I Will Find the Key, Alex Ahndoril

I WILL FIND THE KEY is one of those random choices that a reader browsing the library's audio book selection late at night can make, with absolutely no idea what they are getting into, or even why the choice was made.

Set in Sweden, the story features a private investigator by the name of Julia Stark, who has a physical disability that, to be honest, I never really did quite get to the bottom of how or when it occurred. But she has a lot of stuff going on, not the least of which is a cop ex-husband, who happily takes time off work to help her out particularly in the case in this novel. The case is also a lot (there's a theme building here), with a man appearing at the door of Stark's business unannounced, clutching his phone, containing a photo of a battered man, tied up with a bag over his head.

He wants Stark to find out if he killed this man. Whoever he is. The client is the owner of a very successful family business, based in a remote part of northwest Sweden, with a well known propensity to drink to excess. He's woken the morning after a company board meeting and gathering of most of the family, to discover the photo, which leads to Julia and her ex - Sidney Mendelson, staying at the remote, opulent family home, with a remote, opulent and decidedly weird family dynamic being played out in front of them.

I WILL FIND THE KEY did manage to invoke a lot of reactions in this reader - some of them positive / some of them very negative. There was a lot happening, and it seemed somewhat disjointed at points - granted I was listening to the audio of it, and it might be that I zoned out sometimes, but there were the longest periods when I really wasn't sure if I'd missed something vital. Something about Stark and Mendelson's marriage, and why she was hoping to win him back. And exactly how her disability happened I never quite got clear in my own head, but then I'm pretty sure I'd zoned out because that subject came up quite a bit, as did the weirdness of the family, the opulence, the drinking, the food, the interpersonal clashes, the weirdness, the missing, the past, the future, the business, often seemingly more than that thing about who the man with the bag on his head was, and if he was actually alive.

Of course it's always tricky to write a slightly prickly central character and I'm pretty sure Julia Stark has been set up to be the "bad" to Sidney Mendelson's "good", although to be frank from the sounds of the marriage breakdown I'm not sure I'd go along with that. Or maybe I would, but really I'm on board with the idea that a prickly woman who experiences a major life change and is in a fair amount of pain and restriction as a result, can be a bit grouchy about that without it being a "bad" thing. There were times when I thought she was a great character though, and there were times when I wanted to be anywhere but in her company, so it was a lot, and a bit tricky to get a handle on. Mind you, Mendelson's "wry tolerance" could annoy readers as well.

Either way I suspect this will be the sort of novel that could polarise readers into "loved it" and "loathed it" camps or simply create a wishy washy middle ground, which is where I'm currently located. Didn't loathe it, didn't love it, would probably pick up another novel in the series if there was nothing else within easy reach.

** After finishing it, I went on a bit of a fact finding mission and it turns out the author, Alex Ahndoril, is a new collaboration for Alexander Ahndoril and Alexandra Coelho Ahndoril, who it further was revealed are the pairing behind the better known name Lars Kepler.