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128 reviews for:
The Dark Heart: A True Story of Greed, Murder, and an Unlikely Investigator
Joakim Palmkvist
3.2 AVERAGE
128 reviews for:
The Dark Heart: A True Story of Greed, Murder, and an Unlikely Investigator
Joakim Palmkvist
3.2 AVERAGE
Non-fiction that doesn't flow well; possibly a translation issue, since that was originally written in Swedish. The murder and investigation took place in Sweden. The issue of the civilian searchers was actually an interesting piece.
I just couldn't get into the writing, which made caring about the mystery difficult.
dark
informative
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
An interesting look at the Swedish judicial system as well as a terrific tale of a murder.
Reads like a mystery story
This book was as enjoyable as a non-fiction murder story can be. It doesn’t contain a lot of gruesome details, and mostly recounts the investigation after Goran is reported missing. Definitely a sad story!
This book was as enjoyable as a non-fiction murder story can be. It doesn’t contain a lot of gruesome details, and mostly recounts the investigation after Goran is reported missing. Definitely a sad story!
Overall, I liked this book, but I do have a few quibbles.
As an American reader, I liked learning about the Swedish justice system. I also thought it was well-written and thorough. I really enjoyed Therese's story. She seems awesome, and I would have loved an entire book about her.
What I struggled with was how extremely slow the first half of the book was. I really didn't need to know every financial decision this family ever made. It became monotonous and really gave me more information than I could retain.
I also wish that the author would have portrayed the victim in a little better light. I came to understand him to be a huge jerk who was born into great wealth and privilege and who valued money over his daughter's happiness. Maybe the guy had no redeeming qualities? I don't know, but it seems unlikely. It would have been nice to hear one or two good things about him.
As an American reader, I liked learning about the Swedish justice system. I also thought it was well-written and thorough. I really enjoyed Therese's story. She seems awesome, and I would have loved an entire book about her.
What I struggled with was how extremely slow the first half of the book was. I really didn't need to know every financial decision this family ever made. It became monotonous and really gave me more information than I could retain.
I also wish that the author would have portrayed the victim in a little better light. I came to understand him to be a huge jerk who was born into great wealth and privilege and who valued money over his daughter's happiness. Maybe the guy had no redeeming qualities? I don't know, but it seems unlikely. It would have been nice to hear one or two good things about him.
The Nordic Noir genre is so popular right now that it is interesting to read a non-fiction version. the Dark Heart is the true story of the disappearance of Goren Lundblad in 2012. It was a good book and one of the things I liked the most is that I got to learn about the laws in Sweden. As an American where the crime drama is prolific on our TV it is always interesting to read about how other country's legal systems work.
The story is not always told in a chronological fashion because some of the chapters revolve around elements of the story like the inheritance or blood. This does occasionally take some work to remember when you are in the story (which occurs over two years).
If you are a crime story fan I would definitely recommend this book.
The story is not always told in a chronological fashion because some of the chapters revolve around elements of the story like the inheritance or blood. This does occasionally take some work to remember when you are in the story (which occurs over two years).
If you are a crime story fan I would definitely recommend this book.
First and foremost -- the translation is perfectly fine, and I didn't see all of the issues that others did in regards to this aspect of the book. Is the writing style perhaps a little different? Sure. But it reads as clearly as a lot of European literature.
The two stars is mainly because there was too much in this book. Simply put, I agree that this could have been a long press article but to try and pile a lot of research into one book was boring. There was a lot of filler (from good research) that didn't really add anything to the "plot". Adding a lot of filler just to push this into book format wasn't what this book needed.
It ends up being a sleepy, snoozy, not-so-great true crime book. If you're feeling the urge to skip through entire chapters... that is a problem. And in this case, you can skip entire chapters and you, unfortunately, won't miss anything.
The two stars is mainly because there was too much in this book. Simply put, I agree that this could have been a long press article but to try and pile a lot of research into one book was boring. There was a lot of filler (from good research) that didn't really add anything to the "plot". Adding a lot of filler just to push this into book format wasn't what this book needed.
It ends up being a sleepy, snoozy, not-so-great true crime book. If you're feeling the urge to skip through entire chapters... that is a problem. And in this case, you can skip entire chapters and you, unfortunately, won't miss anything.
I don't even know why I continued to read this other than it went quickly on my Kindle. It was not very well-written, and I don't think the translation can be blamed for much of it. It should have been a magazine article, for one thing. It was too long, with a lot of extraneous information, information that was repeated, it was poorly organized, unfocused and in dire need of a good editor. I got this free on Amazon when it was included in the monthly free reads.
Though Goran’s story certainly deserves to be told, this story would have been much better as a chapter in a book about various true crimes. The story really didn’t warrant a full book and felt dragged out at times.
challenging
dark
mysterious
sad
tense
slow-paced