The Preacher (novel)

The Preacher (Swedish: Predikanten) is a 2004 psychological thriller by Camilla Läckberg, and translated into English by Steven T. Murray in 2009.

A young child who discovers a female cadaver in the Swedish countryside starts a cataclysmic chain of events: when the police arrive, two skeletons are then discovered underneath the woman’s body. It is believed these are female teens, Siv Lantin and Mona Thernblad, who vanished in 1979. Clues point to the Hult family, comprising patriarch Gabriel, spouse Liane, children Linda/Jacob, also Gabriel's estranged nephews Robert/Stefan and their mother Solveig. When another young girl goes missing, Patrik finds himself pitted against dead ends plus literary conundrums in a race to save her life. There is also Erica’s sister Anna, and her marriage problems which form an internal theme. Läckberg who is a parent herself is adept at depicting children; the opening pages, showing a six-year-old getting up early to play at the King’s Cleft, a premonitory forbidden because of its isolation, are skilfully drawn-the terror as he works out that the woman is dead then runs home almost tangible. She acquaints us at the outset with what at first might seem an unlikely Swedish import-a pair who feed off holidaymakers from the metropolis, the head of a clan,now overweight yet acerbic. Patrik’s task is hampered by a heat wave, Erika being 'with child'-(their first) and sycophantic relatives. Office machinations abound: a chief who likes getting all the positive kudos for cases just for himself; a resentful veteran cop who can’t see that he’s been kept back by his own slothfulness/ineptitude; and an otherwise dull colleague who defers to that veteran because of his higher rank. Patrik is smart, caring but not always good. Faced with multiple sense impressions he sometimes has trouble staying focused.