken, then leave a direct link to your post in the Mister Linky.

Those little white bell flowers hang along the back of this plant's stem.The plant is Solomon's Seal and can be used as an herbal too!

300 DAYS OF SUN by Deborah Lawrenson

The Friday 56. Grab a book, turn to page 56 or 56% of your eReader. Find any sentence that grabs you. Post it, and add your URL post in Linky at Freda's Voice. Also visit Book Beginning at Rose City Reader.

300 Days of Sun, a novel by Deborah Lawrenson, published April 12, 2016 by Harper Paperbacks

Source: publisher

Deborah Lawrenson’s mesmerizing novel transports readers to Faro, a sunny Portuguese town with a shadowy past—where two women, decades apart, are drawn into a dark game of truth and lies that still haunts the shifting sea marshes. (goodreads)

Book beginning, Prologue:

A few careless minutes, and the boy was gone.Violet shadows stretched from the rocks, clock hands over the sand. She shouldn't have allowed herself to linger, but the sea and sky had merged into a shimmering mirror of copper and red it was hard to tell if she was floating above the water, or standing on air. Waves beat time on the shore then reached out to caress her feet.

Chapter One:

I met Nathan Emberlin in Faro, southern Portugal, in August 2014,
At first, I thought he was just another adventurous young man, engaging but slightly immature. His beautiful sculpted face held a hint of vulnerability, but that ready smile and exuberant cheekiness eased his way, as did the radiant generosity of his spirit, so that it wasn't only women who smiled back, people of all ages warmed to Nathan, even the cross old man who guarded the stork's nest on the lamppost outside the tobacconist's shop.

Page 56:

"....He told me to meet him at the small chapel at the Largo do Carmo at seven o'clock today. He didn't say it was full of flaming bones - not sure I appreciate his sense of humour."

Themes: Portuguese history, politics and corruption, the kidnapping of a child, descriptions of the people and place.

Comments: The author is clearly captivated by Portugal, its differences and closeness to North Africa (the red sands from the Sahara drift over the Portuguese town from time to time), its people, weaving its story of the past into the present.

The novel is clearly the product of a lot of research and I learned things about Portugal that surprised me. In terms of the book's characters, most of the book is written in a journalistic style, as the narrator is Joanna Millard, a journalist in search of a story. Though this style makes the story somewhat cut and dry at times, the novel has definite historical merits.

My objective rating: 4/5