MY BOOK REVIEW OF, Deep Chill

Genre: Fiction, Sub-genre: Mystery/Suspense
Title: DEEP CHILL   
Author: Li Westerlund
Publisher: Dorrance Publishing
The book's web page or goto http://dorrance.stores.yahoo.net/deepchill.html

About the author:  Born in Sweden, Li Westerlund holds European equivalents of the Ph.D., master’s, and J.D. in law, and the B.S. equivalent in electrical engineering; appointed professor of law in 2000. She is now the Vice President of Global IP for a biopharmaceutical company stationed in Washington, D.C. She has published six books dealing with patent and other law and dozens of articles in professional journals and anthologies, but Deep Chill is her first novel (released as Djup Kyla in Sweden in 2003 by Carlssons Publishers).

A review by Frank Riganelli.

It’s a long way from Sweden to Sri Lanka, but Anna Edelhielm, a Special Narcotics Prosecutor in Sweden, needs to get away after her boyfriend is murdered in Stockholm. What better place to go on a “dream vacation” than Sri Lanka, where her sister, Marie, has settled and married? But something strange and perhaps dangerous is keeping Marie from leaving the island. Kevin, an American conducting sensitive negotiations in Sri Lanka, starts to figure out what that something could be. And it’s not what Anna—or you—might expect. -from the Publisher.

Deep Chill; the author’s first novel that was originally published in Sweden, follows Anna Edelhielm; an attorney in the District Attorney’s office of Stockholm, to Sri Lanka where she intends to retrieve her sister. Marie has married and relocated to a life in the tropical country. In the opening scene Anna’s ex-boyfriend is murdered in Stockholm, as the startling events that surround her continue and slowly unfold the story’s mystery, which offers some unsettling realizations to her.

Anna is a sharp minded women who keeps her scars from the past hidden, as she experiences troubling dreams, some of which take place while she’s awake. She loses her sight in a hiking accident and is forced to put aside her cool feelings toward her sister’s family, and begin appreciating the consideration they extend her. But her newly formed affection for the Lankese group is soon shocked by suspicions of criminal activity, and the prospect of murder.

For its 224 pages, the book reads to its end quick enough as the reader sees various events,  including news reports about a militant guerilla group in the area and secretive meetings between a mobile-phone communications company and the Sri Lanken government. The two groups discuss the theft of a laptop computer in Sweden, which is suspected to have vital information about satellite communications.

The story’s final scene shows what appears to be an attempted murder of the two sisters, when Kevin; the American Anna has come to know, and his agent colleague try to foil the attempt. In the story’s epilogue the reader jumps ahead 3 years, in which time a diary found in the investigations after the ordeal has been read. It’s private insights confirm suspicions held throughout the story, while revealing truths about people that were unknown.

Overall, the novel moves along well at a fairly fast and steady pace after the first third of it, which jumps quickly as it takes brief looks at different parts of the story — and it nicely ties the many different events together as the story later gels, bringing its mystery closer to being solved.

The writing style introduces changes in scenes only sporadically, often creating brief analysis in determining who is speaking and what the location is, which then offers penny-dropping moments as the story tightens up again. A finer comment about the writing sees the introduction of important story points blended between the characters, who are continually developed through their different aspects, and the narrative, which at times offers the author’s comments and opinions that provoke the reader. The use of news reports creatively provides additional information to the story, however with a tendancy to not always consider the story's flow, there are times which can leave the reader slightly confused.

The novel offers vivid descriptions of the natural beauty of Sri Lanka as well as the underwater world of scuba diving, as it touches on the topic of satellite communications and the espionage of them, and international drug trafficking.

This excerpt about Anna’s love for diving is from chapter 4. “Anna loved to dive. The rest of the world disappeared, allowing her to become absorbed with what she was doing. Compared with the Baltic Sea, there was so much more to see here and this world was so amazingly colorful. It was a challenge. To master this inaccessible and physiologically impossible element gave her a real high. The adrenaline that rushed through her body took control; her mind became chilled and a calm just filled her. Excitement and the beautiful colors appealed to her, but the feeling of weightlessness was the most wonderful aspect of diving. To just float, suspended in the depths of the ocean. It was about both freedom and control.”
 
All in all, Deep Chill offers a decent intriguing mystery which involves some serious topics. Readers who enjoy mysteries, thrill, or solving a mystery will enjoy this novel.

* I received a complimentary copy of On Finding Solutions For Human Problems as a member of the Dorrance Publishing Book Review Team. This review was written in accordance with guidelines provided by the Publisher.

See this review at shelfari (books)