Reviews with content warning for Sexual violence - Geiger

what. just because you can add plot twists doesn’t mean you should 🙏. the ending didn’t make much sense at all and cheapened the plot. the author spent both too much and too little time on the sex exploitation subplot; depriving it of its potential meaning whilst engaging in its own form of exploitation for shock value. graphic rape scenes rarely add to the plot and they certainly didn’t here.

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kaithebookworm's review against another edition

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challenging dark informative mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated

4.5

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thatbookishgem's review against another edition

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dark mysterious slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

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jsweeneyy's review against another edition

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3.5

this book was interesting, if a bit hard to follow. there was lots of historical contextualization, which I enjoyed. the story was good, and I would recommend it to anyone who is interested in a plot-twist heavy book.

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_desreads's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

Cold War espionage anyone? Skördeman’s debut thriller begins with a phone call to a well known Swedish family in Stockholm. Agneta, the wife, answered the phone and hears one word: Geiger; she then hangs up, gets her pistol, shoots her husband of 30 years and flees the city. As the nation is shocked with the death of its most infamous TV show host, a police officer named Sara is called to the case because she was childhood friends with the family’s daughters. From there a web of dark secrets, false identity and harmful ideology begin to unfold, and Sara learns just how much the past is still shaping the present.

I love me a good spy/espionage story, and for most people I think this will do the trick. There are definitely some twists I didn’t see coming and Skördeman builds strong, multifaceted characters. While I found the ending rushed and a bit more farfetched than the rest of the book presents, the main issue I had were some scenes of Sara’s work as a police officer. Because she works in the prostitution ring in downtown Stockholm, you are exposed to the abuse and sexual assault that the girls she is trying to fight for endure, and it was just not what I was wanting to absorb, especially after reading “Tell Me Everything”.

Thanks for the recommendation @anniebjones05! A good non fiction comparison that I recommend is The Spy & the Traitor by Ben Macintyre

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umbellule's review against another edition

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challenging dark tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

I usually don't bother to leave negative reviews, but I wish I had known this going in:

The opening is very compelling, and there are a couple of interesting characters, so when the plot starts going downhill you give it the benefit of the doubt. But it does not get any better.
There are several uncomfortably long & graphic depictions of child sexual assault.
The author seems to have a lot of anger towards sex workers.

The setup had promise, but it needed a harsher edit, and would've been better if the cop character was completely absent.

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honeyreads1066's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.5

First off what I was expecting was a generic spy thriller but it was a lot more than that.

This book follows Sara, a police officer who was a friend of uncle Stellan's (a retired very famous TV personality) family as a kid and now after he is murdered, she goes on a long journey to figure out who did it.

Agneta is Stellan's wife who after getting a phone call where the other person just says the word Geiger, immediately kills her husband and flees.

I felt like this book was a mesh of two completely different stories. There was of course the spy angle, but there was also an emphasis on the atrocities committed against women, particularly sex workers. While I thought this would be done well, it felt messy and I didn't see why some aspects were put in there.

The spy angle was okay but I felt it was predictable at times up until you got to the end reveal. There were quite a few elements that were predictable outside of the spy angle but not necessarily in a bad way.

With the characters, I felt that some of them were fleshed out well but others seemed unnecessary and it meant that it was difficult to keep a hold of who was important. Also, I felt like I didn't like the characters I was supposed to. I had a major dislike for Sara but I'm not sure that I was supposed to. I just found her overly preachy and frankly annoying.

I also suppose that when there are books from multiple perspectives there's always a chance that one side is going to be more interesting than another and I did find that here.

Overall, maybe this book was not for me. I don't read a lot of spy thrillers but this seemed lacklustre in my opinion.

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