The story centers on four characters: two killers, a brash NYPD detective abroad, and an unwillingly involved hot-to-trot journalist. The story takes place mostly in Sweden, despite the novel having an Eiffel tower on the cover. The killers were a couple of sexually charged young adults named Syliva and Mac who bewitch other young couples into date shenanigans abroad only to leave their throats cut and bodies gruesomely posed. The killers then send a postcard to a local newspaper for press.
The NYPD detective has a hat in the ring because his own daughter was one of the victims. He flounces around all emotionally charged and making brash stupid decisions. I can tell by the end of the book that we are supposed to see him as a Captain Kirk figure, the type where they get their strength from their humanness, but I just saw him as an incredibly unethical police officer working WAY WAY out of his jurisdiction. The characterization felt forced because his personality was not consistent. The book decided that he was emotionally unattached and terrible with intimacy about 3/4ths the way through the book. He sounded incredibly emotionally open before this point.
The lady journalist, whats her name? Dessie? I think the Swedish Bestselling co-author got a chance to shine with this one, but it was really too bad that Dessie was incredibly boring. Dessie spent the whole book regretting stuff and worrying. She did nothing to drive the plot forward. She was the ambassador to Sweden, translating for the Detective, connecting him to all the right people, and eventually having sex with him when he needed to crash for the night. But I got to learn some neat little Swedish tidbits through Dessie, like about local texture of the Swedish Countryside and the international fanfare caused by the Arctic circle Ikea. (as a sidenote, it complete cracked me up that the Ikea was a central part of this book about Sweden. Its like if we went to France and everyone is eating french fries and wearing berets.)
The fun part of the novel was trying to figure out what the motive of the murders were. The book shined when we got into Syliva and Mac's back story. The tension pacing of the book was a little thrown off because of it, but I think I understand what they were going for. You see, when they released Syliva and Mac from police interrogation because they were ruled out of the case, the story was really picking up and it was terrifying that the real killers were being set free. Then the detective drops everything and flies back home to relax with his buddies in the United States. He had to do it because Syliva and Mac were from the LA area and he needed some hometown investigation. It felt like he ducked out of harms way and took a vacation. Sure, the book still remained interesting because we learned the entire UCLA backstory at that point, but still, the pacing was chaotic.
A key point in the novel is when the newspaper company tries to draw the killers out by offering money for an interview. The key was to entrap them into revealing thier identies so they can be arrested. Syliva and Mac do not take them up on that offer. Then they somehow make a "mistake" in their crime pattern which leads to their identities being revealed. In the book it is implied that the paper caused the break up in crime pattern, but I don't get it. Sounds like they didn't take the bait to me.
So I understand the reviews for this book were bad. I didn't think it was that terrible. It was quite entertaining I thought. All I expected was a frothy read to pass my time in incredibly short bursts. I packed this baby in my massive purse and got it read in 3 days. Perhaps all the reviewers did not like how the killers were revealed right off the bat?
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