The Ice Beneath Her by Camilla Grebe

First published in Sweden in 2015; published in translation by Ballantine Books on December 27, 2016

Peter Lindgren is a character in a Scandinavian novel, which means he’s depressed. He feels weak and ambivalent and unable to commit to anything. His marriage to Hanne failed long ago. He rarely sees his 15-year-old son. His mother and sister are dead and his father is drinking himself to death. He blames himself for his sister’s death as the result of family drama during his childhood. He’s a homicide cop but arresting people doesn’t make the victims less dead, so he wonders if his life has meaning. That attitude manifests itself in various hand-wringing passages as the novel progresses. Eventually Peter’s self-doubting personality gets old. It also slows the novel’s pace, as does the hand-wringing of the other depressed characters.

Peter and Manfred Olsson investigate the death of a beheaded woman in suburban Stockholm. Her body is in the home of Jesper Orre, a successful Stockholm clothing retailer, but her identity is unknown. There are similarities to a case that has been unsolved for ten years. That prompts Manfred to call Hanne Lagerlind-Schőn. Now retired as a police consultant and in the early stages of dementia, Hanne reluctantly agrees to study the possible connection between the two cases. Yes, this is the same Hanne who was once married to Peter. Hanne, of course, is also depressed, but she has good reason to be, apart from being Scandanavian.

Point of view changes from chapter to chapter. First person accounts of the investigation (and of the general depression that apparently accompanies all life in Scandinavia) come from Peter and Hanne. Hanne’s depression stems from her current controlling husband and the realization that her slow onset of dementia will eventually lead her to lose her memories and, for all practical purposes, to lose herself.

A third perspective comes from Emma Bohman. Emma’s story starts two months earlier, when Jesper doesn’t show up for her engagement dinner. Emma complains that Jesper has been borrowing money from her, which surprises the reader, given that Emma has a drudge job in one of his stores. Emma spends quite a bit of time wondering why Jesper, her secret lover, has suddenly stopped returning her calls. Her self-doubt, like Peter’s, gets old. And like Peter, Emma has a sad childhood experience that left her a little broken.

Using a technique that has become common in thrillers, Emma’s narrative of the past eventually links up to the present narratives of Peter and Hanne. This lets the reader understand the background to the crime and to guess at its solution while the investigators probe the past. The solution is a bit contrived but it’s not over the top, as is the case with many modern thrillers.

Camilla Grebe builds suspense effectively, although this isn’t a frenetically-paced, action-filled thriller. The novel is more about characters than crime, but the characters are interesting and believable (albeit depressed) and the plot is at least moderately surprising. All of that squeaks the novel into recommended territory, but I would primarily recommend it to fans of Scandinavian fiction who have not grown weary reading about characters who are tired of living.

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