This book is very entertaining and easy to read, but it's too long, with lots of unnecessary descriptions. The characters are excellent and the plot is good, but I find it strange that a British translator is used when the main character is American.

This been out for over a year and has lots of helpful reviews already. So I'll just recommend it to Crime/Thriller fans.

Thanks very much for the ARC for review!!

Thanks to Netgalley, the Overlook Press, & Peter   Mohlin and Peter Nyström for the new Agent John Adderley novel "The Bucket List".
This is a murder mystery about an FBI agent returning to his childhood home in Sweden, (while in American Witness Protection), to clear his half brothers name.
There were many characters included in the first few chapters, I finally had to make list. The dual time frames were also difficult at first. Once I figured all the characters out, the plot ran smoother.
While I had several theories about the "bucket list" tattoo, I was wrong. No spoiler here, I had two suspects in mind for the guilty party early on & while one of them was correct, I couldn't stop reading.
Well written first novel. Would recommend .

Very readable, no reader has to worry about understanding as every nuance is explained. I'd explain my lack of more stars to that because I enjoy being told less, letting the words themselves show me the more. I hope that these authors will get to that place. Plotting wise it is very well laid out and I enjoyed that part of the story the most.

So what about Dear John, well I've come across unlikable traits in my protagonists, the ones that I enjoy most are those that have these while still making me root for them. I did not make this jump for John, so I remained rather lukewarm. I know that John gives the very utmost importance to how he appears to the rest of the world, his clothes must be good (a good brand, absolutely no fading or stains), his car (an American muscle car would be best), his actions (no weakness allowed). And although a person is allowed to have his own personal preferences, I find that I cannot bond with one who gives this amount of importance to these things as a means of being accepted by society. It would have probably worked out more for me if John just enjoyed the feel of good clothes and how he looked in them rather than making sure he got the best suit so that people saw he got the best and 'judged' him on that.

<i>An ARC gently provided by authors/publishers via Netgalley.</i>

I've never read anything in the Nordic Noir subgenre, but since I love a good crime novel I wanted to give it a shot! This book felt a lot like a Bourne book. It was fast paced (I think the short chapters helped with this), included a partial dual timeline, our hero has to overcome a mental challenge, and there are a ton of secrets. I read it in three short sittings and found myself very satisfied with the ending. I am excited to see this is the beginning of a series of John Adderly novels and will be keeping an eye out for the next one!

Very strong plot construction in the Scandinavian style.Characters were believable, but without a depth that would allow me to understand them and root for or against them as most American authors create theirs.. Entertaining story.

This was a truly good read. The Bucket List was a play on Emelie's tattoo that she and three of her friends got tattooed on their arms so they would have more lives like Mario. Enough with giving things away. John was a cop in Baltimore with the FBI, although he was from New York and he was now in the Witness Protection Program. He wanted to go back to Sweden where his mother and his half brother was living, for the last 20 years. Mohlin and Nyström do a wonderful job of explaining how the Witness Protection Program doesn't let people go back, etc... But, they did this in this case.
What happened was there was an old case 10 years old which needed to be picked up and gone over with a new look. This was Emelie's missing person case. John was given a new identity and name and was put on the case. I'll let you read about it and you'll get quite a lot from Mohlin & Nyström in their excellent writing. You may or may not come out ahead of either Mohlin or Nyström but what a ride.

The Bucket List by Peter Mohlin and Peter Nystrom is a wonderful debut! It’s a crime novel written in that special Swedish style which I have come to love.

The characters are rather stereotyped and difficult to like, although the protagonist John grew on me. His character was the most developed and by the end of the book he became quite the human hero.

The plot moved at a steady pace. The first part of the book was a little slow with a lot of description, but the second part of the book provided intrigue and many suspects. It was not too complicated, and the evidence was easy to follow. It was also believable – each of the suspects presented could easily have been the perpetrator.

The writing at times was a bit stilted and I sometimes had to read a sentence twice to get the meaning. This may be due to the translation or the way people speak in the region in which the novel is set. However, this did not detract from the enjoyment of the story.

There is obviously a sequel and I look forward to reading it!

#netgalley #thebucketlist #petermohlin #peternystrom #theoverlookpress