Liv
Liv
Crime, Mystery, Nordic Noir
Mikaela Bley
Ellen Tamm, Book # 2
Scribe
August 2016
Paperback
400
Swedish
Paul Norlen
April 15, 2019 April 21, 2019
Death, death, death!’ Ellen screamed, hitting the steering wheel so hard her palms ached.
Crime reporter Ellen Tamm hasn’t been the same since the Lycke case a few months ago. It is now August and all summer she has been on sick leave, shut in her apartment and spinning out of control. Under pressure — and threats — from her parents and her employer, TV4, she agrees to head home to her family farm, Örelo, to try to get some help and get a handle on her mental health.
On her way to Örelo, Ellen stops for petrol in the little community of Stentuna where she stumbles upon the news of a murdered woman, her body discovered in the small hours of the morning. The woman isn’t from the area, and no one seems to know who she is or what she was doing in Stentuna. Her name was Liv.
Attempting to distract herself from her own dark past and the mysteries that plague her, Ellen starts to investigate Liv’s death. She finds herself drawn into a web of family secrets, lies, and betrayal. Reports keep surfacing of strange behaviour among the children of Stentuna. And then awful things start to happen to Ellen. Someone, or perhaps many people, are trying to silence her.
All the while, Ellen is trying in vain to escape the questions that continue to press in on her and crowd her mind: questions about her sister, the lake, and what really happened that terrible day.
About the book
In this book we find reporter Ellen Tam in crisis after the events of the first book. So she decides to go back to her mother’s home to spend a period in which to rest and recover from the previous events. But when she gets home, she finds herself involved in a murder. Despite the sabbatical period she returns to work because she wants to know why a young woman died.
I must say that I will be very critical in this review because I liked the first book so much and seeing a bad sequel makes me so angry. The only word I can use for this is “it sucks”. I feel so disgusted by Ellen and the local kids!
I hate today’s youth, I believe that there is no hope for future humanity and it will get even worse, so seeing Ellen who does nothing against this bunch of bullies makes me loose my temper.
And honestly when a certain video appeared online against the protagonist, I jubilated, I mean I said “good, maybe now you get yourself checked because you have serious problems”. I really can’t make me like the main character and it’s an overturning from the first book. How the hell can you be so naive? How the hell do you get yourself involved like that? But just use your brain!
On the other hand, I don’t think that Jimmy (the ex and Ellen’s boss) has a say for what Ellen did, he and his “companion from whom he had a daughter so he can’t leave her”, do you want a lover? Now shut up! I have some pretty bad terms about him but I have already used heavy language so I hold back.
The more I go on reading, the more I have no adjectives to describe Ellen, really how can you be so idiotic???
Honestly, reading the reviews (yes because I wanted to know if my anger towards her was just me or not) I don’t understand who complains about the book that is not finished. The case is over. We know who the culprit is and it is obvious that the protagonist’s story isn’t finished, because you know, it is a series, the authors don’t say everything about the protagonist’s story in the first book they write or even in the second. So my low rating isn’t for the same reasons as others. It is precisely for the characters who should be slapped in a page and in the following one, too. And to be honest, I like the fact that you dig into Ellen’s past. Too bad that if her character is as disgusting as in this book, I certainly will not continue to read and therefore I will not know how her sister’s story ends (but anyway, as soon as a certain character was introduced, I knew how that story ended).
My rating is low, very low because the case is so interesting but the solution is rather trivial if not more. The author talks of polygamy, but then the solution to the murder is quite different… why does she write about it, then? At this point I would have given two stars if it were not for the fact that the protagonist is disgusting. And don’t get me wrong, I know it can happen, I just don’t like reading about main characters that are so stupid. It’s just my personal taste that if I knew I wouldn’t have bought the book (obviously).
