Short & Sweet Review: The Hidden Child by Camilla Lackberg (audio)

Title:The Hidden Child

Author:Camilla Lackberg

Series:Patrik Hedstrom/Fjallbacka, #5

Narrator:Simon Vance

Published:May 2014, HighBridge, a Division of Recorded Books

Length:14 hours 58 minutes

Source:Library

Crime writer Erica
Falck is shocked to discover a Nazi medal among her late mother’s
possessions. Haunted by a childhood of neglect, she resolves to dig deep
into her family’s past and finally uncover the reasons why.

Her
enquiries lead her to the home of a retired history teacher. He was
among her mother’s circle of friends during the Second World War but her
questions are met with bizarre and evasive answers. Two days later he
meets a violent death. Detective Patrik Hedström, Erica’s husband, is on
paternity leave but soon becomes embroiled in the murder investigation.
Who would kill so ruthlessly to bury secrets so old?

Reluctantly
Erica must read her mother’s wartime diaries. But within the pages is a
painful revelation about Erica’s past. Could what little knowledge she
has be enough to endanger her husband and newborn baby? The dark past is
coming to light, and no one will escape the truth of how they came to
be…

***Short & Sweet Reviews are
short, quick reviews. These will mainly be used for series books where I
have already done full reviews on some of the earlier books or for
books that I feel will suffice with a quick review. These will not be
used for review requests or blog tours.

My thoughts:This is the 5th book in Camilla Lackberg’s Fjallbacka/Patrik Hedstrom series and this one picks up a thread started in the previous book that involves Erica, Patrik’s wife. While she‘s obviously in every book, she hasn’t played as big a role as she does in this book since book 1 and I loved seeing so much of her! I love the way this husband/wife team work together when needed and really do hope we see more of that in future books.

Once again the use of dual narratives is used to tell this story and I happen to love this technique – and I think it’s quite effective here. Just being able to connect an incident that happened during WWII, a current murder and the contents of a trunk, buried in an attic, into a believable, tightly woven story that keeps you engaged and wanting more is a winner in my book and that is what Camilla Lackberg has done here.

This book had a more heavy tone to it, but was balanced here and there by some comic relief between the characters – and I just love that. It’s the banter that Camilla Lackberg writes between the characters, this subtle humor that just breaks the heaviness of the book every once in a while. It feels real and authentic and is quite funny!Audio thoughts:This is the second book that Simon Vance has narrated in this series and while he isn’t my pick for narrator – I still prefer David Thorn – the overall narration was ok. Will I continue to listen to the series? Yes, because I do enjoy the audio experience of these books, but I do wish there hadn’t been a switch. (Yes, I am being picky, but as an audio listener, don’t I have a right to my opinion!) That being said, I do have to give Simon Vance his due for being consistent with the voices and giving a good performance.

Books in this series:  

1. The Ice Princess
2. The Preacher
3. The Stonecutter
4. The Stranger
5. The Hidden Child
6. The Drowning
7. The Lost Boy