The Lost Boy (Fjällbacka 7)

Author/Guide: Camilla Läckberg

Why a Booktrail?

2000s: A place called Ghost Isle features in this book and adds another chill to the already chilly atmosphere of Fjällbacka

ISBN: 978-0007419579
Translator: Tina Nunnallly
Genre: Crime

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What you need to know before your trail

The book opens with a woman called Natalie in a car -her bloody hands making a sticky mess on the steering wheel. She is fleeing someone or something and returning to Gråskär island near Fjällbacka. the island is known as the island of ghosts as legend has it that those who go there never return. Brrr the temperature has suddenly dropped hasn’t it?

The local detective Patrik Hedstrom, is currently recovering from a serious car accident but he soon drags himself into work to look into a case of murder – Mats Sverin , the finance man of the local council has been found dead. the mystery deepens when it is discovered that he and Natalie were childhood sweethearts. why was he murdered and what was he involved in?

Locations

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Travel Guide

Gråskär, known by the locals as Ghost Isle. There is a legend surrounding this island which dates back many years to the 1870’s. Camilla tells us of the island which is also known as ghost island as ‘ those who go there never return’ and one lady lives there with her husband and another man. their story becomes intertwined with the present as the goings on and legend of the island are explained.

This is one spooky place and Gråskär, the Island of Ghosts, provides the setting for the most chilling and gothic of stories. The scene at the beginning of the book as Natalie flees with her son chilled us to the core with the thought of what had happened and what was to come.

“In these parts nobody calls it Gråskär

In these parts we call it Ghost Isle

Because its said that those who die out there never leave the island”

Some parts are also set in Denmark providing a wider story with larger scope that just in Fjällbacka and a story that transcends countries as well as decades.

For a tour of the locations on a Camilla Tour by Visit Sweden : Camilla Läckberg’s Fjällbacka

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Booktrailer Review

Susan @thebooktrailer:

Fjällbacka and the highly dubious and mysterious Ghost Island is the perfect setting for this novel about running away and secrets from the past. The gothic victorian mystery surrounding the island and its people had me hooked from the beginning and was a major plot puller if that is indeed a word.

The murder of Mats Sverin was hard to fathom and I liked the red herrings such as whether his work was related to his death – the woman’s shelter nearby was a nice distraction as we discovered what he was involved in before his death.

But the real pull for me was the island an the story of the young woman who looked after the lighthouse in the 1800s. The contrast between the two stories weaved together nicely and I was keen to keep dipping into the past to try and work out the present.

Camilla really knows her characters inside out and the island gave her a who new aspect to her mystery writing – having an remote outside island far from Fjällbacka which could stand on the sidelines and be a witness to the goings on on the mainland. a different perspective in more ways than one.