The Angel Maker by Morgan Greene
This is the first book in the ‘Jamie Johansson’ series, and it was fantastic. It was independently published in 2021. It is actually my favourite book I’ve read so far in 2022. I am a huge fan of crime thrillers, and this was gripping. Scandinavian crime novels seem to be increasingly popular, and this very much reminded me of the Steig Larsson Millennium Trilogy.
I found Greene’s style to be engrossing, full of suspense, and captivating. I read the book in a little over a day and I have already downloaded the next one in the series. Having been to Stockholm and being familiar with ‘scandi’ thrillers, I felt that Greene did a fantastic job of making the reader feel as though they, too, were walking the streets of the city and viewing the action firsthand. For me, the sign of a great book is that it makes you feel like you’re there, and it makes you struggle to put it down.
Another sign is the characters: if you find them likeable or not. More often than not, characters are unrealistic and are hard to relate to. When you read a book and expect to be immersed in it, the characters need to entice you enough to carry on reading. The three main characters, Jamie, Wiik, and Hallberg have a great dynamic, and their personalities all work well together. It is also nice to read this type of book where the protagonist is a female, particularly one who works in a male dominated environment. Jamie is strong, independent, stubborn and tenacious. She makes everyone she comes in contact with feel at ease and treats everyone she comes across with respect. The way she conducts herself professionally (and otherwise) makes her a brilliant role model for not just the characters in the book, but readers too.
Discovering Greene’s series was a happy accident on my part, and I urge you to read it. Authors like Greene deserve to have a wide readership and recognition for their hard work and envisioning a future of strong female leads.