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A review by stevendedalus
The Blood Spilt by Åsa Larsson
3.0
Not bland, but a rather amorphous, not terribly thrilling thriller. Things just sort of happen, toxic masculinity haunts everything and damages everyone but never feels rooted, more like an exaggeration so that the action and the plot can occur.
Its interest in female perspective adds a bit of bite but I think it could have worked much more effectively as a study of the normalcy of the toxicity: the combination of shifts to a wolf's perspective, a (not really at all) "raging" feminist and her enemies feels like trying to gin up excitement from what could be a much more interesting character study of a rural community.
It's more emotionally complex than your average airport read, but it's jagged and a bit lost within itself trying to graft Silence of the Lambs setpieces onto a place where the real dangers aren't nearly so colourful, but just as destructive in other ways.
Its interest in female perspective adds a bit of bite but I think it could have worked much more effectively as a study of the normalcy of the toxicity: the combination of shifts to a wolf's perspective, a (not really at all) "raging" feminist and her enemies feels like trying to gin up excitement from what could be a much more interesting character study of a rural community.
It's more emotionally complex than your average airport read, but it's jagged and a bit lost within itself trying to graft Silence of the Lambs setpieces onto a place where the real dangers aren't nearly so colourful, but just as destructive in other ways.