I am a huge fan of Jo Nesbø and so when my BFF Bronagh gave me a copy of The Ice Beneath Her by acclaimed Swedish author Camilla Grebe, I was definitely intrigued.
The tale, set in Stockholm at winter, finds the local police called to investigate a shocking murder: an unidentified woman is found beheaded in a posh suburban house, owned by controversial chain-store CEO Jesper Orre. What makes the case more disturbing is the similarities it bears to an unsolved case from ten years ago. As homicide detectives Peter Lindgren and Manfred Olsson delve into the case and search for motive, they enlist the help of brilliant criminal profiler Hanne Lagerlind-Schön. However the police aren’t the only ones on Jesper’s trail. Two months before the murder, Emma Bohman, a young clerk who works for Orre’s company, encountered the charming CEO by chance, and soon romance blossomed. However after Orre abandons her and her life goes from bad to worse, she believes her former lover is to blame for the disintegration of her life and so sets about tracking him down.
The Ice Beneath Her is hailed as a psychological thriller and for me, it did not disappoint. The story is told by three people: Peter Lindgren, Hanne Lagerlind-Schön and Emma Bohman. I found the interweaving of the three strands of the same tale a compelling narrative technique. Whilst there is reason to question the reliability of each narrator, I was fully absorbed in the book to see how the case would be resolved as well as the impact it would have on each of the narrators.
As this multi-layered tale begins to unravel, Camilla Grebe’s perfectly nuanced writing style had me truly hooked. The book is fast but perfectly paced and has twists that take you by surprise. The Nordic setting and weather is also very much a character of this book. Everytime I opened it, I was transported from a rarely sun soaked Belfast to the dark, bone aching cold of Stockholm. As the setting is smothered in blankets of snow, the anxiety level of the book was ratcheted up to a new level.
The Ice Beneath Her is a very visual, bold and exciting novel. The tale it tells is not black and white, instead the truth is often as hidden as Stockholm beneath the snow. Grebe is an exceptional storyteller who knows how to keep her reader on the edge of their seats. With a brutal crime and an intriguing cast of characters scrambling to reach the truth, Grebe has crafted a thriller that is very difficult to put down. Fans of crime fiction, Nordic or otherwise, should definitely check it out.
Posted: 12/05/2017
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