About The Book
The action swings from London to Sweden, and then back into the past, to Franco’s Spain, as Roy & Castells hunt a monstrous killer … in the lastest instalment of Johana Gustawsson’s award-winning series
Spain, 1938: The country is wracked by civil war, and as Valencia falls to Franco’s brutal dictatorship, Republican Therese witnesses the murders of her family. Captured and sent to the notorious Las Ventas women’s prison, Therese gives birth to a daughter who is forcibly taken from her.
Falkenberg, Sweden, 2016: A wealthy family is found savagely murdered in their luxurious home. Discovering that her parents have been slaughtered, Aliénor Lindbergh, a new recruit to the UK’s Scotland Yard, rushes back to Sweden and finds her hometown rocked by the massacre.
Profiler Emily Roy joins forces with Aliénor and soon finds herself on the trail of a monstrous and prolific killer. Little does she realise that this killer is about to change the life of her colleague, true-crime writer Alexis Castells. Joining forces once again, Roy and Castells’ investigation takes them from the Swedish fertility clinics of the present day back to the terror of Franco’s rule, and the horrifying events that took place in Spanish orphanages under its rule.
Terrifying, vivid and recounted at breakneck speed, Blood Song is not only a riveting thriller and an examination of corruption in the fertility industry, but a shocking reminder of the atrocities of Spain’s dictatorship, in the latest, stunning installment in the award-winning Roy & Castells series.
My Review
With thanks to the publisher for the copy received. When I read my first book by Johana Gustawsson it was one that contained facts that still upset me now. Her second book was just as good but didn’t have the same impact. Blood Song left me devastated by what I learned about the atrocities committed during Franco’s regime.
Once again she uses fact and fiction. It was the events concerning Teresa, Gordi and all her young friends that upset me. Much more than the fictional events in modern day. I find it very difficult to accept the levels of cruelty displayed but when reading the author notes and articles I found on google I felt it was an honest account. They were hard to read but when I saw how she combined the past and present I was stunned into silence, unable to think about anything apart from what I had just read.
It is powerful, it is a novel where none of the characters over shadow the story. It is a novel where I was left hoping that I would get to meet them all again, even Olofosson who I took a huge dislike to previously, I managed to have some sympathy for this time.
Just wonderful.
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