Blackwater is not your typical Nordic noir work. Usually, Scandinavian crime novels focus around a flawed protagonist becoming entangled with a gruesome crime that plays on the investigator's neuroses and weaknesses.

Blackwater has no such character; really there is no real "investigator" character at all. There is a crime, but it is presented in such a way that we don't really get to know the victims, or care all that much about them. Blackwater is not about who killed them.

Instead, what this book is about is the effect that the murder has on the witnesses and the people who live nearby. The story is developed through four principal characters: Annie and her daughter Mia, who happen upon the murder scene, a bullied boy Johan, who was running through the woods nearby at the time and Birger, the local doctor.

Ekman recounts how an increasingly distraught Annie arrives in the remote Swedish town of Blackwater on Midsummer's Eve to find nobody there to pick her up. As she and Mia try to find their own way to their destination, Annie stumbles on two bodies in a tent, stabbed to death.

From there, Ekman describes the immediate aftermath of suspicion and mistrust between Annie and the people in the commune she lives in, as well as what happens to the fleeing Johan. The book lays out what happens to the main characters in the intervening years, up to the day when Annie recognises a face that she saw near the tent that night. Annie panics and calls Birger, bringing long-buried events to a head.

The book is fine and Ekman manages to work in a few surprises along the way, but it just doesn't feel suspenseful the way you expect of a murder mystery. The book feels hollow, because the largely anonymous victims are not made empathetic enough, and there is nobody really interested in looking into their deaths. I think Blackwater is fine as far as it goes but would have been better if one of the main characters, Birger being probably the best candidate, had been cast as somebody championing justice for the victims. ( )

DNF. Violent with no apparent redeemable anything.

I registered a book at BookCrossing.com!
http://www.BookCrossing.com/journal/13155307

How frustrating! I forgot to make a journal entry about this book right after I read it, many months ago. So I did not remember reading it until I started reading it again. Then names and events all sounded familiar. Yes, I read it.

A complex story that takes place in Sweden, in remote areas near the border with Norway, as I recall.

In 1974 Annie Raft and her little daughter Mia pass the site of a brutal murder on their way to a commune-like place, where she plans to meet her lover, Dan. It's been hard going and she doesn't see anywhere else they can go. She isn't welcomed warmly, but follows the rules. She is also taken by the police to view the bodies, in case she can identify them.

The case remains unsolved for many years. Then it all comes back to her, in her new life.

I wish I could remember more. ( )

Mittsommer 1974: Eigentlich wollte Dan seine Freundin Annie Raft vom Bus abholen. Doch er taucht nicht auf. Allein irrt die junge Lehrerin mit ihrer Tochter durch die Gegend auf der Suche nach dem Mann, mit dem sie ein neues Leben beginnen wollte. Auf dem Weg bemerkt sie einen fremdländisch aussehenden Mann, und wenig später macht sie in den nordschwedischen Wäldern einen grausigen Fund: ein Zelt mit den Leichen zweier junger Menschen. 18 Jahre später sieht Annie ihre mittlerweile erwachsene Tochter in den Armen eines dunkelhaarigen Mannes, der ihr merkwürdig bekannt vorkommt. Kurz darauf ist Annie verschwunden.

I had two copies of this book and decided to read the Dutch version.
I am having difficulties making up my mind about this book, it certainly wasn't an easy read as many other (Nordic) thrillers are.
It also wasn't a book where the police (or one main police officer) tried to solve the case.
It was a book with beautiful descriptions of nature and very lively descritions of the different characters.
That's what I loved about the book.
What most annoyed me was the bits and pieces of information given randomly that eventually lead to a conclusion.
And the end was very strange: what the ... does it mean "But he had the feeling someone should touch him." For an ending? I have the idea that I miss the real ending and/or that I missed something major in the book that justifies this ending. ( )