Disappointing Swede to Read…
The 'enigma' of Missing's lead character Sibylla is what first attracts you to this Nordic crime novel. However this enigma is soon brushed away and what is revealed is a weak storyline with an almost overwhelmingly predictable set of events. Any interest you have in finding out about the main character's past is soon extinguished and you're left with a sense of emptiness where there should be curiosity and interest in the future events of the story.
Although Karin Alvetegen's book won the Best Nordic Crime Novel in 2000 I found it's main charcter to be disappoining. At first Karin Alvtegen builds up a sense of mystery in her lead character, the references to Sibylla’s past are enough to whet the reader’s appetite and set your heart racing. What is Sibylla’s big secret? What was so event was so disasterous to scar a young girl and force her into hiding? However where the book fails is the revealing of these mysteries and so halfway through the book I felt no inclination to discover what happened at the end. For a person who generally reads at a very fast speed and is eager to finish every book I start, reading this book felt like a chore and took a very long time.
Sibylla's terribly tormented childhood at first induces the reader to sympathy. However, this feeling soon passes and slips into a feeling of boredem. After finishing this book I felt almost cheated with an uninteresting lead charcter who is built up to be some sort of martyr. I began to resent Karin Alvetegen for building my hopes up so much and making me believe that Sibylla was a tormented soul. Even halfway through the book I felt that Alvetegen's lead character was underdeveloped.
What let this book down was the fact that the lead, who was set up as a huge mystery with an amazing and unusual past, doesn't live up to the hype which accompanies her. She is nowhere near as interesting as you hope she will be and any insight you gain into her personality and her life is an inight which you wish you hadn't got.
I am a huge fan of crime novels as a whole and so this novel was even more of a disappointment. However I wouldn’t write Karin Alvtegen off as a writer just yet, her opening was so promising that I could quite possibly be enticed to give other books by her a try soley because of this opening. Karin Alvetegen's Sweedish novel has been described in the press as a "gripping, multi-faceted thriller'" and an ''utterly suspenseful crime novel'' but all the suspense of the novel is worthless because of the huge anti-climax which the novel ultimatley results in. A dissapointing book which, considering the interesting crimes the book is based on, could have been a thrilling and enthralling book to read.
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