Under the Storm by Christoffer Carlsson is a Swedish police procedural, of sorts. Every detective has one case he can’t let goof. In the case of Vidar Jorgensson, who lives in the small town of Marback, Halland, Sweden in 1994 it is the heinous murder of Louvisa. She was Edvard’s girlfriend.. Not only was she murdered but her house was burned to the ground with her in it. Vidar was close, having just left is paramour’s bed, and so joined the search. The next day he was given a list of alibis to confirm, and so the investigation moved forward. Isak is Edvard’s seven-year-old nephew who adores him. They spent every Sunday together doing things that are fun, that Isak’s parents don’t have time for. Soon Edvard is arrested. Everyone agrees he did it. Vidar wonders. While he is investigating he meets Patricia when she hands over some threatening letters Louvisa had hidden at work. She had called police about them, but they had failed to respond. He later married her. Thirty years later she is ready to leave him because of his obsession with Edvard’s guilt (or innocence).

This is a compelling book, sharing just enough of peoples’ personal lives to give the reader insight, but focusing mainly on the murder and those directly involved. Vidar was right. Edvard had been innocent, but he was dead now, having overdosed in prison. Isak was preparing to usher a child into his life, but it had been a rough row to hoe to get where he was now. Isak’s mother was a drunk. This murder had impacted so many beyond Louvisa’s family. Vidar’s marriage might be on the rocks. It had skewed the perspectives of all involved and the story was told so well. The characters mostly reacted the way people would, regular people with regular lives. The plotting was tight, making this a gripping story of laziness, betrayal, deceit, and so much more. What a wonderful book for crime readers! Thanks Mr. Carlsson!

I was invited to read Under the Storm by Random House Publishing Group. All thoughts and opinions are mine. #Netgalley #RandomHousePublishingGroup #ChristofferCarlsson #UnderTheStorm

I DNF’d at 30%. It was in fact not giving crime or thriller. Too slow paced for me to stay interested and engaged.

Under the Storm by Christoffer Carlsson had me from the first page to the last. It is a very well written novel with such believable characters that I could actually picture them in my mind. Under the Storm began with Kymig in the air in a small Swedish village. Kymig is a Swedish word used when there is an unpleasant feel to a certain person or place. A fire burned the home of Hans and Erika Marksrom in the village of Tolarp; Sadly the home was known to have bad wiring and an old gas stove so the first to arrive assumed it was an accident. The situation intensified with the discovery of the body of the Markstorm's daughter Lovisa,and the determination that she died not as a result not of the fire, but from blunt force trauma to the head. I could tell the entire story in my review, however the book is so compelling and intriguing that I recommend that you read it for yourself. The author is also a well respected Swedish criminology professor so police procedures and hierarchy portrayalsare accurate. Under the Storm is an intense,novel that is perfect for readers of thrillers and suspense..Thanks to NetGalley, Random House Publishing and Christffer Carlsson for the opportunity to read and reviewan ARC Under the Storm; my review reflects my honest assessment of the book. 4.5 stars.

3.5 ⭐️’s
One night, a house burned to the ground. There was someone inside, on the floor, someone who couldn’t move. Something began, something ended. It took a long time to clear up.”
In 1994 there’s a devastating fire in Marback, Sweden. A fire that was used to destroy evidence of a murder. Officer Vidar Jorgensson is soon on the scene. In the days to come all signs point to the boyfriend, Edvard and though he professes his innocence, he is convicted of the crime. His eight year old nephew, Isak, has only ever seen the good in Edvard and has a hard time coming to grips with the outcome. From that point forward he questions if he, too, might be violent. Nine years later, in 2004, Vidar starts to delve deeper into the evidence that convicted Edvard. Is there a chance that he really could be innocent. Meanwhile Isak is in high school and starting to get himself into trouble, trouble that Vidar tries to nip in the bud. Fast forward twelve more years. Years that leave Vidar still questioning. Years that Isak gets himself in and out of trouble, but is finally turning the corner, but when he goes missing, once again, Vidar is in the midst of the investigation, even after leaving the force years before. Is Isak still alive and is there a connection to that fateful night in 1994. Vidar is like a dog with a bone and he’s a hairs breath away from losing it all, but will he get the answers he so desperately seeks before it’s too late. This book was a slow go on the onset, but grew on me as the pages turned. A bit depressing at times, but a well written, intriguing story. Thank you to Hogarth and NetGalley for an ARC of this book.

*Special thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing this free ARC in exchange for an honest review. Pub date: February 27, 2024

LOVED Carlsson’s last crime novel (Blaze Me a Sun) and was excited for the opportunity to read Under the Storm. This has us back on the force in Sweden with a gruesome crime. Everyone seems like a suspect and this is fantastically drawn out with small reveals along the way.

I really appreciate Carlsson giving the reader some work to do in putting things together. There’s nothing worse than a novel just putting everything on the page—I’m a sucker for books that make you think, analyze, and guess along the way.

A great read if you’re a sucker for dark, Scandinavian crime novels like me!

When a young woman is found dead inside a burned farmhouse, officer Vidar Jörgensson witnesses the aftermath and helps to put the suspect, Edvard Christensson, behind bars.

Edvard’s ten year old nephew, Isak, is in disbelief that his uncle could be capable of such a thing. No one was closer to Isak than his beloved uncle and with him in prison, Isak is left to cope alone. The murder has left a stain on the family and they are ostracized by the small community.

The story follows Isak’s as he navigates his path to adulthood. At the same time Vidar, whose life has also been changed by the murder, keeps a watchful eye on Isak.

I enjoyed this book. The personalities of the characters were described well. I liked learning how the police investigation went from Vidar’s point of view. Especially how much he had to go through to make sure he sent the right person to prison.

I was shocked at all that happened. I can’t say because of spoilers but the story is thrilling! Lots of suspense and hair raising moments.

This is not an over the top, unbelievable, crime thriller. This is an intense police investigation. I would say it’s closer to Ann Cleeves that a Riley Sager.

The author, Christopher Carlsson, is a professor of criminology as well as a highly admired Scandinavian crime writer. I look forward to reading all his books!

Many thanks to Christopher Carlsson and Random House Publishing Group for the ARC via NetGalley!!

I think this is a great book for anyone who likes to slowly read a book. Personally, I want a book that sucks me in and demands I read it immediately. This was just a bit too slow and “messy” for me.

When a young woman is found dead after the fire of a farmhouse, her death is quickly ruled a murder. Residents of Marbäck are shaken, but no one more so than ten-year-old Isak. Isak is devastated as his beloved uncle Edvard is arrested, tried and convicted of the woman's murder. At the time there was a rookie cop named Vidar who was one of the first on the scene of the fire. For years, Vidar had strong doubts of Edvard's innocence and this led Vidar to many difficulties over the years. This included Vidar eventually leaving the police force.

Isak's parents were having difficulties while he was young, and Edvard had been a wonderful influence on him. With Edvard's imprisonment, Isak's years as a child and then young adult become wrought with difficulties. Meanwhile, Vidar never once stops looking for answers.

Under the Storm was set in Sweden and written by a brilliant author who truly understands criminology, especially when it came to Vidar's continued investigation of the murder, even up to two decades later. As this is the first book in a series, one translated by Rachel Willson-Broyles. I do look forward to following this series, and hope to see more of Vidar.

Many thanks to Hogarth and to NetGalley for this ARC for review. This is my honest opinion.

A small town in Sweden where everybody tends to know everybody else’s business, or do they?
A murdered woman found in a in a burning home.
The evidence points to a young man, and it does not take long for a verdict to be passed and he ends up in prison. This not only affects him but also his sister, her husband and child. The young nephew who up to now has adored his uncle. No wonder the kids turn into a bit of a problem teenager.
Police officer Vidar who initially helped convicting Edvard starts having doubts and begins reinvestigating almost 10 years after the facts.
Not everybody is happy with the reopening of the old wounds.
The individual character development is perfectly done. You feel for each one, their struggles and pain to deal with the situations.
The story shows how quickly people will judge others rightly or wrongly with major consequences. Highly recommend reading this book.

I really wanted to love this book but I ended up dnf’ing this at 20%. I just don’t think translated mysteries/thriller fictions are for me…or maybe I just haven’t found the right one.

That being said I love translated fiction tv show adaptations and would 10000% watch this as one of those….or maybe even listening to this as an audio would have worked better for me!

The cover on this one is gorgeous and the premise I was alllll about!

2.25⭐️

⭐️UNDER THE STORM is OUT TOMORROW FEB 27TH⭐️

Special thanks to NetGalley, Random House and Hogarth for the review copy in exchange for my honest review💛

#underthestorm #hogarthbooks #Hogarthpress #randomhouse

Under the Storm is a rural Swedish police procedural. A woman is killed and her house burned to the ground. A bloody man is found wandering in a nearby forest. The man is arrested for the woman’s death. But a local policeman doubts his guilt. As the years pass, the now former policeman is still trying to find the woman’s murderer so the man can be released from prison. Is the policeman irrationally obsessed? Could the murderer just be the man convicted so long ago? Or is the murderer hiding in plain sight within the crime’s small rural town?

All Scandinavian mysteries have a certain cold lonely vibe to them. Under the Storm is no exception. You can cut the atmosphere with a knife. That is my favorite part of this book. No matter what the weather is where you are reading this book, you will be craving a hot chocolate and a warm blanket. Other than the atmosphere, the book is a standard procedural. It goes from point A to point B with no twists at all. Its characters are not very memorable. Despite that, I still enjoyed the atmosphere enough to give the book 4 stars.

Thanks to Hogarth Books and NetGalley for a digital review copy of the book.

This is probably a case of it's not you, it's me. Under the Storm is well written, and Nordic noir is one of my favorites, especially in the middle of a snowy cold Maine winter, but I wasn't able to form a connection with Christoffer Carlsson's latest. I will, however, be checking out his next book, because I have really enjoyed his writing style in the past, but this one just wasn't for me.

Fans of Scandi-noir know that the best of the genre is always complex and at times convoluted- and this is a good example. Told over a period of years, it's all about whether Edvard really did murder a young woman, Isak, Edward’s nephew and Vidar, the young policeman who investigated the case, tell the story. Isak spends much time worrying about himself while Vidar questions his decisions. This is slow in spots (you, like me, might put it aside) but you'll want to know the truth. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. Here's hoping more of Carlsson's novels are translated into English.

"There's this word, used by old men and women ... It comes across their lips like sinister smoke when someone is a little mean or nasty ... kymig." Although Christoffer Carlsson wrote this before Blaze Me a Sun, it was released in English afterwards. Carlsson describes himself as a storyteller, but he is much more than that. Not only is he an accomplished author, but a teacher and criminal expert as well. Very accomplished for someone so relatively young.

Here we once again have an in depth portrait of Swedish smalltown life, and the effects on a community and one family in particular following a horrific crime, a pivotal point in life that "creates a before and an after." There are really two protagonists that we follow over an almost 20-year timeframe, each of whose life has been upended. Vidar the young policeman and Isak, eight-years-old at the beginning, are connected through this death of a lovely young woman, and the bullying and eventual realizations bring both of their lives into focus. They come to accept that "[N]ot all truths are good, and not all lies are bad." Looking forward to the promised third translation.

I love a good slow burn mystery but this one was a little too slow for me. The mystery was lost in the back stories of characters that I was unable to form a connection with. I felt like I was reading a summary of the story instead of the actual story itself. Thanks to NetGalley for a chance to read and review this book.

Although I generally hate reading a series out of order, I loved the first book in this series last year (which was translated into English first) so much that I knew I would read this one. And now I can't wait for book 3. This book was perfectly paced, I loved the characters and there was, of course, so much atmosphere. If you like Scandinavian crime thrillers, definitely add to your TBR!!

Under the Storm comes out next week on February 27, 2024, and you can purchase HERE!

There's this word, used by old men and women around here. It comes across their lips like sinister smoke when someone is a little mean or nasty, when a place or thing has this unpleasant, uncanny feel to it: kymig.

He's kymig, that one. Never liked him.

Don't go there. That house feels so kymig.

I did something kymigt tonight.

That's what people say. And, if you were to suddenly find yourself in some kind of danger, it's not I don't know what to do but I don't know where to put myself. As if your first instinct is to hide.

What a great noir mystery set in the Swedish countryside!

I found this story to be an engaging and thrilling read. As an American, I expected the geography and language barrier in understanding the characters and location of this story to cause me some issues, however, the barriers weren't as large as I assumed, and I enjoyed every chapter.  The characters were so well written that you believed what they believed, and so real in their portrayal that you felt what they felt.

I would highly recommend this book to anyone who likes character-driven mysteries in the noir fashion.

I would like to thank NetGalley and Hogarth for providing me with an advance e-galley of this book in exchange for an honest review. Look for it in your local and online bookstores and libraries on February 27, 2024.

Under the Storm is a complex novel that covers a time period of over twelve years. There are three different timelines showing how the death of a young woman affects her small Swedish hometown. Specifically. Lovisa's death permanently changes the lives of Vidar, one of the police officers who helped investigate the crime, and Isak, the nephew of the prime suspect in Lovisa's death. Of course the life of the suspect, Edvard, is also changed, but the story goes further than that. The characterization is detailed and well done, even when the characters are hard to like at times. The book also has an overwhelming atmosphere of sadness surrounding almost all of the characters.

The book was translated into English from Swedish and sometimes the results are poetic and sometimes it's confusing. The first part of the book is very intriguing but the middle of the book is slow. There is so much going on in the story, including a hurricane, so some of the information that slows the pace of the book is unnecessary, especially details about Vidar and Isak's encounters with the women in their lives. I enjoyed the twists and turns the case takes and like that things are resolved at the end. However, after all of the lengthy descriptions of events throughout the book, I was disappointed that things regarding the main characters were left somewhat vague. The author is a leading criminologist in Sweden, so this is an interesting crime novel that included much more than a typical procedural, but didn't always keep me fully engaged. I'm glad I read this book, which I would rate 3.5 stars, but I liked the author's Blaze Me a Sun more.

I received an advance copy of this ebook at no cost from NetGalley, Hogarth Books, and Random House, but my review is voluntary and unbiased.

Complex and tragic Swedish whodunit🔥

I love the way the author inserts real events into this story of a tragic fiery death and the aftermath in a small village in southern Sweden. The victim, the prime suspect and his whole family, including the nephew who adores him, even a policeman drawn into the case initially because he lives in the vicinity, are devastated. And the mystery of whether the right person was convicted continues for years even though the local villagers are mostly happy to point the finger early and never waver in their certainty.

For me, this was a sad story, tragic because a father's violent character leads the community to paint his son Edvard and grandson Isak with the same brush. It's no wonder that young Isak acts out and believes what others say despite his formerly close and loving relationship with his uncle Edvard.

I had plenty of surprises, not least of which was the arson case's effect on Vidar the policeman who takes another look at the investigation that jeopardizes his career. And the plot kept me guessing and perplexed right until the end.

Definitely recommended.

Thanks to Random House and NetGalley for sharing a complimentary advance copy; this is my voluntary and honest opinion. My review will be shared on Amazon, kobo and Barnes & Noble sites.