This book sounded oh so promising. Unfortunately, it dwells too much on details, the characters, their background...maybe my expectations were too high, but it wasn't a bad book. It just wasn't for me

Thank you NetGalley, the publisher and the author for the opportunity to read and give an honest review of this book.

This book was translated from Swedish. It was about terrorists taking over a children’s hospital and threatening to kill a child per hour if their demands to release a number of prisoners were not met.

It had way too many characters and names to keep straight. You were left with a cliffhanger and it felt unfinished. Obviously this was number one in a new series.

I did like the main police character. I thought she had a lot of heart.

I read this book, but it's English translation is "Stockholm South: Siege" and that's what I read. It was about Inspector Hannah Kaufman and her involvement in the siege at Children's Stockholm South Hospital. She was a hero of sorts when a baby was thrown out a window and she caught it. One of her many tasks with the terrorists and waiting for a plan of action. This book was a combined effort of Karl Didem & Jale Poljarevius and is book 1, we can assume book 2 will be coming out soon. I believe that Hannah's background is very much into the next book coming out and I would like to read it. She's half Jewish and half Swedish and comes from a background of her father never being around working for the Mossad. Now he's interested in her. We'll be waiting for the next book. I enjoyed it even though it had it tragedies involved.

I would like to thank Netgalley and Saga Egmont for an advance copy of Stockholm South: Siege, the first novel to feature Inspector Hannah Kaufman.

On her way in to work Hannah is diverted to the new children’s hospital where gunman have taken over the building and are threatening to kill hostages if their demands aren’t met. Hannah is appointed incident commander as she tries to save lives.

I thoroughly enjoyed Stockholm South: Siege, which is a blow by blow account of the attack told from various points of view. It will not appeal to every reader as its tone is factual and it is extremely harrowing in the events depicted. Somehow, the tone makes the events even more chilling and yet I found it compulsive reading. I wanted to know who did what and why, how it ends and how it affects the characters. It has a ring of authenticity that resonated with me, a real police procedural.

I’m not always a fan of multiple points of view, but it suits this scenario perfectly and really ramps up the tension. It covers the actions and reactions of various different police officers, some of the hostages, the hostage takers and an unscrupulous journalist determined to get a scoop and win a journalism prize. She is the only one immune to the tension of the situation and really quite ugly in her self centredness. For quite a short novel the authors manage to portray the characters with enough depth, all related to the situation, to give it an unexpected emotional tinge.

Stockholm South: Siege is a short sharp read where nothing is wasted and every word counts and for that reason it is a good read that I have no hesitation in recommending.

This was a hard story to read. Definitely not for the faint hearted - children are mercilessly killed in a children's hospital. One of the new born babies is thrown out the window - thankfully Hannah catches the baby, but still - I found the 'killing innocent and sick children' angle too hard to digest.

There were a few side-stories that seemed incomplete as the book ended - I wish the loose ends were tied rather than leave readers come to a conclusion on their own. There's a bad cop alright - and a pain-in-the-neck journalist who puts the hostages' lives at risk - the cops should have arrested her before she revealed sensitive information on national television (the kind that made the bad guys suspicious of a traitor in their midst.)

It is really hard for me to rate a book as this. I am a fan of mystery and thrillers but I draw a line when it comes to disturbing and dark thrillers. Nevertheless, kudos to the excellent translation.

Writing a book must be very hard, so I hate giving a bad review but I can’t say I liked anything about this one. I’m a civilian whose knowledge of police procedure comes from Law and Order, and I kept shaking my head at the whole process. Would someone in charge of an hostage rescue operation have to tell his team “we need to know the layout of the building”? Would the cops keep calling the bad guys “terrorists” when they don’t even know exactly who they are? And what did they even want? Some characters appear for no reason whatsoever and then disappear. The ones that remain are one-dimensional and unlikable. The dialogues are full of unnecessary details, including “over” during radio conversations. And SPOILER ALERT the cops close the incident by celebrating their big success, apparently forgetting that people, including children, died? Sorry, but no.
I chose to read this book and all opinions in this review are my own and completely unbiased. Thank you, NetGalley/#Saga Egmont!