A Harmless Lie by Sara Blaedel #bookreview #shortandsweetreview #series

I purchased this book for my own personal collection.

Publisher: Dutton

Published: March 22, 2022 (first published 2019)

 

Summary:

A woman is haunted by a heartwrenching decision she made as a teenager in this darkly atmospheric, deeply emotional thriller from #1 internationally bestselling global superstar Sara Blaedel.

Detective Louise Rick is on a beach in Thailand when the panicked call from her father comes through. Louise′s beloved brother, Mikkel, has attempted suicide. His wife, Trine, left him days earlier, walking out the door one day with no warning and leaving Mikkel devastated.

Louise rushes home to Osted, the small, insular Danish town where she grew up and where Mikkel still lives. But the more Louise learns about Trine–a devoted wife and the mother of two young children–and her state of mind in the days before she left Mikkel, the more Louise begins to wonder whether Trine really meant to leave him. Or whether something much darker may have taken place.

As the local police begin to suspect that Mikkel may have had a hand in Trine’s disappearance, Louise struggles to clear his name but is forced to confront some hard truths: Small towns always hide secrets. The past always comes back to haunt you. And lies are never harmless.

 

My thoughts:

I have been a fan of Sara Blaedel’s Louise Rick series for quite some time now and was thrilled to see that a new book had not only been written (there are actually a few more that have been written) but actually translated into English and published here in the states!

It may have been a while since I was last in this world with Louise and Camilla, but Sara Blaedel’s writing immediately pulls me in and I feel like I haven’t been away from these characters all that long. As is typically the case with these books, we have a very layered story, where nothing is as it seems. While Louise is helping her brother with the trouble he seems to have found himself in, Camilla is looking into a cold case that just might have a connection to Louise’s brother and why his wife is missing.

This book kept me guessing as to what was going on. I am a big fan of the cold case trope and this one played out so well. Intricately plotted with twists and turns that I did not see coming, this one kept me engaged from start to finish.

I am hopeful that the next two books that have been written in this series will also eventually be translated into English so that I can eventually read them. I do love this series and will wait as long as I need to for that to happen…but I do hope it happens sooner rather than later!

 

Louise Rick Series (as Sara Blaedel published it):

  1. The Midnight Witness
  2. Call Me Princess / Blue Blood / The Silent Women
  3. Only One Life / The Drowned Girl
  4. The Night Women (formerly published as Farewell to Freedom)
  5. The Running Girl
  6. The Stolen Angel
  7. The Forgotten Girls
  8. The Killing Forest
  9. The Lost Woman
  10. A Harmless Lie

*** You’ll notice book 2 has three titles and book 3 has two titles – I actually have all these books, all in English, all from different publishers, released at different times! This is how much I love this author and this series, that I have these different editions!!!