Reviews for The Ice Princess

The average rating for The Ice Princess based on 2 reviews is 1 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2010-02-08 00:00:00 Moya TysonJames I had heard only good things about this book, but it seems this year I'm not being lucky with my readings. In no particular order, the things that bugged me the most were: 1. This is a murder mystery novel, so there are clues the protagonists investigate to resolve it. The only problem is Läckberg tells the reader the clues after everything is resolved. Yes, the reader is excluded from the investigation, i.e. the fun of this kind of books. 2. There are blatant timeline mistakes. For example, check the dates when Patrik Hedstrom interrogates Dagmar Petren (the old lady who made cakes). Suddenly, it's two weeks earlier. 3. I'm convinced this was romance disguised as mystery. I don't really need to know how Erika and Patrik made love for five times because they are on the "bingo phase" of their relationship. Indeed, I would love if I had never read "bingo phase". Half of the book is spent in these silly things I don't want to read about. Else I would have chosen Danielle Steel! 4. Women. I can't believe this was written by a woman! Every woman in the book was completely dependent on men, did everything to please some man in her life and their hardest worry was to have a fine make-up in every occasion. Don't expect to find a strong-willed, intelligent and independent woman in this book. Except maybe the old Dagmar Petren. 5. "What kind of detective is Patrik Hedstrom?" That was the question that came to mind when I read Patrik, after looking for a long time to Erika, always sees her perfect in every detail and finds wonderful she goes out without make-up, unlike her ex-wife. Of course, Erika always has tons of make-up on and half the times they see each other she's just put on the first items of clothing in her closet. You could attribute that to being in love, but it just seemed like Patrik was stupid. 6. Of course, point 5 might just be the result of Läckberg lack of talent for writing. That might sound harsh, but Läckberg's characters were out of her control. She described everyone in a very wordy way which was pointless, since the characters really weren't as she wanted them to be. 7. It took me forever to read! And I had been hoping for a page-turner.

Review # 2 was written on 2011-05-15 00:00:00 David Coupe TONS OF SPOILERS TO SAVE YOU THE EFFORT OF READING THIS HORRIBLE BOOK: Could this be worse? We have one family that runs a town and the 100% evil, snooty aristocratic mother with TWO sociopathic sons (one natural, one adopted). The natural one rapes both boy AND girl children. The adopted one sets fires and commits fratricide before the age of 12. There's a 100% piggy grope-y police chief without redeeming qualities. There's a 100% piggy, grope-y brother-in-law without redeeming qualities (he practically twirls his non-existent mustache). The murder victim is one of the most beautiful women who has ever walked the earth, and she's not only secretly pregnant, but had been secretly pregnant before (and is that her earlier spawn lurking around her parents' house, sulking, perhaps? What a surprise!) The focus of action shifts without explanation from the first main character (a decently sketch-out Brigit Jones-like woman) to a second main character (a decently sketched-out young detective, who has always been in love with the first main character). Several times at the end of a chapter, one of these folks finds a Clue, reads it, is surprised, and puts it in their pocket without sharing with the reader. The detective is credited as being very clever for finding the impression of a note that's been torn off a pad (yeah, good going, Sherlock). The author conveniently finds a will crumpled up in the evil family's trash can (what, shredders haven't made it to Sweden yet?). All the participants in an earlier murder conveniently keep little bookmarks inscribed with the initials of their childhood "gang" name in plain sight for the author and detective to find. At some point, I decided to keep reading only to see what fresh stereotype or abomination waited on the next page. On top of all the bad characterizations and dopey plotting, bad writing abounds. You can't blame the translation, because the guy translates Henning Mankell, and Mankell's gorgeous writing comes through in English just fine. The only pluses were the two surprisingly likable and 3-dimensional main characters, and the vivid setting off- season at a seaside resort town. Plus a lot of careful, interesting and varying descriptions of the coffee people brewed. If the author could write a mystery the way she writes about coffee, this might have been a decent book.