The Blood Spilt

By: Åsa Larsson

Narrated by: Hillary Huber

From an award-winning author comes this disturbing, entrancing, beautifully crafted mystery set in northern Sweden.

It's midsummer, when the light lingers through dawn as the long winter finally ends. In this magical time, a brutal killer strikes, and the murder of a female priest sends shock waves through the community. Though she has no cause to get involved, attorney Rebecka Martinsson cannot help herself. And the further she is drawn into a mystery that will soon claim another victim, the more the dead woman's world consumes her - a world of hurt and healing, sin and sexuality, and above all, of lethal sacrifice.

Translated by Marlaine Delargy.

©2004 Asa Larsson, translation copyright 2007 The Bantam Dell Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc. (P)2007 Blackstone Audio Inc.

Critic reviews

"A virtuoso mood piece that works endless changes on its unforgiving landscape." (Kirkus Reviews)
"Fans of Henning Mankell, Karin Fossum, and Arnaldur Indridason will be rewarded." (Publishers Weekly)
"Larsson...delivers plenty of suspense, but her real gift lies in her ability to climb inside the minds of her characters, analyzing their motivations for doing damage and good." (Booklist)

Wonderful Prose and Narration!

After listening to books by Indridason, Nesser, and Lackberg, this murder mystery was pure pleasure because it simply flowed along and carried me away. The narrator has a most pleasant and melodious voice and the names of the characters were much easier on the ear. Translation was exceptional but for "picnic blanket" instead of "picnic basket" early on. Providing narration of the main non human character provided an interesting plot turn that has given me a lot to ponder. I hated for the book to end and I was left wanting more of Rebecca--her life before this story and afterward.. A really good read!

NARRATION RUINS IT!!!

I'm only 2 hours in, and not sure if I'll finish this book. The reader couldn't be more wrong: American at its worst. Sort of casual, no sense of Scandinavia, no differentiation of characters, no differentiation of anything! I will return to this review if I do finish the book, as this probably isn't fair to the book.

Disappointing

The first book of the series left me intrigued enough to go on to this one.

I did not like it at all

The annoying wolf howling throughout is too much.

good story, annoying narration

good story, wish I could find the first in this series. not a fan of this narrator, who often comes across with a very whiney voice

Good story - some aspects did not appeal to me

The story was decent and I enjoyed it more than I did not. I didn't particularly enjoy when they broke away from the story to tell the story of the wolf. Others might find that more interesting than I did. To me, the narration vacillated between snarky and robotic. So many of the characters were given nasal, annoying voices. I also found the wolf howl at the beginning of each chapter a bit "jazz hands" for my taste. Again, I did mostly enjoy it - those were just the things about it that I did not like.