Book cover provided by Free Press
Here’s a first for me: crime fiction written by sisters, Camilla Grebe and Åsa Träff, one a book publisher and the other a psychologist. Together they’ve combined to write a compelling mystery featuring a cognitive behavioral psychologist who has her own demons to face.
Siri Bergman is a Stockholm psychologist who, following the accidental death of her husband, insists upon living in their country home alone, despite the fact that she’s terrified of the dark. Each time that night begins to fall, she walks around turning on every light in every room, lighting up the landscape surrounding her home. She never stops to think that someone may be using that light to look in at her.
Because of Stefan’s death, Siri’s life isn’t tranquil anyway, but she begins to realize that someone is purposely trying to shatter her peace of mind. She gets a threatening note, her cat disappears, a disturbing new patient shows up, another patient receives a letter about her, and someone, probably someone she knows, is tightening the noose. She begins to question almost everyone around her — fellow psychologists, patients, friends. Who among them is doing this to her?
I really liked the juxtaposition between Siri’s work and her own psychological problems: that made this different from other woman-in-jeopardy thrillers. I got a bit frustrated in the middle of this one when it seemed really obvious what was going on yet Siri blithely continued living alone with no curtains drinking herself to sleep, but luckily she snapped out of it and got down to business in the end. Woman-in-jeopardy is okay with me as long as she’s not a stupid woman!
My thanks to Simon & Schuster publicist Lauren Bender for sending me a review copy of Some Kind of Peace.
