Review: Guiltless (Sandhamn Murders #3)

Author: Viveca Sten

Started reading: May 23rd 2022

Finished the book: May 24th 2022

Pages: 370

Genres: Crime, Fiction, Mystery

Published: May 23rd 2017

Source: eBook

Goodreads score: 4.10

My score:

Synopsis

The tiny Swedish island of Sandhamn has always been a haven for lawyer Nora Linde. With trouble brewing in her marriage, she finds its comforts more welcome than ever, even in the depths of winter. That is, until her two young sons trip across a severed arm in the woods.

The boys’ gruesome discovery will once again connect Nora with her childhood friend Thomas Andreasson, now a local police detective. When the limb is identified as belonging to a twenty-year-old woman who disappeared without a trace months earlier, what had been a missing persons case takes on a whole new urgency.

Nora and Thomas delve deeply into the woman’s final hours, each of them wrestling not only with the case but with the private demons it awakens in them. As they do, they’ll find themselves drawn into the history of Sandhamn and the tensions that have been simmering just below the surface for more than a hundred years.

My thoughts

I love having a good crime/thriller series that you can just binge on. Those series where you can follow the lives of the main characters and every book is a new crime or murder case. I've loved series by Karin Slaughter, M.J. Arlidge and now this series by Viveca Sten is high on my list to binge read this year!

Pros

• Characters: It was so much fun to visit these characters again. It's been a while, but I'm glad I'm back! Nora and Thomas are such good people. I also loved getting to know Pernilla in this book. On the other hand I had some characters that I didn't like, and I always feel like that's a nice balance to have in a book.
• History: This book is also a dive in Sandhamn history. I thought it was really cool and educational to see how life in Sandhamn was years and years ago. I also felt like this was a very sad story. The mix between nowadays and history kept me reading through this book pretty fast. I was so curious how it would all come together.
• Layers: This book has so many different layers. Especially in the topics that are in this book, like physical and mental abuse, alcohol abuse, love, loss and forgiveness. This all makes the story and the characters so much more real.
• Feelings: The case in this book shows that hate can go a long way. It can fester and get worse if you don't find it in your heart to forgive... Hate will take many, many innocent lives, as we are all aware nowadays with the horrible news items that keep appearing everywhere.
• ENDING: I was so sure that I was giving this book 4 s tars until the FINAL PAGE IN THIS BOOK. You gotta be kidding me. I'm so glad that I don't have to wait a year to read the next book, because ARE YOU KIDDING ME VIVECA STEN?! Srsly doing this to readers on the FINAL PAGE?! I love it; rly takes ballz. #queenofcliffhangers.

Cons

I can't after that final page.

Overall

If you love those crime/mystery series that follow certain main-characters and their lives during the several books in a series; this is a series to read! The setting is so unique; Sandhamn in Sweden. After reading 3 books in this series, it just feels like coming home. And then in this third book Viveca Sten shows us she has some tricks up her sleeve... With that huge CLIFFHANGER. You gotta love it, and I do!

Thanks for reading!

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