Falta menos de una semana para Navidad. Enmarcada entre un fondo de rocas grises y un mar helado, con sus casitas de madera cubiertas por la nieve, Fjällbacka regala una imagen de postal. Martin Molin, el joven policía ayudante de Patrik Hedström, viaja a una isla cercana a la costa de Fjällbacka para pasar las fiestas navideñas con la adinerada familia de su novia. En medio de una fuerte tormenta, Ruben, el abuelo y patriarca de la familia, poseedor de una inmensa fortuna, muere en circunstancias extrañas. Martin percibe el sutil aroma a almendras amargas que flota en el aire, claro indicio de un envenenamiento. Inquietos e incomunicados, los invitados tendrán que esperar a que amaine la tormenta.

306/38-Μιας μέρας διάβασμα. Ενδιαφέρον μηδέν. Ίσως να ταίριαζε περισσότερο σε συλλογή αστυνομικών διηγημάτων. Βασίλισσα του Σκανδιναβικού νουάρ δε θα την αποκαλούσα με τίποτα. ( )

This is a particularly unbalanced colleciton of stories. I listened to thi, and at 4.75 hours the main story was a huge proportion of this.comming in at over 3 hours. The other 3 stories were about 20 minutes each. This did not make for an even listening experience.
In the main story, we have the classic locked room mystery, with a death in front of a crowd of witnesses who are then unable to leave the scene, in thgis case being trapped in a hoptel by a snowstorm. One of the guests is Martin Molin, and he is a policeman. I'm not sure what type of policeman, as he seems to go about the investigation that is foisted on him in a particularly amateur way. At times he did seem very young. Some of the questions he seemingly doesn't ask seemed glaring. And, in a house full of motive, he say he can't find one. I could, a great deal of money and a yet to be signed will.
The second story features Martin again but this time he has a detective who seems to know what he is doing. The thrid and forth stories are as much mysterious as detective, as neither is solved, as such.
The writing is OK, and there are some interesting twists on the standard mystery in here. But I'm not sure that the characters grabbed me enough to read more, and the disparate size of the stories in this collection made it an uneven collection. Not a bad read, just not enough to get me comming back for more. ( )

I absolutely loved this book! Some of these short stories involved the characters from her detective novels and it did come handy having read all of them, although I think, it is possible to start with this one and later read the rest of her thrillers.

The Scent of Almonds and Other Stories are a collection of some very short but beautiful crime fiction. Each of them represents situations of people and their way of thinking. These stories include topics: rage, disrespect, revenge, disappointment, love, survival, self-loving and family relationships. It is interesting how these topics can be interpreted in crime stories and it's quite fun and sad!

I chose to start to read the stories from the back, starting with the very short one and leaving the "Scent of Almonds" as the very last. I found the book format extremely helpful when taking on journey as it was narrow and nearly half the size A5. There are less than 200 pages, excellent when taking public transport, but for longer journeys, you know yourself, you will need something extra. ( )

Els tres primers relats curts estan bé. Però la història central l'he trobat fluixíssima. Increïble que ella en sigui l'autora. ( )