The Ice Princess

By: Camilla Läckberg, Steven T. Murray - translator

Narrated by: David Thorn

Length: 15 hrs and 8 mins

Publisher's summary

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 that she has taken her own life. Erica conceives a memoir about the beautiful but remote Alex, one that will answer questions about their lost friendship.

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 the small town with a deeply disturbing past.

©2010 Camilla Lackberg (P)2010 HighBridge Company

Critic reviews

“Läckberg skillfully details how horrific secrets are never completely buried and how silence can kill the soul.” ( Publishers Weekly)

“This excellent thriller is a must-read for fans of Scandinavian crime literature and will especially appeal to those who enjoy Asa Larsson’s Rebecka Martinsson novels.” ( Booklist)

“Chilly, deceptive, and lucid, just like the icy environment it describes.” ( The Literary Review)

Interesting twists and turns!

I looked forward to every opportunity to listen to the book! Excellent! Deeply recommend!!!

A smart, suspenseful mystery

If this is the Swedish Danielle Steele (as one review claimed), I can’t wait to read more Swedish mysteries. This is a more intricate and suspenseful tale than most American mysteries, by far. I’m half Swedish, and have a good feel for the language and dialect, and the narrator didn’t butcher it. Despite a few errors, his mastery is good. I’m thrilled to read a book that doesn’t make me suspect the narration is AI. I have vision problems, so this was a treat. He overdid the women’s voices a bit, but at least he created a different voice for each of the characters, which was entertaining and easy to follow. The narration was slow…I played it at 1.1, and it was perfect. The book was slow moving at first, and the characters were stuffy. It was hard to sympathize, at first, but they are real people, in the end, who put on a few airs. When the facade falls away, they are actually quite relatable. Stick with it! You won’t regret it.

Just OK....could have done without the romance

This is kind of a chick lit Scandanavian mystery - There wasn't enough mystery and too much romance to make it interesting, in my opinion. I don't think the genres mix well, and it looks like this author tried to create a hybrid, and it didn't work.

Good story but poor directorships

Story was ok , but I didn't not like the narration. There is nothing wrong with the narrator/performance but as the book is "directed". I am missing pause between the stories. One have to be 100% present otherwise you get confused.

so happy for a new series to exhaust

book kept interest throughout; many characters, plots, levels of depth.
Narrator difficult with names. Quiet.

Thriller and romance more like a "chick book"

Good read, but a bit too elaborate. I liked the many threads woven into the story and didn't mind not being privy to the clues Poltrick put together through deductive observations.

Disappointed in this book.

The story was overly drawn out ... I had it figured outseveral hours before the end.
The narration was particularly diificult to listen to ... he had trouble with the accents ... it would have been better as a straight reading.
I will definitely avoid this narrator in future.

A good first book about a wonderful place

I've read one of Camilla Läckberg's books before and I didn't really like it. Later I watched the series on TV and I wanted to read the books from the beginning.

I've been to Fjällbacka many times. We used to spend a couple of weeks every summer in a town close by.

I borrowed both a Kindle book and Audible. That was a good thing because it was really difficult to understand some of the words and I speak Swedish!

Patrick workes in Tanumshede. In the book it's pronounced "Tonumshed"! The "a" should be pronounced like "a" in arm. Tanums hede means Tanum's flat land and should be seen as two words. I've never heard anyone pronounce Patrick like Potrick...

My name was also butchered! Without Kindle I had no clue what Swedish name he was saying when he said Lenja! There is no j in Lena! It comes from the name Helena. Here in the US most people pronounce the "e" in my name as you say "e" in evil.

I do have some problems with the story.
The ice princess is found in a tub in a house with no working heat. It's -15 C outside when she is found. She's been in the tub for a week. That means both Alex and the water in the tub would be frozen solid! In the book it says there is a thin layer of ice and her arm is limp!

"Vera sees a small blond woman who is a police officer." I don't know how tall Vera is but you have to be 170 centimetres/5'7" to be a female police officer in Sweden! (Men have to be 180 cm/6')

Good

I really liked the story and it kept me guessing. The narration, not so much.

Good Story Not Well Narrated

This is Camilla Läckberg's first mystery originally published in Sweden in 2002. It starts out with the discovery of a body of a woman, an apparent suicide, discovered in a bath tub in an unheated house in a former fishing village, now a tourist goal called Fjällbacka. One of the first people on the scene, Erica Falck, was once a close friend of the deceased woman. Because Erica is an author, specializing in the biographies of famous Swedish female authors, she is asked by the dead woman's parents to write about the woman's life. However, as Erica learns about her old friend's secrets she starts to look deeper into what happened that drove them apart as young girls.

The story begins with a bit of a bang but starts to drag a bit about a quarter of the way in. I don't think the characters of the police officers were particularly compelling (or even very interesting). A second death gives the story more impetus and although the answers to some mysteries are quite obvious, the ending is satisfactory.

And that's it for the story, now for the audible part. David Thorn's voice is strongly British and male. His way of voicing female characters is to make them sound breathy and bland. He occasionally will apply some accent, but usually he doesn't. While I might find him a good narrator for another type of book-- one with fewer female characters or one where there is no need for accents, I definitely don't think I would try to listen to him read another Scandinavian set mystery.