Book Review: The Ice Coven | Max Seeck

A Scandinavian thriller set in Finland with a chilling premise, The Ice Coven by Max Seeck features a detective investigating two seemingly unrelated murders with a chilling conclusion.

About the Book (Goodreads)

Investigator Jessica Niemi is in a race against time to find the link between a body with strange markings that has washed up on a frigid shore in Finland and two mysterious disappearances in this terrifying new novel from the New York Times bestselling author of the Witch Hunter.

Six months have passed since Jessica’s encounter with the mysterious serial-killing coven of witches and the death of her mentor Erne. Her nightmares about her mother and the witchcraft that undid her have only gotten worse, but she’s doing what she can to stay focused. Her homicide squad, now under new leadership, has been given a murder case and a new series of disappearances to investigate. A young woman’s corpse has washed up on an icy beach, and two famous Instagram influencers have gone missing at the same time.

The missing influencers and the murdered woman all have ties to a sinister cult. Jessica finds an eerie painting–of a lighthouse on a frigid island–as she investigates and under the picture is a gruesome poem detailing a murder. The nightmares about her dead mother have intensified and seem all too real, making Jessica wonder if the woman might be trying to tell her something about the killings. And as Jessica works frantically to solve her latest case, her terrifying past and the coven of witches that almost killed her shockingly reemerge and threaten to destroy her.

Reflection

I didn’t realize when I started this that it was the second book in a series. I do think it worked as a standalone, though I did feel at times that I missed some of the character building for the lead Jessica Niemi and her backstory. I thought this book read a bit more police procedural and it sounds like the first had more witchcraft elements to it. Still a good book with a solid story and great conclusion!

Jessica and her colleagues in the Violent Crimes Unit at the Helskinki police division are adjusting to the loss of their superintendent and dealing with his replacement, who doesn’t seem to be a fan of Jessica (though the dislike is mutual). The tension within the unit is palpable, and added an interesting element to the book.

Jessica is a different sort of character. She inherited a fortune from her parents after being the only survivor of a car crash, and she lives in her ancestral mansion while pretending to live in a small run-down apartment nearby so her colleagues don’t find out about her wealth. She also sees her dead mother quite often, which was an element I didn’t expect.

Meanwhile two of Finland’s biggest influencers, Lisa Tamamoto and Jason Nervander, have gone missing and Jessica and her partner Yusuf are assigned the case. Lisa vanished after a high profile party, and her apartment is filled with strange artwork depicting young girls dressed in school uniforms. Meanwhile a body is found in the water nearby dressed in a schoolgirl uniform, and with no obvious cause of death. Jessica can’t help but suspect there must be a connection between the two seemingly unrelated crimes, though how a missing social media influencer is connected to a dead Ukranian woman is part of the mystery.

I found the investigative and police procedural pieces to be fairly interesting. With two of the victims being social media influencers, there is quite a bit of technology to the police work to understand the intricacies of how different apps work, store metadata, and how to trace clues through the intricate and complex world of technology.

Some books that are translations like this can be a bit clunky or confusing for the reader because certain elements don’t spark the same way, but I found that wasn’t the case at all with The Ice Coven. The book had a lot of character still in the translation and I thought the translator did a fantastic job.

This can certainly read as a standalone though I do wish I had read the first before this one. The ending got me, I didn’t suspect it at all. A chilling read!