Lycke
Crime, Mystery
Mikaela Bley
Ellen Tamm, Book # 1
Scribe Publications
March 26th, 2015
ebook
352
English
January 7, 2018 January 12, 2018
‘Death, death, death,’ she whispered to herself. But it was already too late. The panic was growing inside her.
On a cold and stormy Friday in May, a young girl disappears without a trace from outside Stockholm’s Royal Tennis Hall.
The missing girl is Lycke, and assigned to report on her story is TV4’s hot-headed crime reporter Ellen Tamm. As the police begin their search, Ellen starts her own investigation, delving into Lycke’s life: her family, the nanny, the kids who taunted her at school.
As Ellen is drawn deeper into a tangle of secrets, lies, and betrayals — and frustrated by the odd behaviour of Lycke’s family, as well as corrupt police, her upstart new boss, and the disturbing threats being made against her — she becomes more and more possessed by the task she has been given, tortured by the echoes of her own past, of the darkness that haunts her.
Will she find Lycke before it is too late for either of them?
Mikaela Bley’s debut, 'Lycke', is the haunting first novel in the Ellen Tamm thriller series, and is an exciting new voice in Swedish crime writing.
About the book
Lycke is a Swedish detective story and the first in the Ellen Tamm series. Ellen is a journalist and has some personal problems, the one that stands out most is that she is a bit obsessed with death. She also has a secret and the disappearance of a child is likely to bring out this tragic part of her life.
I like the fact that the “secret” of the protagonist comes out in the middle and not immediately or at the end of the book. The reader thus becomes curious but does not need to read the entire book to ask what happened.
The book is flowing, it is not burdened by the details of the protagonist’s private life like other books, but is focused on crime even if there are many points of view.
The motive was clear from the beginning, even the killer, but after a while it makes you lose who was and think about something else, however it was not a surprise, but then what is a surprise after reading so many detective stories? Despite this, I also really liked the style. I think I will read something else of this author and certainly the second book in the series.
One thing is certain, even if we are all predisposed to have children, not everyone has the right to have them.
I bought this book because I liked the plot and because I started to like Nordic noir a lot, but I read it for the popsugar challenge under the heading of “A book with characters who are twins” even if it started out as Nordic noir obviously.
