Only One LifeOnly One Life by Sara Blædel
My rating: 3 of 5 stars


The very idea of Honor Killings...that the recalcitrant actions of one person could lead another family member to commit murder......boggles the mind. Even though our society seems to have lost all concept of Shame and/or Honor...the thought of Murder for Honor makes me blench. Not to mention the fact that, according to this book, most Honor Killings are perpetrated my members of the Extended Family...those living outside the country where the Killing took place..

All of which is Nice & Good.......except , in the case of this book, Honor Killings are a matter of Police Procedural...and Journalistic Hubris


.....and so it goes

Louise Rick is caught up in another Honor Killing case, after being.sourced out to the town of Holbaek...where a Jordanian immigrant girl’s battered corpse is discovered...awash in a cold sea. Enter Dicta Moller....dead girl’s best friend (and aspiring Model....she’s got the Looks)..the Linchpin of this story.....

Be Warned: Teen Angst abides in this story (in a rather Wooden manner)....as does Rape-by-a Family-Member

After much back&forth.....with Samra’s family (the Jordanian girl)....and the whole Honor Killing thing....and Dicta (Teenage Slut).....I was left with a “let down” feeling...mainly because the whole tone of the Narrative is dry-as-dust (but, I’ll chalk that up to the translation)...or full of excess characters (Camilla-the-Journalist was present..to remind the reader of the previous novel....CALL ME PRINCESS..????)....and the fact that Samra's murder had nothing to do with Honor Killing...just Family Hubris.....and teenage ambition

The denouement wasn’t unexpected..just Slow on Arrival..

My second read by Sara Blaedel......it was better than CALL ME PRINCESS....but still too busy, in ways that didn’t keep the story moving.....

I like this woman’s stories...just wish they had more life..in the translation

Detective Louise Rick has been promoted to the Mobile Crime Unit. When a young teenage girl is pulled from the fjord in a small town, she is sent there to work with the local police. The girl, Samra, is around fifteen and is a Jordanian Muslim immigrant, part of the fairly large Muslim community. She lives with her parents, an older brother and a younger brother and sister. Many people's first thought is that this is some sort of an honor killing but Samra's parents insist she has done nothing that would bring any thoughts of punishing her, much less in such a vicious fashion.

Louise and her partner interview Samra's friends. The most forthcoming is Ditka but she also insists Samra didn't have a boyfriend yet and didn't do anything that would be objectionable. Ditka is an attractive girl whose dream is to be a model and she spends a lot of time being photographed and is moderately successful in her town being used in advertisements. As the case progresses, the police are caught between the evidence and the assumptions of an honor killing that will not go away. When another girl is found killed, the pressure increases. Are these part of a serial killer's work or two separate incidents?

This is the third in the Louise Ricks series and was first released under the title Only One Life and later released again as The Drowned Girl. This police procedural gives the reader insight into the Danish police organization which is much more collaborative than the American one. The lower crime rate allows this team focus on every crime. This book is recommended for mystery readers.

I published this awhile ago, didn't realize I never submitted it: http://manoflabook.com/wp/giveaway-book-review-only-one-life-by-sara-blaedel/