In late summer of 2012, millionaire landowner Göran Lundblad went missing from his farm in Sweden. When a search yielded nothing, and all physical evidence had seemingly disappeared, authorities had little to go on-except a disturbing phone call five weeks later from Göran's daughter Maria. She was sure that her sister, Sara, was somehow involved. At the heart of the alleged crime: Sara's greed, her father's land holdings, and his bitter feud with Sara's idler boyfriend.
With no body, there was no crime-and the case went as cold and dark as the forests of southern Sweden. But not for Therese Tang. For two years, this case was her obsession.
A hard-working ex-model, mother of three, and Missing People investigator, Therese was willing to put her own safety at risk in order to uncover the truth. What she found was a nest of depraved secrets, lies, and betrayal. All she had to do now, in her relentless and dangerous pursuit of justice, was prove that it led to murder.
*** [It is the beginning of the end] ***(AmazonCrossing, 1 November 2018, ebook, 293 pages, Amazon First Reads)
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I was gripped from the moment I started to read The Dark Heart. I enjoyed this much more than other true crime books I've read. At times I almost thought I was reading fiction, a Nordic noir novel packed with suspense because of the way The Dark Heart is structured and the truth is gradually revealed one tiny particle at a time. At first Göran's disappearance is treated like a standard missing person's case. However, there are people, his youngest daughter and Therese from Missing Persons who feel certain something far more sinister is going on. At times, the book moves slowly, recounting the less interesting aspects of the investigation. I felt some parts could have been cut to make The Dark Heart a bit more compelling. This true crime book really comes alive towards the end as Therese's obsession with finding out the truth starts to go somewhere. All in all, The Dark Heart is compulsive reading.
