The Saint by @cavring is being published on 12 November 2024 and should be on your #nordicnoirnovember reading list💙

This book is the fourth book in the Hammarby police series; however, it can be read as a standalone as well. This investigation centers around a youth girls soccer coach who is murdered in Stockholm’s Herrang forest while walking home from a poker game night out with friends. The police are stumped because he did not seem to have any enemies and was considered a saint in local circles.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book and how it has a cast of interesting police officials that were involved in the case. I’m planning to go back to read the rest of the books in this series now!

Thank you @mysteriouspress for allowing me to read this book in exchange for my honest review. This same review was shared on the Barnes & Noble website.

I'm usually a fan of Nordic noir but this one had me scratching my head, largely because I missed the first books in the series (which would have helped me to understand Petra in particular) but also because this is a very tangled procedural. There are multiple POVs (ok with that) and mutliple issues. The bottom line though is that it's a procedural in which the victim is revealed early on not to have deserved the title of beloved soccer coach. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. Over to others.

The premise of this book sounds really interesting, but I struggled to get through this book. The way the multiple points-of-view are handled and the writing style, the story is very disjointed. I don't know if this is the way the book was written or if it's a translation issue, but I found it very hard to follow. The subject matter is also very dark. I usually like Swedish crime novels, but this one was not for me. I appreciate the chance to read an advance review copy, courtesy of NetGalley and Mysterious Press. My review is voluntary and unbiased. (2.75/3 stars)

When you hear that the victim in a police investigation is a saint, wouldn't you be extra suspicious? That's what happens here, with the murder of Sven-Gunnar Erlandsson. It's the first book I've read of Gerhardsen's and I'm definitely going to read more: even the multiple POVs didn't annoy me as much as they usually do (possibly because you expect a police investigation to be a team effort?).

If you're looking for a new Nordic Noir, this is a good place to start.

Nordic Noir that was not at its finest. This was a slog to get through.
Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for access to this eARC.

This was a solid read. I enjoyed reading this book, however I am very picky when it comes to any book that involves police procedures, and found myself putting this book down a lot. If you are into books that have a heavy police procedural aspect, I think you would really like this book.

Thank you, Netgalley, Carin Gerhardsen, and Penzler Publishers for giving me the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review!

Thank you, Netgalley, Carin Gerhardsen, and Penzler Publishers for the ebook. This was quite the thriller that had me up all hours of the night trying to figure out what was going on. The perfect guy on the outside is murdered and the town is shocked. Once the detectives start looking into everything, the murder victim doesn't appear to be so innocent. Although, the outcome is not at all how I'd imagined, and it goes deeper than anything you can imagine.

Decent but not my favorite. It could have been better.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for allowing me to read this arc in exchange for an honest review!

Nordic Noir, not at its best.

As far as Nordic Noir thrillers go, this one was decidedly subpar for me.

The story itself - a whodunnit about a beloved soccer coach who is found shot to death in a Swedish forrest - was fairly good and unsurprisingly dark and twisted, if not extremely original.

Although it‘s not immediately obvious (this is currently only mentioned in the very last line of the blurb), „The Saint“ is actually the fourth installment in the Hammarby Police series. As someone who hadn‘t read the three previous books, I felt a little lost at times - especially in the beginning - because lots of references were made to an earlier storyline, namely the brutal rape of one of the police officers.

Furthermore, all the main characters were introduced very quickly, with only short initial descriptions, and all pretty much at the same time. As a result of that, I didn‘t really develop a relationship with most of the rather large cast of characters because I simply didn’t learn enough about them, and their portrayals in most cases seemed superficial at best. It‘s usually not a great sign if a book needs a list of characters in the beginning so readers won‘t lose sight of who is who.

But my main issue with the book may, in fact, be with its translation (since I don‘t speak Swedish and cannot confirm this by reading the original, I am giving the author the benefit of the doubt here): the language often seemed stilted, some sentences were bumpy, and other terms and phrases sounded just plain wrong.

I was hoping for a new Nordic Noir series to devour, but after „The Saint“, I won‘t be reading the earlier books in the series.

TW for rape, sexual assault, domestic violence, child sexual abuse, drug use.

Thank you to NetGalley and Penzler Publishers / Mysterious Press for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

„The Saint“ is slated to be published on November 12, 2024.

The subject matter of The Saint interested me, but I struggled with the novel and put it down several times.. It is not a smooth read, and that, in my opinion, could have to do with the translation or perhaps the author trying to do too much.
Thanks NetGalley for the ARC.

** spoiler alert ** I was really disgusted when not even half-way through the book Carin Gerhardsen shows who the killer was, but unbeknown to me we had to solve several other murders to conclude the story, plus solve the rape of Police Assistant Petra Westman. It was the women that solved all the mysteries by looking at computer programs that had something to do with the murders. But in the end, Hamad showed Petra who had been her rapist. It was a really good story and we also learned who had been the person who had her stepfather killed. It seemed to never end with so much going on all the time.
I really ended up liking the story.

As a big fan of Nordic Noir, I’m always looking for new authors to add to my list and I hoped that Gerhardsen would be it. Unfortunately, I wasn’t very impressed. This volume is part of a series that I’d never read before, so maybe that made it harder for me to figure out the characters. There is clearly history there, and I felt a little lost sometimes. But I think that my problem was with the translation. The dialogues didn’t sound natural, the phrases were hard to understand and the turns of phrase were unusual. I was also not a huge fan of the plot, and the cast of suspects was not very well defined. I’m sorry to say that it was not for me.
I chose to read this book and all opinions in this review are my own and completely unbiased. Thank you, NetGalley/Penzler Publishers | Mysterious Press.

My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher, Mysterious Press, for letting me read and review an advanced copy of this book, ‘The Saint’ by Carin Gerhardsen.

In this series of the Swedish writer, the police are called to investigate what looks like an execution of a beloved soccer coach, who was on his way home from a gathering of his poker buddies. The police team lead by DCI Conny Sjoberg, all have their own issues, but must concentrate on the case. When it seems the case is connected to the unsolved cases of two missing girls, the investigation must follow all of the clues they have.

This Swedish mystery is fairly dark, in nature, looking at some of the worst characteristics of some men. It seemed a bit tedious while reading, but the conclusion was quite a climax.

A fun nordic noir outing. Enjoyed the story, but found the translation a little rough at times. Maybe some things just don't translate that well or maybe the translator was taking some sentences that originally worked well and translating them a little too literally? I don't read a lot of books that have been translated, so not sure if that's par for the course or not.

This is the fourth in a series about the eclectic Hammarby Murder Squad, but I read as a stand alone.

Sven-Gunnar Erlandsson is "A SAINT" in the Stockholm community. a soccer coach, consummate volunteer and all around good guy. Everyone is shocked when his murdered body is found in the forest.

The Hammarby murder squad takes the case. The team splits up all of the leads and we follow DI Chief Inspector Conny Sjöberb, as well as the motley crew. It's great to get to know this group and follow their line of thinking. I enjoyed the newest team member!
The squad chases down leads they are surprised at what they find. Could Erlandsson have been less of a saint than everyone thinks?
#penzler