A Dad takes his daughter to the bus stop ready to catch the school bus, BUT she never catches that bus. We follow the search which is never given up by her father and given a glimpse of the pain of not knowing what has happened to her. How can life go on as normal. A book with excellent characters and twists and turns that lead to a dramatic ending. A great read, highly recommended.

I’m afraid I found The Silver Road formulaic and rather tedious. I tried it hoping that the setting in Northern Sweden would give it some atmosphere and originality, but it didn’t and I had to struggle to the end.

The central idea is oh-so-familiar. Lelle’s daughter has been missing for three years, having disappeared from a bus stop one morning. Lelle’s marriage has broken up as a result, he has developed an alcohol problem and he obsessively searches the remote countryside looking for her. Meanwhile, a dysfunctional mother and her teenage daughter move in with a local, reclusive resident...and that’s pretty well all that happens for at least the first half of the book. It’s all very, very familiar stuff, it moves very slowly and I wasn’t convinced by either the events or the setting, so even when things did begin to happen I wasn’t really involved.

The prose is adequate but tends to be repetitive and over-written in a search for atmosphere, and finding a dreadful cliché in the first couple of pages (“he knew the road like the back of his hand”) didn’t augur well. It’s not terrible by any means, but it wasn’t good enough to engage or grip me.

I’m sorry to be critical but, despite the publishers’ claims, I didn’t find The Silver Road either compelling or haunting. It’s an unoriginal story in a setting which isn’t sufficiently well painted and I can’t recommend it.

(My thanks to Corvus for an ARC via NetGalley.)

Lina is 17 when her dad, Lelle, drops her at the bus stop – a day like any other – and that is the last anyone saw of her. Three years on, Lelle spends the endless daylight hours driving the Silver Road in the barren landscape of northern Sweden, searching for her, thinking of her, pining for her.

In another part of time, another 17-year old girl, Meja, arrives from the south with her incompetent mother, who is moving in with ‘yet another’ unalluring lover. Meja despairs of ever finding a happy and independent life for herself or even finding a friend. But Lelle is her school tutor and she reminds him of his own lost daughter, and we see their lives and stories becoming entwined in an unexpected friendship.

Along the way, all kinds of odd characters are thrown up from the strange and barren background of this isolated community, not least a family of survivalists, isolated and self-sufficient, who may offer Meja a sense of belonging and friendship but possibly something more oppressive and darker …

This is a haunting story of damaged people and relationships, loss and grief. There is no shortage of candidates in terms of who may have taken Lina and possibly done worse. There are glimmers of hope in the fragile friendships formed along the way and the tale is woven with great skill and empathy while holding your attention, though all in all I found this a little too dark and, at times graphic, for my taste. If ‘Nordic noir’ is what you’re expecting from this book, you won’t be disappointed though, and you will find a gripping tale expertly told.

The Silver Road is both compelling and haunting. A beautifuly written drama steeped in the atmosphere of an isolated Nordic
community with a deep current of foreboding running through it.
The story interweaves the perspectives of two separate lives which eventually come together as the plot develops.
We share the grieving and desperation of a father, Lelle, whose daughter has gone missing and the experiences of 17 year old Meja struggling with a difficult past and attempting to adjust to a new life in a remote community.
Against the backdrop of a long bright Scandi summer and freezing winter the characters are skilfully brought to life and sensitively portrayed in what is an emotionally stunning and deeply moving story with a deep sense of melancholy and mystery. As the book progresses and we move from summer into winter everything gets darker both physically and metaphorically, completely drawing the reader in towards the final resolution. Atmospheric, heartbreaking and a thoroughly enjoyable read.

This book kept me on the edge of my seat and I couldn't put it down.

I thought the chapters were just the right length to want me to read "just one more".

I liked the way 2 stories were running parallel with each other which again helped with the speed of reading.

The characters were believable and I really connected with them.

I will definitely be recommending this book and looking out for this author again.

Thanks to Atlantic Books and Netgalley for the Advance Review Copy

I had to resist the urge to throw this book across the room when I finished it. I spent the last 10% of my time reading it with my heart pounding and trying and failing not to cry. Be warned, this is not an easy read. It is raw, bleak and brutal.

The book follows the different perspectives of Lelle, a man whose 17-year-old daughter went missing three years prior to the events of the novel, and Meja a 17-year-old girl with a difficult past. Lelle searches nightly for his daughter along the eponymous Silver Road and Meja struggles to adjust to her new existence living in a remote corner of Sweden.

I haven’t read any Scandi-noir type books before and am not particularly interested in the tv dramas either, but I enjoyed this book. The setting is described well and although not from Sweden, as someone from a small, remote community I could identify with Meja’s initial despair. The description of the long summer days and long winter nights also helps to develop the current of isolation and foreboding running throughout the novel.

The characters are well written for the most part and the relationship dynamics are believable. I thought Meja was a bit clueless at times but that is largely explained by her background. Lelle could be frustrating at times but I thought his actions as a grieving and desperate father were credible. I was beginning to suspect who was involved in the abductions towards the end of the novel and my suspicions were proven correct. However, there are a few red herrings thrown up to keep readers guessing.

The themes of the book include violence against women, right wing survivalism, the impact on families when someone goes missing without trace and the meaninglessness of social media sympathy and platitudes.

The last third of the novel dragged a little but the conclusion was absolutely gripping. I tend to read multiple books at the same time, but I abstained from reading any others until the mystery was solved.

A teenager goes missing, the marriage breaks up and the father almost kills himself searching for her. An absolutely nail biting psycological thriller. It is well written, slowly telling the story until the middle to the end. An absolute must read and I am looking forward to more books from this author

OK, so first of all a confession or two. Firstly, I'm a Scandi-noir virgin. Secondly, I love Ikea.

This book is set a long way from Ikea. It's set a long way from anywhere. It starts in the summer, when the nights are light, and the days are long. Day and night are hard to keep separate. A man spends these summer nights driving up and down the Silver Road, looking for his long lost daughter. A girl falls in love with a boy who can offer her safety and security. The light is dazzling, energising, but not friendly.

As the book progresses, we move into winter. Everything gets darker, physically and metaphorically. By this point I was completely drawn in, and wondering how things were going to come together.

The plot works well, but for me it's the portrayal of the landscape, the remoteness, the boredom of teenagers, the weirdness that can develop when people are isolated, the community where everybody "knows" everybody, and nobody knows anything - that's the real power of this book. It kept me up last night, wanting to see how it ended.

Thank you, NetGalley, for the opportunity to read this ARC. I really enjoyed it.

A well written and atmospheric book that I thoroughly enjoyed reading.
I found myself caring for the fate of the characters in the book and wanted to keep reading just a little more to find out what was going to happen next.
The descriptive writing was superb, it was like seeing a movie in your head. The reader is transported to the light bright summer and the snowy freezing winter so believably. The characters are skilfully brought to life on the pages and the book holds the reader’s attention throughout.
It is hard to believe that this is the author’s debut novel but given the standard of the writing and storytelling it surely won’t be the last. I would definitely like to read more from this author.

This may not be the most original of storylines but it is very well developed. It starts by seeming to be two separate stories which are,in due course,brought together very cleverly. Swedish books do tend to be dark and this is no exception. The desperation of a father whose daughter has gone missing is sensitively portrayed and the dynamics of the family with the alternative views and lifestyle is very convincing. All in all, a well written (and well translated) book which will hold a reader's attention throughout.

Ever since his 17 year old daughter Lina disappeared, Lelle Gustaffson has spent his summer nights driving. He travels Route 95 in his Volvo car, traversing the isolated landscape until he reaches the Norwegian border. He visits petrol stations, truck stops, empty houses and even searches roadside rubbish bins. Three years ago, Lina went missing while waiting at a bus shelter after Lelle dropped her off. He was the last person to see her and as a result, he feels guilty, while his wife Annette blames him for not waiting with their daughter until the bus arrived. Their marriage suffered and Anette left him for another man. At first, police suspicion fell on Lelle, known to have a fiery temper, but interest moved on to various males in the area, including Lina's boyfriend, Mikael, who Lelle regularly confronts claiming he must know what happened to her.

In contrast to the bright summer nights, Lelle experiences the darkness of the forests which flank the Silver Road. As he ventures into them, he encounters people almost completely isolated from society - those who feel safer in the dark woods than they do in towns and cities. Living off the grid seems to be popular in this part of Sweden. Although he has a friend in one of the local policemen, Hassan, Lelle believes the police have not done enough to find his daughter and scours the Internet's social media sites which provide theories about what happened to Lina. He is dismissive of an anniversary vigil telling the people involved that, like him, they should be out searching for his missing daughter.

Meanwhile, we read of the arrival of Meja and her mother Silje. The latter is a mentally disturbed woman who clings to men who she thinks can save her from a life of poverty. The latest is Tjorborn, whose main attraction for Silje is that he owns his own house. Meja discovers a stash of porn magazines in his garage, but thankfully, he doesn't seem sexually interested in her as were some of her mother's previous boyfriends. Meja makes friends with a local teenage boy, Carl-Johan, whose home is part Amish settlement/part survivalist camp. Meja is the same age as Lina was at the time of her disappearance. Then another 17-year-old girl, Hanna, goes missing. Her description seems identical to Lina's and, somewhat reluctantly, Lelle joins in the search for her. In doing so, he believes he's discovered a vital clue to his own daughter's fate. Meja leaves her mother with Tjorborn and is taken in by her boyfriend's parents, Anita and Birger. With school summer holidays over, Lelle returns to his teaching post where he encounters Meja. With the approach of Autumn and long, dark nights Lelle’s and Meja’s stories intersect.
Then, about two thirds of the way through the story, there is a shocking twist. As the dark nights return, the mystery slowly begins to clear and the suspense heightens while the action speeds up, leading to a stunning finale.

Overall, the writing is very beautiful and the characters very well drawn. The book perfectly captures the atmosphere of uninterrupted Nordic daylight and the joys of summer, (In the far north of Sweden the sun does not set at all in June.) offset by haunting descriptions of the darkness of the forest and the need for isolation from society. Above all, it perfectly captures the grief of parents such as Lelle whose search tips over into blind obsession and near madness. Stina Jackson’s debut novel - which has already won the Swedish Academy of Crime Writers’ Award for Best Swedish Crime Novel of 2018 - combines a heady mix of mystery and suspense as Lelle continues his relentless search for his daughter. Ultimately this is the story of the emotional damage done to families when a loved one disappears and the determination of some people never to give up hope.