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Saturday, April 23, 2011

Pre-Pub Book Buzz: The Preacher by Camilla Lackberg

At this very moment, I'm working my way through Camilla Lackberg's The Ice Princess. The first in her extremely popular Swedish series (and first to make it's way here to the States even though it's almost 10 years old).

Lackberg was in Denver recently promoting the paperback release. I wasn't able to attend, but thanks to Authors on Tour Live, I was able to listen to the event online. Pretty cool! And since this was one of the Christmas requests, I bumped it up the TBR stack after listening to her interview.

And just in time, I might add. Book two in the series, The Preacher, is due out this week (April 27, to be exact). Here's some info on The Preacher from Lackberg's official website:

An early summer morning, a little boy sets off to play at King's Crevice in FjÀllbacka. His games come to an abrupt end when he finds the body of a naked young woman staring up at him. The police are called to the scene. They soon realise that the woman has been murdered. The mystery becomes even more perplexing when they find out what lies underneath the woman's body, namely the skeletons of two other women who have been reported missing since the late 1970s…

Predikanten (The Preacher) is a superb crime novel that skilfully weaves the past together with the present. The characters are shaped with great psychological insight, the Free Church milieu is thrillingly described and highly topical, and the excellent plot is full of surprises.

Lackberg's US publisher, Pegasus Books, is just one of many making an effort to bring out more international crime fiction in the states. I've been poaching wish list titles from Eurocrime and everywhere else I can find them. I've got a substantial list of Scandinavian TBR titles now as well. I mention some of the titles I've had my eye on here. (Note the Eurocrime list is a UK one, they're ahead of us in some of the series.)

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I like the cover on this one. Is that smoke or what - the orange stuff? Sounds like a winner. I do need to read THE ICE PRINCESS first though.

Becky LeJeune said...

I'm not entirely sure what it's supposed to be, Kay, but I agree that it's a great cover. Eurocrime does a weekly post comparing US and UK covers. She did one on The Preacher just recently here: http://eurocrime.blogspot.com/2011/04/preacher-cover-opinions.html

I usually prefer the UK covers, but in this case the UK hardcover isn't that spectacular. I do like their paperback option, but I'm not sure I like it as much as the US one here.