The Ice Princess (novel)

Author	Camilla Läckberg
Translator	Steven T. Murray
Language	English
Subject	Popular Fiction-Contemporary Thrillers
Genre	Crime
Publisher	Harpercollins
Publication date	2003
Published in English	April 1, 2008
Pages	400 pages
ISBN	0007269854
Followed by	The Preacher

What attracts us to Swedish fiction? Perhaps the contrast between the myth of the land of prosperity with the reality that underlies: a smooth surface where beneath an ice thin morality lies racism/xenophobia? The Ice Princess is a 2003 crime novel by the Swedish author Camilla Läckberg. It was originally published in 2002 in Swedish, titled Isprinsessan.Family dynamics are once again at loggerheads with each other and the reader bears witness to multiple conflicting portrayals of family life. The difficulty of parent/child relationships is a recurring obsession in The Ice Princess (perhaps echoing Camilla's relationship with her own children), from Erica's frustration with her icy mother, to Vera's fierce enveloping of Anders, to Julia's intractable vitriole toward Karl-Erik and Birgit. True to the genre of Scandinavian crime fiction heavy emphasis is given to characterization and (especially in Lackberg's instance) building up the small-town minutiae in which the crime occurs; so that the claustrophobia is such even a seemingly inconsequential break in the social-infrastructure is a capital felony. Many colorful characters proliferate: from the dotty geriatric Mrs. Petren, whose seemingly endless Santa's plus a Teutonic state-of-the-art coffee machine ensure a steady stream of visitors; to the aging socialite Nelly Lorentz, who is wrapped up in Alex's murder; to Alex's sister, Julia, who is grieving in a highly eccentric way. A cinematic analogy might be Chabrol - dissecting a small community where dark problems lurk in every corner. Even comparisons with Simenon have been drawn: the similarities between the French & Swedish policing structure being similar in many respects. Fans of Swedish whodunits (such as the Wallander police procedural by Henning Mankell) will find this claustraphobic mystery fascinating. With Peter Falk's Inspector Columbo we know the culprit from the beginning the tension results from the protagonist concealing his/her tracks; The Ice Princess uses a more conventional literary device: the 'whodunnit' anyone can be the culprit and can not discover the truth until the last page, resulting in a dash through the pages to see if your suspicions were correct. The plot is superb, which shows off the years of reading Agatha Christie Camilla does not like to boast of- the cast of characters emerge with clarity plus genuineness! The importance of the location is emphasised by the inclusion of a map of Fjällbacka, and the depictions of the landscape are both colorful and inextricably woven into the plot; even of the subplots concerns tourists and incomers from Stockholm buying up ostensibly residential homes just to use as fashionable holiday homes.

The Plot

The droplets of H₂0 have turned to icy crystalline in her hair. Her lower torso is frozen solid, forever in the bathtub of ice-so begins The Ice Princess. Genius is suffering-the characters that we all take for granted did not come easy;In Camilla’s initial synopsis for her first novel, Detective Inspector Mellberg was described thus: “Particularly unpleasant and incompetent". There are seemingly elements cribbed from Bridget Jones's Diary (a connection suggested by Camilla herself, within the narrative) that don't fit the noir genre very well-she is a difficult writer to categorize . Erica Falck has returned to her family home in Fjällbacka after her parents demise-she is sorting through the effects whilst trying to work on a biography of Selma Lagerlöf, a Swedish author-the first female writer to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. This barely registers either in the plot or in Erica's cold-heart beyond an occasional tear - a walloping deus ex machina-but she continues non-the -less. Police tests show that the young woman’s demise occurred long before she was propped in the tub so that the liquid would freeze around her as the temperature dropped far below freezing inside her apartment( A Swedish domicile without central-heating would quickly lose heat in such a subzero climate (-29 max) being by the coast would lower the temperature even faster). In this particular fiction, exactly when the furnace became out-of-order is a timely hubris to the alleged suicide. At the prompting of Alex's parents Erica embarks on a writing project about their daughter but Erica's serious breakthrough comes when she meets a police officer who is also investigating the mystery; together the two uncover secrets that many in the town would prefer never came to light. A hard working policeman with a self-deprecating sense of humor, he’s intelligent without that faux-brilliant intellect that mars other fictional cops. Erica and Patrik’s fascination gives way to deep obsession—and their dalliance grows into uncontrollable magnetism. Erica visualizes a memoir about the beautiful but tragic Alex, one that will answer questions about their missing friendship. The author's unraveling of "psychological motivations" behind Alex's bathtub demise is very skilful (To start with such an enigmatic victim is a good literary ploy and a great way to ensure reader interest until the end), eked out little by little, creating tension until all is finally revealed. The Ice Princess has all the elements of film noir (it would have made a great classic in 1950's black & white mould: 'The Big Sleep' or 'Farewell My Lovely' ) it also has elements of the "cozy" plus the mystery genre. As one of the characters says about the malignity within a small town: 'All the evil, pettiness and malice was quietly allowed to ferment beneath a surface that always had to look so neat and clean.'