RATING: SUPERB
SPOILERS!!!
I knew I was right. Mary is actually Lillian, and in the end Patrik finds out the truth. The clue comes when he watches a TV programme about crimes. One of the cases is about someone who died of arsenic poisoning, but at first the doctors thought that it was a different disease. Patrik wakes up Erica to ask her what Charlotte’s father died of, and when he confirms that details, he gets the ball rolling. The doctors in the hospital confirm that what was making Stig sick was arsenic, and Patrik persuades the prosecutor to give an order to exhume Charlotte’s dad. Afterwards, they search Lillian’s house. With all the data from the tests and the arsenic found in the house, they arrest Lillian for the deaths of her father and her granddaughter, and the attempted murder of her second husband. Patrik doesn’t succeed in making the woman speak. Yet, we learn from her inner thoughts what happened in the past that resulted in the present.
When her husband died, Agnes continued with her relationship with Per-Erik, hoping that they would eventually marry. When he dragged his feet, she decided to take matters in her own hands, so she went to talk to his wife. To her shock the woman already knew about their affair, and she told Agnes that she wasn’t the first, and now she was aware that Per-Erik had lost interest in her as she was now into a secretary at work. Agnes was so angry that when she is in her car and sees her arrive, she presses on the accelerator and kills him.
As a result, Agnes is sent to jail and Mary to different foster homes. Mary decides to change her life and even her name. She gets the property in Fjällbacka, and the poison that Agnes sowed in her reaps. She first kills her first husband because he intended to divorce, and she wanted to do the same with Stig because he had already mentioned a separation. The reason why she killed her granddaughter is because she saw that the girl was causing strain for her parents, and Lillian feared that Niclas, who she thought was the bee’s knees, would end up leaving Charlotte, and she couldn’t allow that. So she enticed Sara to get into the bathtub in her clothes as if she were a game, fed her the ashes and drowned her. Luck was on her side as nobody saw her deposit the body in the sea. When the police started to suspect Niclas, Lillian decided to shake them off the scent by assaulting the boy with the ash, and she scared Erica with that stunt because she had overheard her telling Niclas that they should find their own home and leave Lillian’s house.
Her first husband, Sara, and Stig weren’t her first victims. Lillian also killed her mother’s husband poisoning his tea, but Agnes was the one who pushed her to do it. Agnes created a monster by terrorizing, mistreating with beatings and making her eat the ashes that she had in a blue box. In one of the chapters we get to hear from old Agnes, who we understand is in an old people’s home. In her memories we learn that her first crime was to kill Anders and her children as I had suspected. She had stabbed Anders with a knife and suffocated her own children with a pillow, and then she had set the house on fire. I am not surprised. The woman was pure evil, and then she turned the girl who she raised in her own image. Horrible women!!! In the end as Agnes is reminiscing, she has some kind of stroke and dies.
In the last chapter we find Patrik and Erica at home. Now that the case is solved, things are better at work and at home. Ernst has been fired after what happened to poor Morgan, who died as a consequence of Ernst’s involvement, and his replacement will be a woman. I wonder what this woman will be like. I hope she is a better professional than Ernst, but I hope that he doesn’t pose any threat for Patrik. At home things are also better for Erica. Maja now sleeps better and doesn’t demand so much attention. As they snuggle together, Erica starts moaning about her inability to lose her extra weight and feeling unsexy. Patrik doesn’t know what to say, so instead of putting his foot in as he fears he does more than he likes, he rushes to get his jacket and finds something. To Erica’s astonishment he goes down on one knee, presents her a ring and asks her to marry him. Erica smiles and says yes!!! So I imagine we will have a wedding in the next novel?
This happy note is not how the book ends. As Erica and Patrik relish in the happiness they feel after his proposal, the phone rings, interrupting their bliss. Someone wants to talk to Erica. It’s the police. Anna, Erica’s sister, has killed her wife-beater husband. I imagine that this will also be part of the next book.
Great novel!!! Addictive and gripping!!!
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