Review: The Disappeared by Kristina Ohlsson

Title: The Disappeared

Author: Kristina Ohlsson

Series: Fredrika Bergman & Alex Recht, #3

Published: March 2015, Atria/Emily Bestler Books

Format: Paperback, 432 pages

Source: Personal copy

Summary: 

The body of a young
woman is found carved up and buried in a forest glade in an innocuous
Stockholm suburb. As Fredrika Bergman and her colleagues in the
Stockholm Police continue to excavate the site, several more bodies are
unearthed. Meanwhile, the name of a children’s fiction author keeps
cropping up in the investigation. All the bodies in the mass grave
appear to have some connection to the old author and her enigmatic
circle of friends – The Guardian Angels – who formed an elitist film
club in the 60s. But the elderly writer is mute and incapable of helping
Fredrika with the investigation.

But the complex case starts
causing rifts within Alex Recht’s team and new revelations cause them to
enter morally ambiguous ground. Now under investigation by Internal
Affairs, the unit approach the case’s resolution with a sense of
impending doom. The author has kept a dark secret under wraps for
decades, but now that the truth is seeping out only one question
remains: which will be the next body to turn up in the grave when the
killer returns to the forest?

My thoughts: This is the third book in Kristina Ohlsson’s Fredrika
Bergman and Alex Recht series and I cannot read these books fast enough. I am so enjoying getting caught up in this series – having read book 5, The Chosen, a few years back and finally deciding to go back and start at the beginning.

There is nothing I love more than a series with great character development and that is what we have here with this series. Each book so far has really balanced the time between the case and the personal lives of the main detectives, and that is never so important as it is in this latest installment. Each of our three main characters’ lives are personally affected by the investigation they are working on, so much so that there is an internal investigation and the way this book is written, you aren’t quite sure until the very end what exactly is under investigation. There are snippets of the interviews here and there that lead you down a few different paths, but it’s not until the end that it all comes together…I loved this because it really keeps you on your toes the entire time. And the case itself is so twisted and complicated that it really could go in any direction.

I think this might be the strongest installment in this series and I really have enjoyed all the books so far. There is just such so much character development here and I am such a fan of that. Yes, the mystery element is strong as well, and I do read this series for that, too, but I can’t discount the fact that I stick with this series for the character development. And as I’ve said before and I will say again, I highly recommend starting this series from the beginning.  While I did start with book 5, I am glad that I have gone back to the beginning and I definitely will be rereading book 5 when I get up to it again.

Books in this series:   

1. Unwanted
2. Silenced
3. The Disappeared
4. Hostage
5. The Chosen