Customer Reviews

Hidden Child

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

There is nothing chilling, thrilling or blood curdling about this author and this novel. Tedious, exasperating and simplistic would be more factual. The at nausea detail of the characters' lives adds nothing to the development of plot; and, in the end, the characters are still one dimensional.

Don't waste your money on Lackberg. If you are looking for thrills and chills from Scandanavia try Jo Nesbo. He's an author to make your blood curdle.

I have spent hours trying to 'get into this novel and it's just not going to happen. I'm about three quarters of the way through it and I don't think I'll bother with the rest of it. I am not attached to any of the characters and the plot is almost non-existent. I know I won't go looking for any of her other books.

Wonderfully written and well-translated, The Hidden Child is a great addition to Lackberg's series. Patrik and Erica are an interesting couple and this book has them working even closer together. Looking forward to The Mermaid.

Read the book that takes place before this book in order to understand what is going on. Fascinating book. Very well translated into English.

Camilla Lackberg's `The Hidden Child.' is heavy on the characters and light on a plot. The list of characters is long and it took me a while to get them all straight and what role each played. The term `character driven' is the only one I can think of that describes this novel. Because it is the characters that shape this book and the plot is just the thread that binds them together.
As the product description states you have a daughter (married to a police detective that finds a diary and a Nazi medal in her late mother's belongings. The novel goes back and forth between the daughter in the present day and her memories of her mother and the strained relationship they shared and the writings of the mother as a young girl in the last years of World War II.
The novel is more about how people can start at the same point in their lives and end up in very different places, making very different choices that shape them into the people they become and the relationships we have by accident of birth and the ones we seek out. The novel is interesting in places and you have a murder or two but there no surprises. If you are looking for a page turner with lots of police procedures and a knife toting serial killer you might want to keep looking.