Still Waters by Viveca Sten

On a hot July morning on Sweden’s idyllic vacation island of Sandhamn, a man takes his dog for a walk and makes a gruesome discovery: a body, tangled in fishing net, has washed ashore.

Police detective Thomas Andreasson is the first to arrive on the scene. Before long, he has identified the deceased as Krister Berggren, a bachelor from the mainland who has been missing for months. All signs point to an accident—until another brutalized corpse is found at the local bed-and-breakfast. But this time it is Berggren’s cousin, whom Thomas interviewed in Stockholm just days before.

As the island’s residents reel from the news, Thomas turns to his childhood friend, local lawyer Nora Linde. Together, they attempt to unravel the riddles left behind by these two mysterious outsiders—while trying to make sense of the difficult twists their own lives have taken since the shared summer days of their youth.

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The Melody Lingers On

The Melody Lingers On by Mary Higgins Clark is a suspenseful romantic mystery thriller which I find quite enjoyable, although it comes nowhere near to the bestselling author’s earlier works. Perhaps, though Clark has regularly written thrillers that are a lot better than many other illustrious writers, there seems to be diminishing intensity in the plot, and one feels the finely etched characterization of her earlier novels are missing. What seems to be going against her is the inevitable appraisals of her latest novels against her earlier works which rightfully earned her the nickname, the “Queen of Suspense.”

However, that is not to say her latest release is a shoddy piece of work. Far from it, The Melody Lingers On is an intriguing story, quite enjoyable and it reminds me of how imaginative Mary Higgins Clark was and continues to be. The story revolves around the mystery surrounding the disappearance of hedge fund billionaire Parker Bennett from his sailboat leaving in its wake a whole lot of disgruntled investors, and his wife Anne Bennett and son Eric Bennett scrambling for answers. Anne had to leave behind her posh mansion and move into a townhouse to adjust with the changing times.

Elaine "Lane" Harmon, a thirty-year-old widow, is hired to decorate the house and when she meets Eric she instantly falls for him. Though many suspected Eric and his mother, Anne, of being hand in glove with Parker in duping and conning gullible investors out of billions of dollars, Eric avowed his innocence and went to the extent of hiring a security firm to prove it. When FBI agents tried to track down Parker and establish Eric’s involvement, coupled with one of Parker’s victims decision to take things into his own hands, Lane finds herself and her daughter Katie in great danger. Like most of Clark’s other novels, The Melody Lingers On is suspenseful and enjoyable. The only thing is you’d want it to be more intense and as compelling as her earlier works.

Publisher
Amazon