This book is very underwhelming. I just didn’t gel with the book at all. I hated the narrator.. I didn’t like how the book was written either

I love Scandinavian authors, they just bring something else to the reader's table. The book was translated, and I think perhaps there was a few snippets that didn't translate correctly, but this was read that kept you guessing, and hopefully there is even a next book on its way!

A new Scandi Noir series with Detective Hanna Duncker, a woman returning to her childhood home to join the police force that convicted her own father years earlier.

Her first case on her first day also hits close to home when it involves her best friend from childhood.

Somehow a little different to most scandi noir i've read. I'd certainly be interested in reading the next book.

The first in the Hanna Duncker series, translated perfectly from its native language, nothing lost along the way.

Intriguing plotline, that compels you to keep reading, but a little too much of a slow burner for me. Nevertheless, the twists & turns kept the story entertaining.

Many thanks to Netgalley for my ARC in return for my honest review.

𝗜 𝗴𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗯𝗼𝗼𝗸 𝗮 3 ⭐ 𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴

You've got no idea what you're dredging up. You're going to ruin everything.

The past is not going to stay buried in this unputdownable crime novel, the first in a series featuring Detective Hanna Duncker. Fans of Ragnar Jonasson and Ann Cleeves will be gripped by this moving and atmospheric crime novel, already a bestseller in Sweden. Hanna Duncker has returned to the remote island she spent her childhood on and to the past that saw her father convicted for murder. In a cruel twist of fate her new boss is the policeman who put him behind bars. On her first day on the job as the new detective, Hanna is called to a crime scene. The fifteen-year-old son of her former best friend has been found dead and Hanna is thrown into a complex investigation set to stir up old ghosts.

Not everyone is happy to have the daughter of Lars Duncker back in town. Hanna soon realises that she will have to watch her back as she turns over every stone to find the person responsible...

I was drawn deeply into Hanna’s world straight away in this brilliant piece of Scandi Noir. This is the first in Johanna Mo’s Island Murders trilogy, and is already a hit in Sweden. Hanna has returned to her home town of Öland for a post in the local police force. She has to hit the ground running though, because instead of quietly getting to know her colleagues, she is straight onto a crime scene. The body of a young 15 year old boy has been found and everything points to murder. Hanna is partnered with Erik and tasked with breaking the news to the boys family, but there’s one problem. The murdered boy’s mother Rebecka, went to school with Hanna and recognises her the minute she opens the door. If she’d hoped to keep her past secret, or at least in the background, this case will blow her identity wide open. Joel’s birth father also went to school with Hanna and has a reputation for being a bully, in fact Rebecka has openly admitted he was violent during their relationship. Could he possibly have killed his own son? It’s clear that Hanna could be very beneficial to the enquiry - Rebecka trusts her instantly and confides in her on their first visit. Yet her ex-husband Axel, now a well-known businessman in Öland, seems antagonised by Hanna’s presence. In his first interview, Axel tries to manipulate and wrong-foot Hanna by bringing up their past, even twisting the truth to hurt her. Yet there’s a worse secret in Hanna’s past than anything that happened at school. She is Lars Duncker’s daughter and his conviction for murder 16 years earlier is still fresh in a lot of the local’s minds. Can her past stay where it belongs, enabling Hanna to remain focused on who murdered Joel? Could being the daughter of a murderer actually help her to solve the crime she’s investigating? Or will being Lars Duncker’s daughter draw attention away from the case?

I loved the structure of this novel, as one timeline follows the investigation and the other tracks the preceding 24 hours, from Joel’s point of view. I found the second timeline really emotional, because this is Joel unfiltered, as only his closest friend knows him. We learn things about him and his life that his parents don’t know, some of which really hit me in the heart as a step-mum of teenagers. The thought that they might keep things to themselves, scared of my reaction, made me so sad. Yet, this felt like an honest depiction of teenage life, where our friends rather than our family probably know us best. Where crime fiction is often focused on action, or the thrilling twists and turns, this felt quieter and more real. In fact the reason I originally started to read and watch Scandi Noir was because it depicted how violent crime affected the families and friends involved. This reminded me of a another crime writer I read this month, Eva Björg Aegisdottir, who does this very well in her Forbidden Iceland series. It felt like a more feminine gaze showed the devastation caused emotionally. From Joel’s nuclear family and slowly tracking outwards to friends, teachers, neighbours we see all the victims of a murder. Joel’s story takes centre stage, rather than his killer.

I thought the detail of the case was incredible, with every little lead followed up until the truths of the whole town start to come to light. A murder investigation unearths all kinds of secrets and lies before it can be solved. It was interesting to watch Hanna as she tries to settle back in to her home town, and make friends with her colleagues. The author cleverly shows how both she and Erik could come out of an interaction with very differing ideas about what the other one thinks. Hanna assumes people will be prejudiced against her when they find out whose daughter she is, and some are, because someone is ringing her work phone with silent calls which escalate to sounds of a fire burning and a blood curdling scream. As each narrative came closer to revealing the answers, the tension started to build. I liked that the story dealt with a very timely issue and all aspects of the case felt well resolved. However, when it comes to Hanna’s own story, there were enough loose ends left to explore in more detail over the next couple of books. I would recommend this to all crime lovers, but particularly those who enjoy an intelligent, complex and emotional crime novel that focuses on the victims rather than fetishising the killer.

A version of this review is appearing in the blog tour today,

The Night Singer is the first book in the Island Murders trilogy from Johanna Mo. This Scandinavian Crime series follows Police Detective Hanna Duncker who has returned to the small town where she grew up on the island of Öland and has joined the local Police Force. Returning home will be a difficult task for Hanna, as this is the place where her father was convicted of murder sixteen years earlier. This is not only a cause of conflict in the close-knit island community – but her new boss was also one of the Detectives involved in her father’s arrest.

On the first day of her new job, Hanna is called out to investigate the discovery of a body. As the investigation unfolds, she discovers that the boy who has been murdered is the son of her childhood best friend. This puts Hanna in an uncomfortable position, torn between wanting to support her old friend while at the same time, she is determined to find the killer and make a good impression on her new colleagues.

The story is told in a dual timeline format and through a series of flashbacks, we gradually piece together what happened to Joel in the 24 hours leading up to his death. This type of narrative, switching between the two timelines, built up the tension as it got closer and closer to the big reveal and finding out who the killer was.

I was surprised at how different The Night Singer felt from other Scandi Crime Thrillers. It had a lot of the more typical elements that I love; a detailed police procedural, strong lead characters and a dark and chilling atmosphere. Despite this, I felt like it differed as the story had quite an emotional element, dealing with a very contemporary and thought-provoking issue (I won’t say any more as this would be a major spoiler for the investigation).

All aspects of the murder case were resolved thoroughly, but there were many questions that I had regarding Hanna and her past which were left unanswered. I’m hoping that this is because they will be explored further in subsequent books.

If you are looking for a new author to add to your Scandi Crime libraries, I would highly recommend this addictive, intriguing and unexpected introduction to the Island Murders Trilogy.

The Night Singer is the first instalment in The Island Murders trilogy and an enthralling Scandinavian crime thriller introducing a dynamic new police duo. When Hanna Duncker was nineteen, her father was convicted of murder. The shame and confusion that followed left her heartbroken. To escape the small-town whispers, Hanna fled the island community she grew up in, vowing never to return. Sixteen years later, she is back on the island of Öland to clean out her childhood home after her father’s death and is rattled by the realization that she wants to stay. Hanna settles into a weather-beaten cottage by the sea and starts working for the local police. She doesn’t want her colleagues to judge her based on her history, but in a small community you can’t hide from your past – and it doesn’t help that her new boss is the very policeman who put her father behind bars. On the first day of her new job, Hanna is called out to a disturbing crime scene.

A fifteen-year-old boy has been found dead in the world heritage site Stora Alvaret on the southern part of the island, and she is thrown headfirst into a murder investigation that will come to stir up ghosts from her past. The murdered boy turns out to be the son of her childhood best friend. He was a brooding teen with carefully guarded secrets, and his estranged father has ties to Hanna’s own brother’s troubled youth. Hanna realizes she should recuse herself from the investigation, but she doesn’t want to be the one who leaves, yet again. The hunt for the truth becomes a reckoning with people she once abandoned, and Hanna is determined to leave no stone unturned in finding the boy’s killer. She is teamed up with Erik Lindgren, a policeman from out of town who doesn’t know about her father. But he’s nosy in a nice way and tries his best to break through her defences. The two couldn’t be more different: she is a reserved lone wolf, he is a chatty and dedicated family man.

And now they’re supposed to solve the murder together. But not everyone is happy to have the Duncker daughter back in town. Hanna has the creeping feeling that someone is sneaking around outside her window at night, and soon she begins to receive threatening messages. She has always had a nagging suspicion that something in the investigation against her father wasn’t quite right. But she knows that digging up the past will come at great cost. This is a compulsive and atmospheric opening to the series set in southern Sweden. The story is told from four perspectives, those of victim Joel detailing what he experienced in his final hours, Joel’s mother, Rebecka, and the various phases of Hanna Duncker's investigation which we see through the eyes of Erik, her partner and of course, Hanna herself. The multiple perspectives ensures that the book keeps your attention and you get to know the different characters individually. This is a well crafted, slow-burn thriller with a determined, no-nonsense investigator at its centre. Highly recommended.

So I genuinely had no idea who the murderer was going to be in this book and generally I do have a fair idea. Do hope this will be made into a series. Great characters and well written. Giving this one ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

This did take me a while to finish, partially because I've been busy but I didn't find myself staying up late to find out what was going to happen next and so on. It did have a good story line and the characters are all very well written. It's definitely more of a who dun it rather than any kind of thriller but I definitely didn't see the ending coming and I was captured enough to not just give up before I got to the end. It actually worked out quite well that it was some rapid fast paced, twisty turns story as it meant I could dip in and out whenever I had a spare few minutes and I wasn't trying to remember the last 4 dramatic turns that had just happened

I would like to thank Netgalley and Headline for an advance copy of The Night Singer, the first novel to feature Detective Hanna Duncker of the Kalmar police.

Hanna has returned to the island of Öland, where she grew up and where her father, a police officer, committed murder, after years of working as a detective in Stockholm. On her first day as a detective in her new job she is asked to investigate the murder of her childhood best friend’s son, 15 year old Joel Forslund. It is an uncomfortable start in a difficult situation as not everyone welcomes Hannah’s return.

I can appreciate The Night Singer as a well crafted novel with an interesting plot that focuses as much on the characters as the murder enquiry, if not more so. Unfortunately I found it slow going and it didn’t hold my attention, so it took me days rather than hours to finish.

The narrative has a split timeline, the present day and Joel’s last day. The present time narrative is split between the investigation, mostly Hanna and her partner Erik, and Rebekka, Joel’s mum. It’s not confusing but it is distracting as it’s hard to get immersed in the read when it continually switches point of view. When the reader cuts through all this the plot offers a few surprises (I hesitate to call them twists), several suspects and an unusual in some ways, but age old in others, conclusion. I thought this latter was the best bit in the entire novel.

I’m not going to lie, I really don’t understand Hanna returning to the scene of her father’s crime. Surely returning to the worst time of her life can’t offer comfort? It does, however, set up the next novel or an ongoing thread, as she vows to investigate. She seems to be a good investigator but hers is a life half lived, she has no friends and no life outside her job, and frankly that is her fault as she has allowed her father and his crime to overshadow her life, make her socially self conscious and unwilling to engage. Rebekka is probably well drawn but I found her dreary and self pitying and groaned every time she made an appearance. It’s safe to say I didn’t find them appealing.

The Night Singer has things to offer, like strong characterisation and nuanced reactions to events, alongside a logical investigation, but it fell short for me.

The Night Singer is amazing. I'm so glad that it has been translated into English. Different from most others in the genre and after reading the author's note at the end I was really moved. It's a fantastic start to what I hope will become a long series. Very emotional, thought-provoking and heartbreaking, but also a great scandi police thriller. I highly recommend

This is a good Nordic crime book with an interesting plot and a great main character. it had a steady pace and plenty twists, was well written and set the pace for a new series. Overall, I enjoyed the read and look forward to the follow up. Thanks to Net Galley for my ARC.

I pickedthis up every chance I got and whizzed through it.
It's quite slow paced,but works so well with the dual time line that it feels tense in the build up to the final moment of finding who did kill a teenager.
A police officer with issues,that offered a good back story but didn't dominate this one.
I genuinely had no idea who the murderer was going to be.
Hope there's more of these books to come.