The Scent of Almonds and Other Stories by Camilla Lackberg.

The Scent of Almonds and Other Stories by Camilla Lackberg.

Lackberg is a popular Swedish writer described by The Independent as “the rock star of Nordic Noir,” who has sold more than 12 million copies in 55 countries. Family relationships with their petty jealousies as well as the sea and gathering storms, omens of disasters play prominent parts in this collection of short stories. The physical environment is depicted in an oppressive way enabling Lackberg to use pathetic fallacy effectively to create tension and horror.

The author presents you with three short Agatha Christie type stories and one novella, perfectly readable but without the depth of her novels such as The Ice Child or Lost Boy. All of the stories are set in the Swedish fishing village of  Fjallbacka.

In "Dreaming of Elisabeth" we meet Malin and husband Lars who seem to have grown apart and out of love. We are told that the wall between them was insurmountable: "Merely air breathed in and out." Both are experienced sailors so a trip is seen as a make or break situation. Malin isn't quite all there and we discover that she sees images, blood on the tiles and the face of Lars' first wife who had fallen overboard and disappeared for ever.

She saw her "silently drifting with her long hair floating around her face. And her dead eyes." She has suffered from bouts of depression after a number of miscarriages. Lars retreated more and more into his shell. Black clouds herald a storm up ahead. The wind gathers force and we see one of the worst storms that Malin has ever experienced. The story, at this point, builds up to a satisfactory and perhaps unexpected climax. When the boat pitched forward she lost her footing and for a brief moment she thought that Lars was going to push her over the edge and get rid of her just like Elisabeth and inherit her family fortune. Malin is over-anxious and haunted by Elisabeth’s death so that she has lost trust in Lars. This allows us to experience her paranoia that she is going to meet her death just like Lars’ first wife. Can we trust her perceptions? Tension is created and sustained with arguments ensuing over their destination. Lars wanted to battle on and go to Stromstal whilst Malin wanted to play safe and go back. They shout at each other and the tension mixes with pathetic fallacy. Add to it Malin’s hint that her food poisoning might have been caused deliberately and the reader will then have made an unfounded assumption of a pre-determined murder! However, there are a few surprises in store as it reaches its climax, typical of this genre, leaving the reader to draw their own conclusions. Very satisfying.

"An Elegant Death" is predictable. The opening is dramatic when the detectives, characters in Lackberg's novels are investigating a brutal murder of a woman who sold designer dresses, Lisbeth Wahlberg. Her skull has been bashed in and her blood has been sprayed on the white walls. Something heavy and with sharp edges was the murder weapon. Martin Molin who we meet in the novella was helping with the investigation. “It didn’t matter how many times he saw a dead body. It was always the blood that made his stomach heave.” Lisbeth had achieved her “labour of love” and had been “living her dream.” She had been a seamstress before buying her own shop selling exclusive and unaffordable designer clothes. We then meet her two daughters, Tina and Linnea. The tension is rife between the sisters. The reader is told who the murderer is and why it was committed before the detectives carry out a forensic examination of the victim's flat and discover the culprit for themselves! There’s no element of surprise or allowing the reader to draw their own conclusions. Too neat, hence what I would call a frustratingly simple and obvious murder story. Worth a quick read but does not provoke action or thought.

"The Secret of Almonds" reminds me of "And Then There Were None" but less gory. The detective, Martin Molin just happens to be invited by his girlfriend, Lisette to spend a couple of days on an island called Valo to meet her dysfunctional, bickering family over inheritance. Once stranded there are two mysterious deaths which Molin struggles to solve until he has a Sherlock Holmes moment and then it's elementary my dear Watson and an anti-climax.
A pleasant enough read.

REVIEW it by Carol Naylor.

Publisher: Harper Collins. ISBN: 978-0-00-747907-8

Coyright 2017. Permission must be obtained from the author before any of this article review is reproduced.

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