The Disappeared

By: Kristina Ohlsson

Narrated by: Justine Eyre

A young woman is found carved up and buried in a forest glade in a Stockholm suburb. She is identified as Rebecca Trolle, a student who went missing two years earlier. While Fredrika Bergman and her team try to find out why Rebecca met such a violent demise, more bodies are found in the same area.

Fredrika Bergman is inevitably drawn into the case, but it becomes much more complicated when her lover's name is mentioned in the investigation. The investigative unit are nearing a resolution, but the killer is still at large. One question remains: whose body will turn up next when the killer returns to the grave in the forest?

©2011 Kristina Ohlsson (P)2014 Dreamscape Media, LLC

Decent story, poor audio narration

The story itself was okay but the narrator trying to do an impression of Swedish accents was painful to listen to. It would have been better if she had just used her own accent. I don't think it would have detracted from the fact that the story is set is Sweden.

Narrator tough at first but grew on me

A dog finds a dead body: a young woman cut into two big pieces, but missing her head and hands. Soon we realize the story is about finding out who made a snuff film and whether the film is even real. This is the third in a Swedish crime series, and I enjoyed it enough that I'll go back and read the others. It was a little sprawling and long but the fractured time structure with flashes forward to transcripts from an internal affairs investigation into how things went so horribly wrong keep the momentum going. I’m still a little confused about what happened, and the final scene brings up a mystery as to who is watching the film at the end. I like not knowing and I have my theory. Bechdel test: pass.

As for the narrator, she speaks like a weary old man. At first I hated it and thought there was no way I could finish the book but after an hour, her voice really grew on me and disappeared into the background. Her voice perfectly captures the personality of the lead detective.

Very bad performance

I listened to only 10 minutes of this book and could not listen to any more of it. I have no idea if the story is good or not. The reader had a very distracting and annoying accent.