The Ice Princess cover art

The Ice Princess

Patrick Hedstrom and Erica Falck, Book 1

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The Ice Princess

By: Camilla Läckberg
Narrated by: Robin Bowerman
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About this listen

 The gripping psychological thriller debut of No 1 bestselling Swedish crime sensation Camilla Läckberg.‘Heart-stopping and heart-warming, The Ice Princess is a masterclass in Scandinavian crime writing’ Val McDermid

*One of TIME’s best mystery and thriller books of all time*

Returning to her hometown after the funeral of her parents, writer Erica Falck finds a community on the brink of tragedy. The death of her childhood friend, Alex, is just the beginning. Her wrists slashed, her body frozen in an ice-cold bath, it seems, at first, that she has taken her own life.

Erica conceives a memoir about the beautiful but remote Alex, one that will help to overcome her writer's block as well as answer questions about their own past. While her interest grows to an obsession, local detective Patrik Hedstrom is following his own suspicions about the case. But it is only when they start working together that the truth begins to emerge about this small town with a deeply disturbing past…

©2011 Camilla Lackberg (P)2014 HarperCollins Publishing Limited Genre Fiction Medical Thriller & Suspense Fiction Suspense Mystery

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Critic reviews

"Heart-stopping and heart-warming, The Ice Princess is a masterclass in Scandinavian crime writing" (Val McDermid)

"Camilla Läckberg is a more than welcome addition to the growing ranks of Scandinavian crime writers translated into English. With its sharp emotional nuances and psychological insight,The Ice Princess builds in suspense as the author turns her clear eye on the buried secrets and contemporary relationships of a small, isolated community. I predict that Fjallbacka and its crimes and people will soon be as poplular here as they are in her native Sweden" (Peter Robinson)

"The plot is simply superb, in an almost Agatha Christie-style. The cast of characters emerge with clarity and feel quite genuine… secrets come out in the 331-page book that bring about more things than murder. I read it in one go. A book that you can't put down" (Sala Allehanda)
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Enjoyed the twists and turns, and great to get a sense of the real Sweden.

Great book, enjoyable read despite mispronunciation of a few local words and places.

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I enjoyed this novel - fairly complex, but held my interest. Good characters and very well crafted plot.

My only gripe is that the narrator barely drew breath when changing characters, so I was a bit flummoxed for a few seconds - then realised the character had changed. This didn't spoil my enjoyment, but it happened several times.

Very good, surprise killer!

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Not a bad story but the narrators affectation of not pausing for even a millisecond between what must surely be paragraphs in the book is disorienting and irritating.

Take a breath man!!

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This is a new author for me but really enjoyed. Lots of side steps on the way but all coming together at the end. Narrator was easy to listen to.

Great story

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I really enjoyed this book. The biggest standout though was the lack of any pause between chapters making it feel very jarring and disorientating for a few moments while you figure out the perspective has changed. I also managed to guess a few of the plots which is unusual for me but they were laid on thick enough even for me to grasp. That being said I think I will be reading/listening to every book in this gratifying sequence as I loved the characters and the overall story. Highly recommended.

Great story, love this author

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Truly loved this book but at times it was really difficult to follow the thread of the story as it moved from one character/location to another without a breath. A timely pause would allow the listener the chance to appreciate that the character or location of the story line had changed and not be wondering why the character suddenly in a different location when in fact it was someone else. I don't think this had anything to do with the translation of the story but more in the production / editing of the spoken word. Hopefully this fault has been only in this book so that I can go on and enjoy other books by this author.

Pity about the production

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I really enjoyed this. It was my first audio book and it has totally got me hooked.
The narration was brilliant.

Totally worthwhile

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Authoress Erica Falck is the first to discover her childhood friend, Alex, in an ice cold bath with her wrists slashed. Initially it appears to be a case of suicide but soon it is discovered that she couldn't have killed herself. As Erica is asked to write the obituary, she starts investigating the life of Alex, particularly the years following their school days, and this throws up a number of anomalies. Detective Patrik Hedström (another childhood friend) is in charge of the police investigation so the two find themselves working together.

This story proves to be a wonderful combination of the rejuvenated romance between these lead characters entwined with twists and turns of the murder plot. As with many thrillers, the answers lie in events in the past, and slowly fragments of information are unearthed and pieced together until the murderer and motive are discovered.

Combination of a rejuvenated romance and a murder

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Well, written, and quite well read – the performance was spoilt by the production, which failed to include pauses when scenes changed. This is a fundamental of audio production – and it normally happens quite automatically with audiobooks so I don’t know what happened here.

Also, there are some rather odd translations into English that is not natural: for example, “he chose to look through his fingers“, when actually, the author meant, “he chose to look the other way“.

Good Who Done it, poor production

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The language is straightforward and so it is not too complicated and easy to follow when multi-tasking. I enjoyed the characters which are well drawn and the main protagonists are very relateable. I think this would be enjoyed by anyone who likes the classic crime genre - rather than the more violent and graphic style.

Enjoyable story

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