"The hideout" by Camilla Grebe

An audio book, set in Sweden.

In the prelude, Manfred (policeman, 50+) is with young wife Absarne (lecturer - studying how social media has changed people) and 2 year old daughter Nadia. There are 3 older kids from an earlier marriage (barely mentioned again). Nadia falls out of the window. She's put into an induced coma for weeks. He returns to work.

Samuel is 18, living south of Stockholm. He was gifted at maths, but truanted. His mother Pernilla had a religious upbringing. Her mother's dead and her pastor father's in a hospice. She's always been single. He's never met his dad. He's done shoplifting, and drug carrying. But his mother has found a package and has thrown it away. During a job, police capture others in his gang (the boss, Igor, who controls drugs in South Stockholm, lives in the town where a son of mine lives). He escapes with a bag of money, which he hides. He finds a job as a live-in carer for a comatose boy about his age, the son of attractive Rachel (who reminds him of his mother). Igor, released, finds him and attacks him. Rachel kills him. Her son dies. Pernilla's father dies.

Chapters are from Manfred's, Pernilla's or Samuel's PoV.

Johanas, 20 is found dead in water. Other bodies are found, killed by the same person.

Pernilla has trouble with a flirty married pastor. Samuel briefly contacts her. She collects the money. Her colleague at the supermarket helps her try to track her son down.

Samuel (his PoV) finds himself in a near coma, being looked after by a new carer (actually the son of Penella's friend, who reports back to his mother, who calls the police). Pernilla takes matters into her own hands. By the time the police arrive (which is just when Manfred gets a call from the hospital) Rachel has got rid of Samuel and has disappeared. They find Pernilla hanging from a ledge (they save her, contrasting with Nadia's fall). They find Rachel at sea. She drowns herself. Pernilla finds Samuel in a well.

The police and Absarne develop the idea that it's Munchausen-by-proxy online. Rachel received so much sympathy (so many Likes) online that she perpetuated her grief on her blog. Nadia's woken. Will her state be anything like the those of the boys that Rachel kept?

I liked the book. The religious symbolism (Jonah especially) seemed a little forced. I didn't quite see the point of having Pernilla and Rachel so similar - I thought it was going to lead to a revelation. Maybe I missed it. Perhaps we're being asked to compare the two - Rachel deeply disturbed, Pernilla troubled. The 2 pastors (Pernilla's father and her church colleague) could be compared too - kind but controlling in different ways.

Other reviews

• Viv Beeby (There are some loose ends not properly explained, dealt with in a 'well I guess we'll never know' sort of way and because of that, I found the ending somewhat unsatisfactory.)

"After she's gone" by Camilla Grebe

An audio book.

Malim, a mid-twenties female detective engaged to Max, is investigating a cold case back in the swedish village where she grew up. Indeed, she had found the skeleton of the child whose murder hasn't been solved. Her boyfriend then, Kenny, stayed her boyfriend for 2 years until he died in a car accident. It's a small village, where everyone thinks they know what's going on. Factories and the post-office have closed. Hanne (60) and Peter (50) are in her team. They disappear. Hanne is found in woods, reportedly by a woman, but we know that she was found by Jake, a schoolboy who was wearing his dead mother's clothes at the time. Hanne recalls almost nothing about recent events. She has been covering up her memory problems by recording everything in a notebook. Jake has taken the notebook, which we see extensive extracts from.

The PoV continues to switch between Malim, Jake and Hanne (via her notebook that Jake's reading).

Malim's father is dead. Her mother is struggling. She has a cousin Marmoose, 43, who seems mentally defective. He lives with his mother. He's bullied. Malim tried to help. Jake is bullied too. He's friends with another outsider, Saga, a girl. They kiss.

A woman's corpse is found - murdered when Peter and Hanne disappeared. Jake's father (an alcoholic with an unregistered gun) is taken in for questioning. Jake reads Hanne's notebook hoping to find evidence to acquit his father.

There's an immigrant's refuge in the area. There's always been opposition to it. Malim has doubts too. The murdered woman left it 20 years before, with a child (the cold case victim). She was pregnant.

Jake realises that things have been happening at Marmoose's house. Malim thinks so too, from clues Hanne drops. Jake goes there, finds Peter's corpse in a fridge. He saves Hanne from being murdered. He becomes a local hero.

Malim has a one-night stand with a chauvinist colleague.

Marmoose and his mother had been keeping the immigrant mother in their cellar. When Peter and Hanne discovered the cellar, Marmoose killed Peter. The mother escaped so he killed her too.

A twist I hadn't anticipated is that the immigrant mother had given birth to a child while in captivity - Malim.

I liked this book more than many others, though this book too has "She sighs audibly". Maybe it's just the translation. Maybe I'll just have to accept that it's ok.

Other reviews

• goodreads