The Stonecutter (Fjällbacka Series #3)

( 24 )

Overview

In the third novel from the bestselling female writer in Sweden—and for the first time in English—the mysterious drowning of a little girl threatens to tear apart the town of Fjallbacka.

The remote resort town of Fjallbacka has seen its share of tragedy, though perhaps none worse than that of the little girl found in a fisherman’s net. But this was no accidental drowning . . .

Local detective Patrik Hedstrom has just become a father. It’s his ...

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More About This Book

Overview

In the third novel from the bestselling female writer in Sweden—and for the first time in English—the mysterious drowning of a little girl threatens to tear apart the town of Fjallbacka.

The remote resort town of Fjallbacka has seen its share of tragedy, though perhaps none worse than that of the little girl found in a fisherman’s net. But this was no accidental drowning . . .

Local detective Patrik Hedstrom has just become a father. It’s his grim task to discover who could be behind the murder of a child both he and his partner Erica knew well. What he does not know is how this case will reach into the dark heart of Fjallbacka, spanning generations, ripping aside its idyllic façade,perhaps forever.

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Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly
Läckberg’s excellent third novel set in the west coast village of Fjällbacka, like its predecessors The Ice Princess and The Preacher, strips conventional veneers from her achingly complex characters. Alternating parallel narratives embroil readers first in the present-day murder by drowning of little Sara Klinga, then in the rise and fall many decades earlier of Agnes Stjernkvist, a venomous schemer who lusts after honest stonecutter Anders Andersson. Investigating Sara’s death is series lead Det. Patrik Hedström, now an exhausted new father, whose partner, Erica, is suffering through a desperate postpartum depression. Läckberg gradually tightens the disparate narrative strands noose-like around her numerous remorselessly dissected characters, her signature reversal revealing shocking and poignant truths about the residents of Fjällbacka, where she herself was born. With at least nine more novels waiting for English translation and the Swedish TV series Fjällbacka Murders in the works, Läckberg has rapidly become one of the most profitable native authors in Sweden’s history. Agent: Joakim Hansson, Nordin Literary Agency. (May)
People Magazine
“Something's rotten in Fjallbacka, Sweden: Seven-year-old Sara Klinga's drowning turns out to be a murder, and mysterious woes soon befall other children. An eerie subplot about a local stonecutter's family secrets provides clues in this dark novel of revenge, estrangement and loveless marriages. It will keep you guessing.”
USA Today
“The hottest crime genre of the moment is Nordic noir and Camilla Läckberg is one of the reasons. Darker, bleaker, and far more sinister than similar American fare.”
People
“Something's rotten in Fjallbacka, Sweden: Seven-year-old Sara Klinga's drowning turns out to be a murder, and mysterious woes soon befall other children. An eerie subplot about a local stonecutter's family secrets provides clues in this dark novel of revenge, estrangement and loveless marriages. It will keep you guessing.”
The Washington Post
“And,
speaking of Dame Agatha, here’s a young Swedish writer who’s being hailed as “the Swedish Agatha Christie.” Purists out there will snort in derision, but Camilla Lackberg is very, very good. Her domestic novels are outselling those of her late countryman Stieg Larsson, and if she keeps producing mysteries as richly textured and downright breathtaking as her latest, The Stonecutter, who knows? Maybe, one day, we might be identifying Agatha Christie as “the British Camilla Lackberg.” The Stonecutter is one of those mysteries that ruin a vacation. Take it to the beach and your eyes will be so locked on its pages, you’ll never even know there’s an ocean in front of you. ”— Maureen Corrigan
Ann Rule
“Fire and ice! Masterful suspense as compelling as secrets lying far beneath the dark sea. Läckberg is the perfect crime novelist who combines her gift for intriguingly complicated plots and a keen understanding of the ‘grotesques’ who live among us. Erotic and terrifying.”
Entertainment Weekly
“Excellent. The end, when it comes, shocks like a dip in Swedish seawater.”
Maureen Corrigan - The Washington Post
“And,
speaking of Dame Agatha, here’s a young Swedish writer who’s being hailed as “the Swedish Agatha Christie.” Purists out there will snort in derision, but Camilla Lackberg is very, very good. Her domestic novels are outselling those of her late countryman Stieg Larsson, and if she keeps producing mysteries as richly textured and downright breathtaking as her latest, The Stonecutter, who knows? Maybe, one day, we might be identifying Agatha Christie as “the British Camilla Lackberg.” The Stonecutter is one of those mysteries that ruin a vacation. Take it to the beach and your eyes will be so locked on its pages, you’ll never even know there’s an ocean in front of you. ”
Entertainment Weekly
Excellent. The end, when it comes, shocks like a dip in Swedish seawater.
USA Today
The hottest crime genre of the moment is Nordic noir and Camilla Läckberg is one of the reasons. Darker, bleaker, and far more sinister than similar American fare.
People
Something's rotten in Fjallbacka, Sweden: Seven-year-old Sara Klinga's drowning turns out to be a murder, and mysterious woes soon befall other children. An eerie subplot about a local stonecutter's family secrets provides clues in this dark novel of revenge, estrangement and loveless marriages. It will keep you guessing.
The Washington Post
And,
speaking of Dame Agatha, here’s a young Swedish writer who’s being hailed as “the Swedish Agatha Christie.” Purists out there will snort in derision, but Camilla Lackberg is very, very good. Her domestic novels are outselling those of her late countryman Stieg Larsson, and if she keeps producing mysteries as richly textured and downright breathtaking as her latest, The Stonecutter, who knows? Maybe, one day, we might be identifying Agatha Christie as “the British Camilla Lackberg.” The Stonecutter is one of those mysteries that ruin a vacation. Take it to the beach and your eyes will be so locked on its pages, you’ll never even know there’s an ocean in front of you. — Maureen Corrigan
Kirkus Reviews
Swedish publishing phenom Läckberg returns to the ill-starred town of Fjällbacka for another dose of resentment that festers into violence. Now that his live-in girlfriend, writer Erica Falck, has presented him with a child, Patrik Hedström ought to be finding a better balance between his personal and professional responsibilities. But his sympathies as both father and cop are demanded by the murder of Sara Klinga, the daughter of Erica's new friend Charlotte. Who would dump a seven-year-old near a wharf after drowning her, according to forensic evidence, in a bathtub? As Patrik surveys the wreckage of Sara's extended family, from the pathological philandering of Charlotte's husband, Dr. Niclas Klinga, to the unaccountable cruelty of Niclas' mother Lilian Florin, whose name Niclas rejected in favor of his wife's upon his marriage, Läckberg (The Ice Princess, 2010, etc.) parcels out hints of the tragedy's roots in the loveless marriage some 75 years ago between flirtatious heiress Agnes Stjernkvist and Anders Andersson, the stonecutter she'd captivated and planned to leave before her father discovered her pregnancy and forced the couple to wed. Meanwhile, back in the present, Patrik and his mostly incompetent colleagues on the Tanumshede police force focus their suspicions on imperious Lilian, who seems to loathe everyone but Stig, the bedridden husband she nurses so assiduously; Kaj Wiberg, the neighbor with whom she's long feuded over every pretext she can find; and Kaj's son Morgan, a computer game designer with Asperger's Syndrome who'd be poorly equipped to take the air even in a much sunnier spot than Fjällbacka. Yes, the detection is forgettable (Patrick solves the mystery by watching a similar case on TV) and the climactic revelation unsurprising. Läckberg's greatest strength is dramatizing the long shadows of family troubles that grow to monstrous size.
Maureen Corrigan
…here's a young Swedish writer who's being hailed as "the Swedish Agatha Christie." Purists out there will snort in derision, but Camilla Lackberg is very, very good…if she keeps producing mysteries as richly textured and downright breathtaking as her latest, The Stonecutter, who knows? Maybe, one day, we might be identifying Agatha Christie as "the British Camilla Lackberg." The Stonecutter is one of those mysteries that ruin a vacation. Take it to the beach and your eyes will be so locked on its pages, you'll never even know there's an ocean in front of you.
—The Washington Post
Library Bookwatch
“Smoothly performed by David Thorn. . . . Stonecutter is a gripping novel of the dark side of human nature, unforgettable to the very end.”
—Library Bookwatch
Bookreporter
“The Stonecutter is one of those rare books that you will be unable to read fast enough, yet you also will want to savor slowly so you can delay the ending.”
—Bookreporter
Booklist

Thorn is a master of building and lessening suspense by altering pacing and inflections, allowing characters’ inner dialogues to clearly contrast with their spoken words. As the plot draws to a conclusion, Thorn outdoes himself voicing the murderer’s reactions to being caught, convicted, and imprisoned. Another winner from Läckberg.”
—Booklist

The Washington Post: "50 Notable Works of Fiction" - Maureen Corrigan
"This richly textured mystery about a spate of murders in a fishing village suggests that Lackberg may be the heir to Agatha Christie."
Dee's Book Blog

“[David Thorn] managed to maintain the continuity of the narration through-out and it was an easy listen.”
&#151Dee’s Book Blog

Chaos Is A Friend of Mine Blog

“Listening to the audio book was great fun. . . . I highly recommend . . . especially for fans of Nordic crime novels.”
—Chaos Is A Friend of Mine Blog

Washington Post
“One of those mysteries that ruin a vacation. Take it to the beach and your eyes will be so locked on its pages, you’ll never know there’s an ocean in front of you. . . . Richly textured and downright breathtaking.”
—Washington Post
From the Publisher
"This richly textured mystery about a spate of murders in a fishing village suggests that Lackberg may be the heir to Agatha Christie."
Library Journal
No wonder the Ikea furniture is so easy to assemble; it’s the Scandinavian writing. Direct + uncomplicated = male-friendly. Repetitive and S-L-O-W, this novel alternates between the assorted miseries of contemporary Fjällbacka, Sweden which includes a tragic drowning, and the assorted miseries of yesteryear Fjällbacka, Sweden, starting with the experiences of a titular stonecutter in 1923. Läckberg’s workmanlike characterizations reflect the stolid characters of Fjällbacka’s citizenry, like the new mom who feels like “…she was just two huge walking breasts” and who “…had never in her entire life felt so miserable, tired, angry, frustrated, and worn out….” Readers will soon find, however, that this is a 560 page assburner that alternates between ‘slow burn’ and ‘hopeless mess’ with a needlessly repetitive plot. The entire pathological mess has at its roots in a sexy, man-eating socialite named Agnes whose conniving heartlessness traces an ugly path to current day Fjällbacka, Sweden. There two dedicated policemen boil down a shitstorm of activity into four rather prosaic cases including a pedophile ring, a drowned girl, and someone feeding ashes to babies. While both story arcs are monotonous, the contemporary portion’s plentitude of characters often make it feel like a soap opera.

(c) Copyright 2013. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9781605983301
  • Publisher: Pegasus
  • Publication date: 5/1/2012
  • Series: Fjällbacka Series , #3
  • Pages: 480
  • Sales rank: 321,879
  • Product dimensions: 6.14 (w) x 9.04 (h) x 1.64 (d)

Meet the Author

Camilla Läckberg's novels have all become #1 bestsellers in Sweden. Her thriller The Ice Princess, winner of the Grand Prix de Littérature Policière for Best International Crime Novel, has been published in over twenty-five countries. She lives in Stockholm.
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Customer Reviews

Average Rating 3.5
( 24 )
Rating Distribution

5 Star

(7)

4 Star

(8)

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(5)

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(3)

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Sort by: Showing all of 20 Customer Reviews

  • Posted August 16, 2012

    Fast paced, not easy to figure out "who did it"!

    Fast paced, not easy to figure out "who did it"!

    2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

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  • Posted June 28, 2012

    more from this reviewer

    An Inter­est­ing Read

    The Stone­cut­ter by Camilla Läck­berg is the third novel in the Fjall­backa mys­tery series. The series fea­tures police­man Patrik Hed­strom who works in a small town in Sweden.

    A fish­er­man at the small town of Fjall­backa pulls out the body of a small girl, she seems to have drowned but soon it is dis­cov­ered that it is not the case. Police offi­cer Patrik Hed­strom, a new father and friend of the girl’s par­ents, is put on the case. But Patrik dis­cov­ers a sin­is­ter side of this small town which is much more than he anticipated.

    It’s 1923, Agnes a stub­born, rich and spoiled got preg­nant by one of her father’s work­ers. When her father rejects her, Agnes sets in motion events which will have far reach­ing consequences.

    I chose to read The Stone­cut­ter by Camilla Läck­berg because I read one of her pre­vi­ous books, The Ice Princess, and enjoyed it. There is another book in the series called The Preacher which I have not yet read.

    This book has a dif­fer­ent struc­ture than the pre­vi­ous one I read, the story alter­nates between past and present, while the time shifts (at the begin­ning of every chap­ter and are not con­fus­ing one bit) have very lit­tle to do with the actual mys­tery, I felt that they do come together skill­fully at the end. I did find the book excit­ing, Ms. Läckberg’s growth as an author is evident.

    The author jug­gles many issues dur­ing the story. Some have much to do with the mys­tery, some are just to throw the reader off track, and oth­ers have absolutely noth­ing to do with the mys­tery but sim­ply intro­duce us to the char­ac­ters’ psy­che and allow growth.

    One of the side issues, one that has noth­ing to do with the story, is post­par­tum depres­sion which seems to affect many women in Fjall­backa. It seemed that the small town suf­fers from a case of post­par­tum depres­sion but I think that we, as a soci­ety, don’t rec­og­nize how many women this diag­no­sis. The Ms. Läck­berg does rec­og­nize the dif­fi­cul­ties of stay at home moms. Not only the hard work which goes into tak­ing care of a baby or a tod­dler, but also the lack of appre­ci­a­tion felt by soci­ety at large.

    Unbe­knownst to the reader, until prac­ti­cally the end of the story, the author spends a lot of time try­ing to diag­nose what lies behind evil. The inher­ent assump­tion is that peo­ple are made evil, not born (even though that is the case for some) and even if they do some­thing bad, in their mind, they can­not see what they did wrong. Per­son­ally I found this aspect of the book the most fas­ci­nat­ing and extremely well done, it had me think­ing about this issue for days afterwards.

    The descrip­tions of small town life in Swe­den are fas­ci­nat­ing and filled with imagery. Like any small town, together with the quaint liv­ing come small town prob­lems and pol­i­tics. Swedish soci­ety is also rep­re­sented in this book in all its glory and its dark&

    2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted June 25, 2012

    A real pageturner

    Loved how this book is written with the 1920's story mixed in with the present one. I enjoyed the character development and can only hope the next book is as good

    2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted May 19, 2012

    Good

    Well written and good plot - would like to rrad more•





    2 out of 4 people found this review helpful.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted August 7, 2012

    Must-Read!

    Possible spoiler alert (as a fair disclaimer)
    I had read good reviews and thus obtained this as a Nook Book. I absolutely sped through it, it's definitely a page-turner! As it is somewhat inevitable that it has been compared to the Millennium trilogy, I have so say that as dark as it was, I didn't find it quite as harrowing and haunting as The Girl with The Dragon Tattoo, but that isn't to say it isn't dark and pretty disturbing on many levels all the same. The themes of motherhood in the novel - or parenting in general - will likely stick with me for some time.

    1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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  • Posted July 27, 2012

    Wonderful book

    Great crime novel and the writer (and translator) do an excellent job with theh characters. I have read another book by Ms. Lackberg and found it as good as this. This book was great!

    1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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  • Posted July 13, 2012

    Outstanding thriller.

    Outstanding thriller.

    1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted July 1, 2012

    Excellent

    My only disappointent is that I have to wait for the nextone. Well developed characters; interesting plot line.

    1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted December 28, 2012

    highly reccommended

    lackberg's writing is excellent

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  • Posted November 17, 2012

    I started this book as an audio book, but found it hard to keep

    I started this book as an audio book, but found it hard to keep up with the numerous characters and rapidly changing scenes. The e-book was easier to follow. The story could have been told with fewer secondary characters who did not play a role in the primary plot: solving the murder of a seven year old girl in a small town in Sweden. Recommended for crime drama fans.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted October 21, 2012

    Really Awful

    This may be one of the worst books I've ever read. It's a book club selection; otherwise, I wouldn't have bothered. The characters were flat, the translation totally unimaginative and the plot disjointed and trite. Please don't waste your time!
    -- catwak

    0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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  • Posted October 12, 2012

    A great, fast read.

    I loved this mystery. I read one of her previous novels and it wasn't as nuanced. This takes place in a small Scandinavian town and has many, many good characters. it changes from current activity of one character to another within chapters often. She also takes you back into the same town in the 20s to follow the lives of two more characters. Give it a chance and I think that you will find yourself reading in anticipation as I am.
    Kathleen

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  • Anonymous

    Posted October 5, 2012

    Dark but compelling

    Almost all of the characters had serious dark flaws,even the murdered little girl, Sara. As the story unfolded, each new character seemed more flawed than the previous ones. While the mystery was well conceived, you did not finish the book feeling good about humanity. Erica, Patrik and Martin are the only semi-normal characters.

    The Ice Princess and The Preacher were more enjoyable and compelling books.

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  • Posted August 23, 2012

    Small Town

    Fjallbacka is a small village in Sweden, the setting for the author’s series, of which this is the third to be published in the US. Everyone knows everyone else, but of course that doesn’t prevent crimes from happening, so that Patrik Hedstrom continues to ply his job as a talented detective, while suffering the aftermath of a newborn child with Erica, his lover.

    The discovery of a child’s body, apparently drowned in a nearby body of water, starts the police procedural aspect of the novel, which sort of ties the book together because the story really is a study in various characters inhabiting the village. Each chapter is a throwback to events that took place in the past, beginning with a stonecutter’s forced marriage to the boss’ spoiled daughter. Then it progresses to look at one or another of the town’s inhabitants or their relations with each other.

    The novel is rather long and slow reading, but well worth the effort. The author has written 12 novels in the series so far, so that we can hopefully look forward to reading a lot more about Fjallbacka and its population in the future.

    Highly recommended.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted June 13, 2012

    Very dark story.

    This book was well written, but was too dark for me.

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    Posted February 5, 2013

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    Posted July 4, 2012

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    Posted December 23, 2012

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    Posted December 26, 2012

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    Posted January 31, 2013

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