The Book:
Black Ice by Carin Gerhardsen
Published June 29th 2021 by Scarlet
Date read: June 27, 2021
The Characters:
Jeanette
Sandra
Buy it on Bookshop.org | Amazon
The Plot (from Goodreads):
January in Gotland. The days are short, the air is cold, and all the roads are covered in snow. On a deserted, icy backroad, these wintery conditions will soon bring together a group of strangers with a force devastating enough to change their lives forever when, in the midst of a brief period, a deadly accident and two separate crimes leave victims in their wake.
Four years later a single phone call is all it takes to bring back the terror of that day and to set in motion a plot for revenge. For Sandra it started as an unremarkable wintery day of shopping followed by a kind gesture from a stranger. For Jeanette it began with the thrill of an illicit rendezvous with her lover. Both women had driven past the same icy ravine, but only one was in the car that caused a deadly crash, and only one left a man to die alone in the snow.
Each carried a secret from that day, a secret that, if revealed, could connect them to a larger, more terrible transgression… And there is someone out there who knows the whole picture, and who would rather kill than allow it all to come to light.
The Twist:
Jan was the rapist, and the one who drove Karl-Erik off the road. Jeanette and Peter had been parked in the woods having an affair when Karl-Erik’s car crashed into the ravine. They went down to see if they could help him, and Peter discovered the 6 million kroner in the trunk. He convinced Jeanette to take the money and leave rather than calling the police. They had plans to run away together, but he disappeared before they could get away.
Sandra wasn’t anywhere near the crash, but she knew Jan had something to do with it because he had raped her and left her house via a rarely traveled road at the right time.
Kerstin was Karl-Erik’s wife. Jeanette had sent her pictures, and she used them to blackmail Jan. She didn’t call the police because Karl-Erik was a criminal bringing the stolen money home (hence the sum she tried to blackmail Jan for). Jan assumed he was being blackmailed by Peter.
Jan’s wife Gunilla was the murderer. She killed Peter to protect Jan, and then kidnapped Erik and attempted to murder him as well. Kerstin and Jeanette found Erik while hunting for (and finding) the misplaced money. Gunilla drugged Sandra at the hospital, but Jan saved her. Jeanette committed suicide after finding out who Kerstin was.
The Ending:
Sandra and Kerstin turned the money into the police and told them the whole chain of events. Jan helped convict Gunilla.
The Review:
I’m thoroughly impressed by this book. You may start off with an impression of what role each character plays, but each chapter reveals more twists and secrets until the reader realizes that nothing is as it seems.
I really enjoyed how the plot unfolded, and thought Black Ice was perfectly paced. The alternating POVs were the perfect way to tell this story. At times we saw multiple perspectives of the same scene, and at others we jumped back and forth between past and present. I was never bored and was constantly surprised–although I did guess one culprit successfully.
I will say that I did do a lot of flipping back and forth to re-read previous scenes once I read a new plot twist, so I would definitely recommend reading a physical copy of this book rather than an ebook or audiobook. There were some points where I had to remind myself who was who, because my perspective of the characters was constantly changing.
Black Ice just goes to show how much of an impact one person’s actions can have on the lives of so many people. This one brief moment changed so many lives irrevocably, and the ripple effects of that one night carry out five years in the future.
I’m not sure what else to say without giving away spoilers, but this book is definitely worth the read. I just wish I had read it in winter in the middle of a blizzard!
