Charline (Charlie) hasn't been home in 19 years. She left a teenager and came back a police officer in Stockholm. She and her partner are assisting local police in their hunt for missing 17 year old Annabelle who disappeared one night walking home drunk from a party.

Investigation shows that Annabelle did not have a very happy home life and Charlie empathizes with that. Her home life was not extremely happy either. Both Charlie and Annabelle party hearty, but unfortunately, Charlie's actions get her suspended from the investigation into Annabelle's disappearance.

The characters in this book are bland, the plot is OK and the ending is disappointing. As an entree into Scandinavian Noir, For the Missing is OK. Not great, but certainly not horrible. There are better examples, however. ( )

Dual review with Swedish first and then English!

SWEDISH REVIEW

Annabelle är en bok som från början fängslade mig och om jag hade inte arbetat dagen efter jag började läsa boken hade jag nog läst klart den i ett svep. Men så blev klockan lite väl mycket och jag fick gott vänta tills dagen efter, samt jobba, innan jag kunde plöja de ca 100 sidor jag hade kvar. Det var jobbigt att behöva vänta!

Boken är väldigt välskriven, spännande och medryckande. Ett kapitel till blev lätt till 50 sidor mer och jag fann mig själv verkligen gilla båda karaktärerna i boken samt berättelsen. Charlie är just den typen av karaktär jag gillar att följa, en skärp polis men med demoner som kommer att orsaka vissa problem för hennes under utredningens gång. Parallellt får vi även följa Annabelles dag, den ödesdigra dagen hon försvann. Men det är även ett till sidospår i boken, om två flickor och det dröjer till slutet innan man får reda på vad just den sidohandlingen har med huvudhandlingen att göra.

Slutet kändes lite oavslutat. Som om det kom lite hastigt på, och jag hade velat ha ett mer avslut på utredningen. Men det är nog det enda som jag kände lite besvikelse över att slutet inte riktigt levde upp till resten av bokens fantastiska nivå.

Jag vill avrunda med att säga att Annabelle en alldeles fantastiska bra kriminalare, en av de bästa jag läst i år och jag hoppas verkligen att få läsa fler böcker med Charlie, detta känns verkligen som en bra introduktion till en fantastisk series!

Tack Bokförlaget Forum for recensionsexemplaret!

ENGLISH REVIEW

Seventeen-year-old Annabelle disappears on a warm summer night from the small community of Gullspång, on the border between Västergötland and Värmland. Her parents are deeply worried, the local police are perplexed and Missing people are looking for her in vain.

Criminal Investigator Charlie Lager is sent there with a colleague. She is an investigator at the National Operational Department, a skilled police officer who, at work, has found the routines that her chaotic interior needs. She doesn't want to go, but ends up as always: following orders. It will be a journey back in time. She is forced to return to the place she left when she was fourteen, her past and a childhood she made her utmost to escape from. Once there the memories come alive. Of growing up where the choices are few and the dream of giving up is strong. She remembers her mother and the fear of becoming just like her...

While trying to find out the truth about who Annabelle was and what happened to her, Charlie makes scary discoveries about her own background. And she had to face her worst memory: the time she let another person die.

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Annabelle is a book that captured my interest right from the start and if I had not worked the day after I started reading the book, would I probably have read it in a sweep. However, by then it was a bit late and I had to wait until the day after and also I had to work before I could read the 100 pages I had left. The agony!

The book is very well written, suspenseful and compelling. A chapter more turned easily into 50 pages more and I found myself really like both characters in the book as well as the story. Charlie is just the kind of character I like to read about, a first-class police, but with demons that will cause some problems for her during the investigation. We also get a flashback to the day Annabelle's disappeared in a parallel story. There is also another parallel story in the book, about two girls, and it's not until the end before you find out what that story has to do with the main story.

The end felt a bit unfinished. As if the end came a little too fast, and I would have liked to have a better closure on the investigation. Although that's probably the only thing I felt a little disappointed with that the end did not really live up to the rest of the books amazing level.

I want to end this review by saying that Annabelle is a very good crime novel, one of the best I read this year and I really hope to read more books with Charlie, this really feels like a good introduction to a fantastic series!

Thanks Bokförlaget Forum for the review copy! ( )

Una cálida noche de verano desaparece la joven de diecisiete años Annabelle Ross en Gullspång, un pequeño pueblo del interior de Suecia, donde todos se conocen y en el que nunca pasa nada.La peculiar investigadora criminal de la policía de Estocolmo, Charlie Lager, es enviada allí para hacerse cargo del caso junto a su compañero Anders Bratt: es la mejor y nunca abandona un caso. Para Charlie, sin embargo, no se trata de un caso más, sino de un viaje en el tiempo, ya que se ve obligada a regresar al pueblo en el que nació, al lugar que dejó cuando tenía catorce años, a un pasado y a una infancia de la que hizo todo lo posible para escapar. De nuevo en casa, los recuerdos –y las pesadillas– cobran vida. Al tratar de descubrir quién era Annabelle y qué le sucedió, Charlie hará también sorprendentes descubrimientos sobre su pasado. Annabelle es la primera parte de una serie protagonizada por Charlie Lager, una policía sueca que vuelve a Gullspäng, su pueblo natal para investigar la desaparición de la joven Annabelle Ross. Un caso que se complicará hasta límites insospechados y que llevará a Charlie al límite.

Prima beeld van het(ontredderde) leven in een Zweeds achterafdorpje. ( )

Helt ok deckare. Bra driv och hyfsat spännande. Bra inläsning vilket gjorde några timmars bilåkande betydligt enklare. ( )