MIDWINTER SACRIFICE

This is a long book, it is complicated, it is not one to dip into on the beach, it needs time and concentration, but my goodness, it repays a bit of effort. There is an undercurrent of the supernatural, as the dead "speak" and try to communicate with the living, which works well. Pay attention to the opening: you won't get its meaning until the end.

The place is Sweden, in the grip of severe winter. The description is detailed and sets the atmosphere of oppression and foreboding. The body of a very obese man is found hanging from a tree. Is this a straightforward murder, or perhaps a ritual connected to Norse gods? The chief investigator is Malin Fors, a (female) Detective Inspector.

Investigation reveals that the body is that of a mentally defective man, much-bullied since childhood, who is a member of a very dysfunctional family: there are three brothers who live with their enigmatic domineering mother, a half-brother and two sisters, one of whom was raped and beaten. Malin has to work out motives and relationships, at the same time dealing with her precocious thirteen-year-old daughter. There is plenty of tension beteween the police colleagues, the pathologist, the fellow officers, the Chief.
 
As more and more details are discovered the pace quickens, and I was so eager to get the result that much of it may have passed me by. There is the obligatory shock at the end, and a wry twist. I need to read this all again.