In the Heat of the Moment

Sandhamn Murders Series, Book 5

By: Viveca Sten, Marlaine Delargy - translator

Narrated by: Angela Dawe

Length: 9 hrs and 40 mins

Publisher's summary

What’s a lie among friends? It’s murder - in this riveting thriller by Viveca Sten, bestselling author of Tonight You’re Dead....

It’s Midsummer’s Eve, the celebration of the longest day of the year, and on Sandhamn it’s the longest party of the year. But the fun comes to a dead halt when a young reveler is murdered, a teenage girl is found drugged and dazed on the beach, and other young women vanish. So far, what links the victims is a mystery. For Nora Linde and her new boyfriend, Jonas Sköld, the crimes are personal: one of the missing girls is Wilma, Jonas’s daughter. And her disappearance could test Nora and Jonas’s relationship in ways they never expected.

Thrust into the investigation, they soon discover that it’s more than a case of bad blood between friends. But the truth, which has receded into a haze of carousing, drugs, and liquor, is getting harder to see. If Nora and Jonas are going to find out what happened to Wilma, they’d better do it fast - before the ebbing tides sweep away all the terrible secrets of that night on Sandhamn Island.

©2012 Viveca Sten (P)2018 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved. Translation © 2018 by Marlaine Delargy.

ANOTHER GREAT MURDER MYSTERY

This story is about a teenage boy found dead after an annual festival to celebrate Midsummer on a Swedish island. The investigation leads the police to several young people who had been "partying" during the festival and their unwillingness to talk. Fear of their parents' anger is just one reason....
Viveca Sten writes murder mysteries with lots of twists and turns that I can only put down long enough to sleep. I love the details she gives about the characters and Sandhamn (Sand Harbor), their village in the Archipelago.
I appreciate the absence of graphic sex, and though the "F" word is used, her books aren't saturated with foul language.
I look forward to her next Sandhamn mystery.

A!most paradise

Viveca Sten has set a grizzly murder in the surreal beauty of a Swedish summer.

Plot twists

I liked the story very much. I enjoy the back story of the characters , too.

A Midsummer on Sandhamn

A teenager is found on the beach after a night of drinking and drugs. The investigation leads to a group of rich people and their kids. How do you track a killer when most of the witnesses are too drunk to remember the entire night?

A great series with wonderful narration.

Vivid and believable characters

This book was a breath of fresh air in the often repetitive murder mystery genre. Realistic characters whose shoes it was easy to step into and see from their perspective - from teenage angst to grieving parents. The characters felt alive and their motivations believable. The whole story just felt natural and I was compelled to finish it, something I haven't felt about this genre in a very long time.

The reader does an incredible job - her reading flows and the voices are fantastic, her teenager voices are amazing. Even her male voices are completely respectable. The book is already fantastic, but the reader brought them to life for me. I'm not Swedish so can't speak to how accurate her pronunciations are, but they sounded very natural to me so I enjoyed the additional immersion very much. I'm looking forward to the rest of her readings.

It's amazing that this is a translation - I haven't read the original obviously, but just from this, I'm impressed how well it carried over, the translator did an incredible job.

This is only the second book in several years that I was eager to finish reading. My first Viveca Sten and I'm hooked - I've already bought the rest of the series, and can only hope the reader does as good a job with them as she did with this one.

𝐀𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐠𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭 𝐛𝐨𝐨𝐤 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬

𝐈𝐦 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐞𝐧𝐣𝐨𝐲𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐯𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐜𝐚 𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐬 𝐬𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐚 𝐧𝐨𝐫𝐝𝐢𝐜 𝐬𝐞𝐭𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐢 𝐚𝐥𝐬𝐨 𝐚𝐦 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐞𝐧𝐣𝐨𝐲𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐧𝐚𝐦𝐞𝐬.

best Sandhamn Murder book!

In the heat of the moment was my favorite so far. I love the way Sten has multiple story lines I want to follow.

Sad tale..,

Bad decisions have consequences…unfortunately, one turns deadly for a teenager. Thomas and Margit investigate the murder of a teen, who had been involved in drugs. Finding the truth in a world of 1/2 truths is no east feat. Can this murder be solved before it’s too late?

Frustrating

While I have, overall, enjoyed all the books in this series, I am constantly frustrated by Nora’s spineless character. She lets the men in her life walk all over her and, despite the fact that she’s supposed to be an intelligent and respected attorney, she constantly second-guesses herself. The author tries to introduce current and relevant issues in some of these books, yet leaves Nora behaving like a 1950’s housewife. Frustrating and not really believable.

A lot of teenage emotions

Great performance but the story centers around a lot of drunken, drug induced teenage irrational emotions. Not a bad mystery, but too much teenage angst for me.