The Ice Princess

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Now I'm on to this Swedish mystery, by Camilla Lackberg. It's a really good read so far. But there is this problem, which is a pitfall for mystery writers. The dead woman's best friend is searching through her apartment. It's known that the victim was pregnant when she was killed, but not by her husband. While searching the apartment, the best friend finds a nude painting of the woman done by a local artist; the painting is hidden in her closet. Her next thought is (roughly): "Did she have this portrait done for her husband? For her lover? Hmm." The problem is, the reader is smart enough to know the painter could be (probably is) her lover. And the fact that the author does not have her protagonist think of this is even more confirmation.

This is a tough thing for mystery writers: How to dribble out the clues in a slow enough fashion so that there is actually a book to be read but without making the protagonists obtuse.

The appeal of mystery novels is manifold. There's the puzzle aspect and the psychological aspect. And there's also the very intriguing experience of observing the process of consciousness itself, how our minds take in information, use intuition, waffle between insight and blankness, see the light go on. It's important to get that interior development right.

One reason I loved the Stieg Larsson trilogy so much is that, unlike most thrillers, a good part of the plot consists of the good guys implementing a trap for the bad ones. A nice change from the good guys trailing after the bad guys, trying to catch a whiff.
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