This was my first book by this author but it won't be my last I really enjoyed it. It had me on the edge of my seat the whole time

I thoroughly enjoyed this read, it was my first by Åsa Larsson and I have to now start all over and catch up!

It's a typically good Nordic noir that is beautifully written and very engrossing from start to finish and ultimately so much more than your typical crime novel.

Had my attention from start to finish… I couldn't put it down and finished it in a day. Can't wait for more from this amazing author

Some very interesting characters woven through this book eg Rebecka Martinsson prosecutor with issues, Borne Ström ex boxer, Ragnhild retired nurse on the verge of ending it all and Sven-Erik ex police officer.
The opening chapter was the start of a good thing for me. I know this can happen in real life but I was still fascinated and puzzled how one could go down the path they were considering approaching it in an almost clinical way then shortly after find a reason for staying alive
The body in the freezer and another dead on the couch makes a good crime scene and reading about the background to events compliments that.
Loved the immediate/intense reaction Borje had to meeting Ragnhild and the intimate scene between the two of them. I thought it was quite erotic and in this perfect world refreshing to find two people who aren’t perfect finding pleasure in each other despite their flaws.
Also this quote from the book is very true and has stayed in my mind:once you’ve let the devil into your boat you have to row him to shore.
I have a weakness for Nordic noir and felt this one ticked all the boxes. I gather this is the last book in a series of six and although it can be read as a stand-alone it would have been fantastic to have read all the earlier ones. Also full marks to Laurie Perry who did a super job of translating a great story into English.
Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for a free digital copy of the book in return for an honest review.

This is the last in the Rebecka Martinsson crime series but can be read as a stand alone book. Rebecka is a Swedish prosecutor who is a complex character and in this novel she is not alone in having dark thoughts about life.
When the body of boxer who disappeared years ago is found in a freezer Rebecka is forced to meet with her late mother’s foster family. Other people are drawn into the enquiry and relationships are tested. This is so much more than just a crime novel. It is a slow paced reveal of how people’s perceptions of each other can change. Whilst the themes of violence, murder and corruption form the backbone of the story this novel is often a philosophical study and demonstration of how kindness and love can bring hope to those in a dark place. A very clever and thoughtful novel.

Many thanks to the publishers for the ARC..

Sins of Our Father is the 6th book in the Artic Murder series by Asa Larsson, sadly I hadn’t read the previous books…apart from there is an obvious back story it didn’t spoil the book for me in fact it just made me want to read everything and anything from Asa!
In short, it’s a dark, gritty crime threaded between a poignant family story with a captivating setting and complicated characters.
I thoroughly enjoyed the book and completely understand why it was voted Best Swedish Crime novel of the year, it’s brilliantly told…it’s a dark and riveting thriller yet has a beating heart at it’s core. I love Scandi crime fiction and The Sins of Our Fathers was so absorbing it was impossible to stop reading, I highly recommend.
Big thanks to Asa Larsson, Quercus Books and NetGalley for this eARC which I chose to read in return of my honest review.

Borje Strom, an Olympic boxer, lost his father many years ago, now he has been found, dead in a freezer. It's beyond the statute of limitations but when the dying pathologist identifies murder of the old alholic who owned the freezer, suddenly the authorities are involved. Rebekah Martinsson is becoming increasingly disillusioned with her job as a prosecutor, it's caused her to split from a man she can't forget and her new boss is dumping work on her, the chance to look into a murder that is close to home is too good to miss. Meanwhile an influx of development in Kiruna is attracting an altogether darker set of criminals.
This is a terrific series and this is apparently the last book in that series. It's a real slow burner with complex relationships to the fore. The narrative skips between present day and Borje's past which gives different insights into the events and develops even more ideas about corruption and motives. I loved the way I was drawn in.

It has been too long since the last Rebecka Martinsson story but what a welcome return of old characters and new. Another gripping, well told murder mystery thriller. I didn't want this to end and I'm so disappointed that this was the final outing for Rebecka et al. I may have to reread the whole series.

The Sins of our Fathers is the sixth book in this series by Asa Larsson. This was my first read in this series and by this author. I loved the authors descriptive language and the chilling setting. I found the first part of the book a little hard to get into but I think this was because there were so many characters introduced and so I'd recommend starting this series from the beginning. Thank you to the author, publisher and Netgalley for the opportunity to read this book.

I usually can get my teeth into a good scandi noir despite the obvious limitations of my poor Scandinavian language skills and the resulting difficulty keeping the character and place names straight in my head. However for some reason I struggled with this one and can only think it was the multiple treads to the plot and number of characters. The story is interesting and atmospheric but the names spoiled it for me.

I could not put this down!
The timeline slips between the past, starting in the early sixties and the now.
Back then, Borje Strom's father has gone missing and nobody seems to know what happened to him.
Now, an old man who lived on an island has died and a body is found in his freezer. When it turns out foul play was used on both the old man and the body in the freezer, Rebecka Martinsson gets very interested.
So follows a sad tale of boxing and of crime.
A decent ending to this series of books.

Ragnhild Pekkari, recently retired and depressed and lonely was seriously contemplating suicide when she got a call to say her brother, Henry Pekkari had not been making his regular trips to the village shop near the island where he lived in northern Sweden. Although he had become a reclusive alcoholic and she hadn’t seen him for over 30 years, someone in the family needed to do a welfare check on him and his dog. After skiing over to the island, she found the elderly alcoholic lying dead on his couch and called the police. It was only later that the medical examiner would identify that he had been murdered and that police would find a body in his freezer.

The body in the freezer is that of Raimo Koskela the father of Olympic boxer Börje Ström. Raimo disappeared in 1962 while on vacation with 11 year old Björge. Although the case is too old for anyone to now be charged with the murder, Björje asks District Prosecutor Rebecka Martinsson if she could look into the case to learn what happened to Raimo all those years ago. Rebecka, has recently been assigned a huge backlog of minor cases to review by a spiteful acting Chief Prosecutor while her boss is on leave. She is begginging to wonder why she left her job as a lawyer at a prestigious law firm in Stockholm to move to Kiruna, so is more than happy to have a murder to investigate. Rebecka also has a connection to the Pekkari family as her mother was fostered by the family until she was a teenager so grew up with Henry and Rebecka.

This is dark and gritty Swedish noir. At 600+ pages, it is a very comprehensive novel with a lot of interesting personal detail about the cast of characters woven around the murder investigation. As the sixth book in the series, and the latest to be translated, Rebecka Martinsson will be well known to fans of the series. For me, the novel worked fine as a stand-alone novel but I am looking forward to going back and reading the earlier books. I especially loved the harsh Nordic setting which adds atmosphere (and a lot of snow, so much snow!) to everyday life in this arctic zone.

The setting of Kiruna in northern Sweden makes for an interesting backdrop, as it is a town gradually sinking into the iron ore mines tunnelling underneath it and buildings are in the process of being gradually moved or replaced in a new town a few kilometres away. Börje’s story and his history with his father and then his career as a boxer is interwoven with the current investigation into Henry’s and Raimo’s deaths and there are plenty of twists in the investigations before they are both resolved. Larsson is clearly a master storyteller and this dark and gritty Swedish noir is very much a character driven novel that delivers a lot more than a murder mystery.

Sadly this is the last Rebecka Martinnson story that brings the series to a satisfactory conclusion. Several interconnected storylines that move backwards and forwards in time are initially confusing but do eventually make sense. Violent murders again past and present plus dodgy financial dealings appear with wonderful descriptions of local Norwegian scenery. Several characters from previous stories feature as well in this quite emotional final tale.

I was new to Larsson and hadn't read the previous 5 books in the series. However this was a self contained plot, and one so nuanced and wide ranging I am keen to seek out its predecessors.
The story starts with a woman meticulously planning her suicide before the snow melts, having retired from work and decided she has very little to live for. Her plan is thwarted by the discovery of two bodies: one a former boxer who disappeared decades ago, and the other the woman's estranged brother.
Rebecka Martinsson is Larsson's fearless but complex investigator, who is asked by an elderly forensic pathologist to investigate the deaths.
In good noir tradition, there is plenty going on in the plot and I found it fascinating to learn about some of the intricacies of boxing and the planning regulations in Sweden which make it all too easy for organized crime to influence decisions.
I enjoyed this complex and intriguing book very much.
This novel is published on 30 March.

Back in the late 2000s when the Millennium trilogy and goth hacker Lisbeth Salander lit the fuse on the Nordic Noir boom, Åsa Larsson was scooping awards for her five-book ‘Arctic Murders’ series starring lawyer Rebecka Martinsson. But other than a recent TV adaptation of the earliest books, fans have had to wait a decade for more from Åsa and her heroine. The Sins of Our Fathers sees Martinsson back hunting killers and seeking justice in Lapland after the body of a man who disappeared in 1962 – the father of an Olympic boxing champion – is found in the freezer of a dead alcoholic whose family was once connected to Martinsson’s. Meanwhile, the jaded prosecutor is reconsidering her future, and the tentacles of organised crime have ensnared the mining town of Kiruna. Frank Perry’s translation brings a book that won Swedish Crime Novel of the Year to English-speaking readers, and fans of Nordic Noir will find much to enjoy. A puzzling mystery entwined with larger social issues, and a troubled hero stumbling through life and frigid landscapes

3.5 Stars
I enjoyed this for the most part but felt it went off on a tangent quite alot which made it difficult to keep following all of the different storylines of all of the various characters, however I did find myself quite invested in certain aspects of the story.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for an advanced digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

While this is the sixth book to feature Detective Rebecka Martinsson it was my first read from Ása Larsson and it did not disappoint.
This was a great read, a perfect mix of Suspense & Mystery with well developed interesting Characters. The wonderful Nordic setting pulls you in and the snippets of Swedish and Finnish cultures really adds to it. This was okay as a stand alone read but I will definitely go back to book one now for the back story.
If you're a fan of Nordic/Scandinavian Noir you will love this.

I was about 20% into this book when I realised that it must be an installment in a series - this request was pure cover love and I obviously hadn't done my homework. I am totally intrigued by these characters and love the Nordic setting, so I have decided to start the series from scratch to get all the back story first - it would be a shame to read on and get too many spoilers! I love discovering a new series, so whilst I won't be reviewing this one quite yet I am very escited to delve into book 1.

Several families all marked by past events and tragedy. A woman facing the loneliness of retirement and a long standing estrangement with her daughter and grandchildren decides upon suicide. A boxer unable to come to terms with the unexplained disappearance of a missing father when he was a teenager and subsequent unhappy life. A village thrust into living on a construction site requiring an influx of transient workers, unexplained events and camp followers all merge into a police investigation when a body is discovered in a freezer. Moving between two time frames, numerous characters all with foreign names and several different scenarios requires motivation and concentration . The ability of the local police to solve the ever increasing magnitude of illegal activity is hampered by jealousy, in house fighting and their own external domestic issues. A barren landscape, horrendous weather conditions and increasing body count all inhibits the ability to solve the case. Not an easy read but a worthy conclusion tying numerous issues into a believable denouement. Many thanks to author, publisher and Netgalley for this ARC.

This is an excellent thriller, one of those books that makes me appreciated Scandinavian Noir even if I'm not usually a fan.
Asa Larsson is a talented storyteller and this solid and complex story is gripping, gritty and dark.
It kept me on the edge and guessing.
Recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this arc, all opinions are mine