What I read In March 2017

Pick of the month March 2017

A wide variety of reading this last month:

1. 4.3, MISS CHRISTIE REGRETS, Guy Fraser-Sampson
2. 4.5, DUMB WITNESS, Agatha Christie
3. 4.4, RECIPES FOR LOVE AND MURDER, Sally Andrew
4. 4.8, BLACK WATER LILIES, Michel Bussi 
5. 4.6, LUSTRUM, Robert Harris - audio book 
6. 4.2, SILVER WATTLE, Belinda Alexandra
7. 4.5, PRECIOUS AND GRACE, Alexander McCall Smith 
8. 4.1, LOST IN NEW YORK, J.J. Henderson
9. 4.4, FRONT RUNNER, Felix Francis  

Without a doubt the one that made me work the hardest was BLACK WATER LILIES by Michel Bussi  and so that is also my pick of the month.

Giverny. During the day, tourists flock to the former home of the famous artist Claude Monet and the gardens where he painted his Water Lilies. But when silence returns, there is a darker side to the peaceful French village.

This is the story of thirteen days that begin with one murder and end with another. Jérôme Morval, a man whose passion for art was matched only by his passion for women, has been found dead in the stream that runs through the gardens. In his pocket is a postcard of Monet's Water Lilies with the words: Eleven years old. Happy Birthday.

Entangled in the mystery are three women: a young painting prodigy, the seductive village schoolteacher and an old widow who watches over the village from a mill by the stream. All three of them share a secret. But what do they know about the discovery of Jérôme Morval's corpse? And what is the connection to the mysterious, rumoured painting of Black Water Lilies?

See what others have read. 

Review: ANOTHER TIME, ANOTHER LIFE, Leif GW Persson

• Format: Kindle (Amazon)
• File Size: 684 KB
• Print Length: 416 pages
• Publisher: Transworld Digital (March 15, 2012)
• translated by Paul Norlen
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services
• Language: English
• ASIN: B007BLO4D0
• Source: I bought it

 Synopsis (Amazon)

Stockholm1975. Six young people take the entire staff of the West German embassy hostage, demanding that the Baader-Meinhof members being held as prisoners in West Germany be released immediately. The long siege ends with the deaths of two hostages and the wounding of several others, including the captors. 

1989: When a Swedish civil servant is murdered, the two leading detectives on the case, Anna Holt and Bo Jarnebring, find their investigation hastily shelved by an incompetent and corrupt senior investigator.

1999. Lars Johansson, having just joined the Swedish Security Police, decides to tie up a few loose ends left behind by his predecessor: specifically, two files on Swedes who had allegedly collaborated on the 1975 assault on the West German embassy, one of whom turned out to be the murder victim in 1989. Johansson reopens the investigation and, with help from detectives Jarnebring and Holt, follows the leads - right up the Swedish political ladder...

Awarded Best Swedish Crime Novel by the Swedish Academy of Crime Writers on its original publication in 2003, Another Time, Another Life is an astonishingly accomplished and resonant thriller spanning twenty-five years, centred around the still-unsolved murder of Prime Minister Olof Palme in 1986.

My take

The synopsis above gives you a pretty good plot outline without giving everything away. So it remains for me to tell you what I thought of it. ANOTHER TIME, ANOTHER LIFE is #2 in a trilogy of police procedurals featuring detectives Bo Jarnebring and Lars Johansson. It is currently the only one of the trilogy to be translated into English.

To be honest it took me quite a while to get used to what appeared to be the author's sardonic tone. He seemed to have a very poor opinion of both the Swedish police and the secret police, the quality of their personnel and their investigative capabilities. Persson also explores the forms that corruption can take. Sometimes I found his cynicism unpleasant to the point of being distracting.

At times I felt lost in the descriptions of political events from 1975 onwards in Sweden in particular although I already had some general knowledge of them. The connections between the events of 1975, 1989 and 1999 weren't obvious at the beginning and made for quite a complicated plot.

Persson explores some interesting philosophical ideas too - among them that justice is not always best served by carrying out the letter of the law. Retribution can come in other forms and can even be self-administered.

Will I read another? I found the characters of Lars Johansson and Bo Jarnebring intriguing, and so I probably will, should another become available in English.

My rating: 4.4

See another review:
EuroCrime - by Laura Root

About the author

Leif GW Persson is the Grand Master of Scandinavian crime fiction. Over three decades, he has taken a scalpel to the political and social mores of Swedish society in his dark and complex crime novels. Persson is also Scandinavia's most renowned criminologist and a leading psychological profiler. He has also served as an advisor to the Swedish Ministry of Justice. Since 1991, he has been Professor at the National Swedish Police Board and is regularly consulted by media as the country's foremost expert on crime. He is the author of nine novels, all of which have been bestsellers in Scandinavia.

2012 Nordic Reading Challenge completed

I seem to have read an awful lot of Swedish crime fiction this year.

First of all 1 in 7 of the books that I have read have been Nordic, and then of that 20, nearly half have been Swedish., and looking from another perspective, half have been new-to-me authors (marked **).

The 2012 Nordic Challenge was hosted by Notes from the North and I aimed to read 11-20 books.

Among my selection were some old favourites too.

1. 4.7, PHANTOM, Jo Nesbo (Norway)
2. 5.0, THE CALLER, Karin Fossum (Norway)
3. 4.8, THE BOY IN THE SUITCASE, Lena Kaarbol & Agnete Friis (Denmark) **
4. 4.4, NIGHT ROUNDS, Helene Tursten (Sweden)
5. 4.8, 1222, Anne Holt (Norway) **
6. 4.7, HEADHUNTERS, Jo Nesbo (Norway)
7. 4.5, MURDER AT THE SAVOY, Maj Sjowall & Per Wahloo (Sweden)
8. 4.7, THE ABOMINABLE MAN, Maj Sjowall & Per Wahloo (Sweden)
9. 4.5, THE FLATEY ENIGMA, Viktor Arnar Ingolfsson (Iceland) **
10. 4.7, DREGS, Jon Lier Horst (Norway) **
11. 4.5, THE FINAL MURDER, Anne Holt (Norway)
12. 4.6, NEXT OF KIN, Elsebeth Egholm (Denmark) **
13. 5.0, THE QUARRY, Johan Theorin (Norway)
14. 4.6, THE MIND'S EYE, Hakan Nesser (??)
15. 4.5, THE STONE-CUTTER, Camilla Lackberg (Sweden) **
16. 4.5, THE BLACK PATH, Asa Larsson (Sweden)
17. 4.3, MIDWINTER SACRIFICE, Mons Kallentoft (Sweden) ** 
18. 4.7, DEATH OF A CARPET DEALER, Karin Wahlberg (Sweden) **
19. 4.5, THE BOMBER, Lisa Marklund (Sweden) **
20. 4.5, LETHAL INVESTMENTS, K.O. Dahl (Sweden) **

Review: LETHAL INVESTMENTS, Kjell Ola Dahl

• Format: Kindle (Amazon)
• File Size: 547 KB
• Print Length: 368 pages
• Publisher: Faber and Faber Crime (September 1, 2011) - first published in Swedish 1993
• Translated from Swedish by Don Bartlett
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services
• Language: English
• ASIN: B005CG8IA6
• Source: I bought it

Synopsis (Amazon)

An apartment building. A woman clearing up the mess her three-year-old son has made on the stairway. A child staring into an open doorway. The naked leg of a woman sticking out of that doorway. Blood. A woman's scream.

Reidun Rosendal's murder presents Oslo detectives Gunnarstranda and Frolich with their most intriguing case yet. And the mystery deepens when the chief suspect, Reidun's lover, is also found murdered.

As the investigation proceeds the focus shifts to Reidun's place of work, Software Partners, where the business and the private lives of the characters intermesh in ways that become lethal.

K. O. Dahl's stories are propelled by compelling narratives where the final twist is always satisfying.

My take

LETHAL INVESTMENTS published nearly 20 years ago (1993) and has only recently been published in English. The first of the Frohlich series, it introduces Oslo detectives Gunnarstranda and Frolich. Gunnarstranda is the older man, a bit of a bulldog once he has his teeth into a case, but also the one who worries at the evidence, trying to work out the sequence of events. The duo reminded me a bit of Dalziel and Pascoe from P.D. James, or A.C. Baantjer's DeKok and Vledder.

Once Gunnarstranda, recently widowed, is on the trail he seems to persist beyond above the call of duty:

Frank [Frohlich] stared at him. The older policeman with the cigarette and coffee cup had blue bags under his eyes. The thread-like hair lay in unruly tufts across his balding head, his coat was creased and his face sallow under the grey stubble.

So here is another Swedish police procedural and you are probably thinking you don't need to read another. I really enjoyed the way the reader is made privy to the detectives' deductive processes. Gunnarstranda forces Frohlich to explore with him possible scenarios to fit the evidence, putting themselves in the roles of victim and perpetrator, thinking their way through how and why things have happened as they did.

Another of things I really liked about the style of this novel is the almost shorthand descriptive passages:

The light from the windows fell on two other desks. On one there was a white strip of paper taped to the side of the telephone. Reidun Rosendal’s. Her name in neat blue writing. Small flattened loops between the curves. Her place, he thought, and sat down. Opened the drawers. Examined them without finding anything of interest. They were empty. No engagement diary. No personal papers. Just loose pens, a coloured ribbon for a printer and some files. An empty Coke bottle rolling around in the bottom drawer when he opened it. On top, under glass, a passport-size photograph. He lifted the sheet of glass, coaxed the picture out and studied it. Black and white photograph. Face in half-profile. A blonde leaning back, tossing her hair while looking in the mirror. Self-satisfied expression. A woman who liked what she saw in the mirror. But she was young.

The novel gives us yet another view of Swedish society at the end of the twentieth century. LETHAL INVESTMENTS is in part about the sort of get-rich-quick schemes that characterised that time.

My rating: 4.5

See another review by Laura Root at EuroCrime

About the Author
  
Kjell Ola Dahl was born in Norway in 1958 and lives with his wife and children in Feirng, near Oslo. His first novel, Dødens investeringer (Lethal Investments), was published in Norway in 1993. The Fourth Man marked his first publication in English in 2007.  

By the Same Author

THE FOURTH MAN
THE MAN IN THE WINDOW
THE LAST FIX

Review: THE BOMBER, Lisa Marklund

• Format: Kindle (Amazon)
• File Size: 743 KB
• Print Length: 528 pages
• Publisher: Transworld Digital (November 24, 2011)
• Originally published in 2005
• translated by Neil Smith
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
• Language: English
• ASIN: B005LPE4CE

Synopsis (Amazon)

Seven days. Three killings. And one woman who knows too much...Crime reporter Annika Bengtzon is woken by a phonecall in the early hours of a wintry December morning.

An explosion has ripped apart the Olympic Stadium. And a victim has been blown to pieces. As Annika delves into the details of the bombing and the background of the victim, there is a second explosion.

 These chilling crimes could be her biggest news story yet. When her police source reveals they are hot on the heels of the bomber, Annika is guaranteed an exclusive with her name on it. But she is uncovering too much, and soon finds herself the target of a deranged serial killer...

My Take

The suspense level in THE BOMBER is enhanced by the fact that the action, the bomb blast at the newly constructed Olympic stadium in Stockholm, takes place just a week before Christmas. This has the effect of a sort of count down, can the police or the journalists solve the mystery before Christmas Day?

Once the identity of the bomb victim has been established, there are many, including journalists, who believe that it is a threat by terrorists against the Olympics being held in Stockholm. Others, police included, believe it is an inside job, directed personally against the head of Sweden's Olympic Committee Bid. The first point of view seems reinforced when a second bombing occurs at another Olympic venue.

For Annika Bengtzon, head of a newspaper's crime section, reporting the bombings brings it's own challenges. She has spent a number of years establishing a relationship with a police "deep throat" but much of what he tells her can't be released to the public. Members of her own team begin to challenge Annika's authority when she refuses to use the terrorism line.

Annika is also a young mother whose husband has a stressful job too, and Marklund explores the strains of their relationship particularly when Annika's job puts her family in danger. It is clear that the author is also using the novel to explore what happens when a woman works in a male-dominated profession.

Another issue that surfaces from the author's journalism background is that of the steps print newspapers have to take to survive in a world of technological change. I thought there was maybe a little too much about marketing strategies but the bits about the tough decisions that chief editors have to make to ensure that their papers survive was well done.

The novel comes with its own puzzle too: there are seven chapters with headings: Existence, Love, Humanity etc. The reader is never clearly told until the end whose life story these chapters describe.

My rating: 4.5

Other Reviews:
EuroCrime: - Karen Meek
EuroCrime: - Lynn Harvey

This edition of the novel comes with an afterword by Lisa Marklund explaining the inspiration for the novel. There Marklund reveals that THE BOMBER was intended to be title #4 in a contracted series  on Annika Bengzton but in fact the series has turned out differently:

Annika Bengtzon (Fantastic Fiction)1. Paradise (2000)
aka Vanished
2. The Bomber (2001)
3. Prime Time (2002)
4. Studio Sex (2002)
aka Studio 69 / Exposed
5. Red Wolf (2003)
6. Last Will (2012)
7. Lifetime (2013)

Review: DEATH OF A CARPET DEALER, Karin Wahlberg

• format: Kindle (Amazon)
• File Size: 636 KB
• Print Length: 394 pages
• Page Numbers Source ISBN: 9187173212
• Publisher: Stockholm Text Publishing AB (May 22, 2012)
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
• translated by Neil Betteridge 
• Language: English
• ASIN: B0085HXLCY
• Source: I bought it

Synopsis: Amazon

The brutal murder of a Swedish carpet dealer on a business trip to Turkey is the start of a story about an unknown daughter, an exclusive carpet and – as always when Karin Wahlberg writes – the everyday life and dreams of the people we meet in her stories.

My Take

Carl-Ivar Olssson, the carpet dealer, lives in the small Swedish town of Oskarshamm. He is happily married to Birgitta, a nurse at the local hospital. His carpet business is highly respected and he frequently goes to Istanbul for business and holidays. On this occasion he and Birgitta, married for something like 40 years, went to Istanbul: he for a conference and she for a holiday. Birgitta returns home ahead of Carl-Ivar, and two days later he is dead, brutally murdered on a Bosphorus ferry.

DEATH OF A CARPET DEALER combines plot elements we have seen many times before like the revelation that Carl-Ivar has a secret life, with a fairly traditional police procedural, and a carefully plotted many-layered story, that reminded me a little of a flower opening. Oskershamm is one of those relatively small places it seems, where people's lives overlap rather in the manner of a Venn diagram. So the author is able to bring new threads into the novel, each one a separate story.

Wahlberg has peopled this novel with some very well drawn characters and believable scenarios. For example the carpet dealer is murdered just at the wrong time for Chief Inspector Claes Claesson who is about to take paternity leave. This will be his second daughter with wife Veronika Lundborg, doctor at the local hospital, under some sort of cloud with a "Doctor Death" reputation. It isn't just the murder that connects Claes and Veronika to the carpet dealer though. Claes has inherited a very old carpet that is currently with the carpet dealer for repair. This scenario is just one example of the delightful webbing that connects this community.

Some of the action of the novel takes place in Istanbul where Claesson and a Turkish speaking colleague go to collaborate with the Istanbul police in tracking down the murderer of the carpet dealer. I enjoyed revisiting the city which I have explored at least twice in the flesh.

I am wondering whether DEATH OF A CARPET DEALER is actually the debut of the series. It is characterised by that careful and detailed creation of characters that we often see at the beginning of a police procedural series. I for one will be very happy to read another.

My rating: 4.7

Read another review by Petrona.

About the author (from Amazon)

Read by every doctor and nurse in Sweden and often compared to New York Times bestselling author of medical thrillers, Tess Gerritsen, Death of a Carpet Dealer is one of seven in Wahlberg’s series featuring Police Commissioner Claes Claesson and his wife Veronika Lundborg, doctor at Oskarshamn hospital. Her books have sold over 1.5 million total copies worldwide.

Karin Wahlberg’s crime novels both entertain and inspire readers to make the world a better place. Karin Wahlberg works as a gynecologist and obstetrician in Lund, Sweden, when she is not writing books; books that are more like exciting literary works than traditional mysteries. Her style allows her to create rich stories with profund storylines that highlight the seemingly ordinary lives of her characters. Wahlberg excels at bringing these characters to life – people who have found themselves at a critical turning point and must act both for themselves and for their environment. Karin Wahlberg says this about her writing: “There is just one deadline, death, and therefore there is all reason in the world to write about those things one finds are important.”

DEATH OF A CARPET DEALER appears to be her first title available in English although there are 7 titles in her Claes Claesson series. Hopefully we will see more in English.

Review: MIDWINTER SACRIFICE, Mons Kallentoft

• published Hodder & Stoughton 2011
• Translated from Swedish by Neil Smith
• aka MIDWINTER BLOOD
• ISBN 978-1-444-72150-8
• 440 pages
• Source: my local library
• #1 in the Malin Fors series

Synopsis (Amazon)

'An investigation consists of a mass of voices, the sort you can hear, and the sort you can't. You have to listen to the soundless voices, Malin. That's where the truth is hidden.'

Early one morning in the coldest winter in Swedish memory, police detective Malin Fors is called away from the warm flat she shares with her teenage daughter. The naked body of a man has been found hanging from a tree on the deserted, frozen plain outside the town of Linköping.

From the outset Malin is confronted with a host of unanswered questions: Who is the dead man? How did he end up in a tree? And where did the strange wounds on his body come from?

Malin and her team must search for the truth in a community that seems determined to keep its secrets, and follow in the frigid wake of a killer to the darkest corners of the human heart.

My Take

MIDWINTER SACRIFICE is essentially a Swedish police procedural set in area of Linköping where the author grew up. The discovery of a frozen body hanging in a tree is the start of an investigation which grinds to a baffling halt about mid-book, despite the early identification of the victim.

The investigation does reveal that the victim was a suspect in a rape case from about three years earlier when a social worker was viciously assaulted. What it cannot tell Malin Fors and her partner Zeke Martinsson is what is behind this particular killing. Is it "just" murder or are there some links to mid-winter rituals?

There are a number of background stories as one would expect in the first novel in a series where the author is establishing the main characters but I have to agree with other reviewers who have said this book is far too long.

There is also a paranormal element that I really didn't think achieved much except as a sort of overview of what happened to the murder victim and a predictor of events to come. It does give us clues about who is responsible for the crime.

The author chooses to leave one crime unsolved although both the reader and Malin Fors would think they have enough evidence to know who the perpetrator is.

The series continues in a "seasonal" fashion, rather along the lines of Ann Cleeves' Shetland Quartet, which also began with a winter murder.

My rating: 4.3

Other reviews

• EuroCrime: Michelle Peckham
• EuroCrime: Maxine Clarke

From the author's site
In 2007, Midvinterblod (Midwinter Sacrifice/Midwinter Blood) - his fourth novel and first venture into crime fiction - was published to great acclaim and quickly became one of the bestselling books in Sweden. His second book about police inspector Malin Fors, Sommardöden (Summertime Death) was published in May 2008 and was followed by Höstoffer (Autumn Killing) in May 2009, Vårlik (Savage Spring) in May 2010 and Den femte årstiden (The fifth season) in June 2011. The latest book about Malin Fors is called Vattenänglar (Water Angels) and was published in August 2012.

Review: THE BLACK PATH, Asa Larsson

• first published in Swedish in 2006
• First published in English 2012 by Maclehose Press
• ISBN 978-0-85705-032-4
• translated from Swedish by Marlaine Delargy
• #3 in the Rebekah Martinsson series
• 395 pages
• source: review copy supplied by Pan Macmillan Australia

Publisher's blurb

A woman’s body is found on a frozen lake, bearing the marks of grisly torture.
Inspector Anna-Maria Mella knows she needs help with the case – the woman was a key player in a mining company whose tentacles reach across the globe.

Lawyer Rebecka Martinsson is desperate to get back to work, to feel alive again after a case that almost destroyed her both physically and emotionally.

Soon she is delving into the affairs of the victim’s boss, the founder of Kallis Mining, whose relationship with the dead woman was complex and obsessive.
Martinsson and Mella are about to uncover a dark and tangled drama of family secrets, twisted sexuality, and corruption on a massive scale.

My Take

There were a number of reasons why this book took me longer than usual to read. Apart from the fact that it is quite long, it also has quite a panoply of characters, and a multiplicity of small intermeshing plots. And characters and scenes are richly described, with details that had me re-reading paragraphs in the hope that I wouldn't forget too much.

There's a reminder at the beginning of the book about what had happened to Rebekah Martinsson at the end of the previous one in the series (#2), and I needed that, as I hadn't read the book. In fact I've read #3 and #4 out of order, which is not to be recommended. During this book however we also learn quite a bit more about Rebekah's childhood and the demons she is currently facing.

There's a global aspect to THE BLACK PATH as Kallis Mining attempts to manipulate the politics in African countries for their own benefit. I thought the scenarios showed Asa Larsson's understanding of and interest in the political and economic forces behind globalisation.

My rating: 4.5

Other Reviews to check

• The Australian Bookshelf
• Reactions to Reading
• EuroCrime (Maxine)

The series (courtesy EuroCrime)
Rebecka Martinsson, Lawyer, Sweden

• Sun Storm (apa The Savage Altar)	2006	1
• The Blood Spilt	2007	2
• The Black Path	2008	3
• Until Thy Wrath be Past	2011	4

Other reviews on MiP
THE SAVAGE ALTAR
4.7, UNTIL THY WRATH BE PAST

Review: THE STONECUTTER, Camilla Lackberg - audio book

• Audio version available from Audible.com
• narrated by Eamonn Riley
• Length: 16 hours
• book published in Swedish in 2010
• translated into English by Steven J. Murray in 2010
• #3 in the Patrik Hedstrom series

Publisher's blurb

The remote resort of Fjällbacka has seen its share of tragedy, though perhaps none worse than that of the little girl found in a fisherman's net. But the post-mortem reveals that this is no case of accidental drowning….

Local detective Patrik Hedström has just become a father. It is his grim task to discover who could be behind the methodical murder of a child both he and his partner, Erica, knew well. He knows the real question - and answer - lies with why. What he does not know is how this case will reach into the dark heart of Fjällbacka and the town's past, and tear aside its idyllic façade, perhaps forever.

My take

I haven't read anything by this author before and quite happily read THE STONE-CUTTER as a stand alone. It only occurred to me towards the end that it might be part of a series, as indeed it is. The series are police procedurals set the small seaside town of Fjallbacka, Sweden.

The opening hook of the story is the death of Sara, an 8 year old, the daughter of Patrik Hedstrom's wife's friend. The tragedy seems to become deeper when the police learn that Sara's death is in fact murder and there seems to be no lack of suspects including the girl's own father.

The plot is made all the more complex by the introduction of a historical thread. While this thread is actually essential to the story and to the eventual resolution of the murder, it does seem to take a long time to unfold.

The narrated version has a few consistency problems, first of all with pronunciation of names, and also with the differentiation between voices. The narrator seemed to me to at first decide to use a number of British accents, which felt a bit strange in a Swedish novel, and then to abandon that scheme.

Murder, evil, and damaged personalities lie at the heart of this novel. There is a twist at the end that I really didn't see coming.

I will be looking to read more from Camilla Lackberg.

My rating: 4.5

See other reviews
On EuroCrime by Maxine Clarke
On Reactions to Reading by Bernadette

Books available in the UK market - unfortunately it appears that only 2 (marked **) are currently available to US readers. There are in fact 12 books in Swedish.

• >The Ice Princess **
• >The Preacher **
• >The Stone Cutter
• >The Gallows Bird
• >The Angel Maker

Camilla Lackberg's website

Review: THE MIND'S EYE, Hakan Nesser

• copyright 1993. #1 in the Van Veeteren series
• published by Macmillan 2008
• translated from Swedish into English by Laurie Thompson
• my edition - Large Print by ISIS Publishing 2009
• ISBN 978-0-7531-8376-2
• 316 pages
• Source: my local library

Synopsis (author's website)

When Eva Mitter is found drowned in her bathtub, the chief suspect quickly becomes her husband of three months, Janek. With no other viable suspects and Janek’s suspicious behaviour, it looks like and open and shut case. Certainly Inspector Van Veeteren thinks so. After all who could believe Janek’s convenient loss of memory as to what happened that fateful night because he drank too much at dinner?

But when a second murder occurs that is clearly connected to the first, something about Janek’s protestations sets Van Veeteren rethinking the entire case, and before long finds himself involved in one of the darkest cases of his career.

My Take

The author's website is worth consulting for an overview of the series, of which THE MIND'S EYE is the first.

The series, most often referred to as the Van Veeteren series, takes place in Maardam, a fictitious city in a made-up country that could be anywhere in northern Europe. It follows the murder cases investigated by Chief Inspector Van Veeteren – eventually the retired Chief Inspector – and his two crime squad protégés, Münster and Moreno.

more

The author goes on to describe Inspector Van Veteeren as a "a philosophical detective with a unique ability to draw lines between dots that are far apart and nearly invisible."
Certainly in THE MIND'S EYE there are some fascinating descriptions of the Inspector listening to classical music and finding that the elements of the case click into place. 

Van Veeteren's offsider Munster reflects

The murderer was somewhere out there. One of this town's 300,000 inhabitants had taken it upon himself to kill one of his fellow human beings, and it was the duty of him, and Van Veeteren and all the rest of them, to nail the man - or the woman. It was going to be one hell of a job in fact. They would work for thousands of hours before the case was closed, and when they eventually had all the answers, it would become clear to them that nearly everything they had done had been a complete waste of time. They would realize that if only they'd done this or that right away, they would have cracked it in two days instead of two months.

There are many things to like about THE MIND'S EYE: if you are new to the series, you'll have the pleasure of starting with the first in the series; you'll also have the pleasure of getting acquainted with a very likeable detective. He's not young - someone rings the station and asks to be put through to the "grey one". I like the fact that he can admit he has made a mistake.

Van Veeteren is empathetic to the victims of crime - he's been where they are now: broken marriage, fragile childhood. There are some truly comic incidents too: imagine him lying on the floor having his back massaged by someone he went to interview. 
In these days of over long books, THE MIND'S EYE is a quick read.

I have a couple of the other titles on my shelves. Must read them!

My rating: 4.6

Other sites to check

• EuroCrime - review by Karen Meek
• In the Spotlight - Hakan Nesser - The Mind'sEye - Confessions of a Mystery Novelist
• International Noir Fiction
• Reactions to Reading

Also reviewed in MiP: WOMAN WITH BIRTHMARK

The Van Veeteren series

1. The Mind's Eye (2008)
2. Borkmann's Point (2006)
3. The Return (2007)
4. Woman with Birthmark (2009)
5. The Inspector and Silence (2010)
6. The Unlucky Lottery (2011)
7. Hour of the Wolf (2012) 

Review: THE QUARRY, Johan Theorin

• Format: Kindle (Amazon)
• File Size: 676 KB
• Print Length: 413 pages
• Page Numbers Source ISBN: 0385619294
• Publisher: Transworld Digital (June 23, 2011), originally printed 2011, translated into English from Swedish by Marlaine Delargy.
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services
• Language: English
• ASIN: B0050OMJ5A
• Source: I bought it

Synopsis (Amazon)

As the last snow melts on the Swedish island of Öland, Per Morner is preparing for his children’s Easter visit. But his plans are disrupted when he receives a phone call from his estranged father, Jerry, begging for help. Per finds Jerry close to death in his blazing woodland studio. He’s been stabbed, and two dead bodies are later discovered in the burnt-out building. The only suspect, Jerry’s work partner, is confirmed as one of the dead. But why does Jerry insist his colleague is still alive? And why does he think he’s still a threat to his life?

When Jerry dies in hospital a few days later, Per becomes determined to find out what really happened. But the closer he gets to the truth, the more danger he finds himself in. And nowhere is more dangerous than the nearby quarry...

My take

THE QUARRY is #3 in Theorin's seasonal quartet set on the island of Oland off the east coast of Sweden, connected to #1, ECHOES FROM THE DEAD, by the elderly character Gerloff Davidsson. In his mid 80s Gerloff decides that he must get away from the retirement home he is living in, and goes back to his summer cottage in Stenvik which isa located near a quarry. Two new houses have been built there since he lastvisited and the only other nearby resident is Per Morner who has inherited an old stone mason's cottage. [Look for the connection too to #2 THE DARKEST ROOM with the fleeting reference to Tilda Davidsson.]

Theorin weaves a fascinating story that binds the residents together. One of the new houses is owned  by a writer whose wife lived nearby when she was a child. Little by little Theorin reveals that there are connections between these people that actually go back decades. And in the background is the constant quarrel between the elves and the trolls, and the coming of Walpurgis Night when the dark powers gather together.

THE QUARRY shows Theorin is a master story teller and the book is well deserving of all the accolades and listings that I have seen.

See also reviews at Reactions to Reading, Euro Crime, The View from the Blue House, International Noir Fiction, and Mary D's Nordic Crime Reviews

My rating: 5.0

I've also reviewed
ECHOES FROM THE DEAD
THE DARKEST ROOM

Review: NEXT OF KIN, Elsebeth Egholm

• Format: Kindle (Amazon)
• File Size: 509 KB
• Publisher: Pier 9 (April 1, 2011), originally published in 2006. Translated from Danish into English by Don Bartlett and Charlotte Barslund 2010.
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services
• Language: English
• ASIN: B004THDTP8
• Source: I bought it

Synopsis (Amazon)

Why do we fear strangers when often it's those closest to us who pose the greatest threat?

Fear and anxiety have spread to Denmark in the aftermath of the London bombings. Late one evening, journalist Dicte Svendsen receives an anonymous package containing footage of a brutal murder—a beheading carried out by a sabre-wielding figure dressed in black.

Dicte and her old friend Inspector John Wagner form an uneasy alliance with the Danish secret intelligence service to identify the killer. As media reports unleash a wave of anti-Muslim hysteria across the country, panic escalates, and when Dicte’s teenage daughter is attacked, the investigation gets personal. Dicte has fought long and hard to put her dark past behind her—so how does the killer seem to know her deepest secrets?

My Take

NEXT OF KIN is #4 in an established series featuring full time journalist and part-time sleuth Dicte Svendsen, but, as far as I can work out, the first of the titles available in English from this popular Danish crime fiction writer.

NEXT OF KIN raises some of the issues that have surfaced in Western countries affected by an influx of immigrants from Islamic countries. Among the issues raised are fears of terrorism, problems of assimilation, and cultural complexities.

The thing that puzzles Dicte Svendsen when she is sent a video of a beheading by a sabre-wielding person in black is why she was selected to receive it. Later communications from the person confirm that the answer is in Dicte's own past. When the first victim is found she realises where she has seen the tattoo on his arm before. And what events have triggered the killer to act now, if the original events occurred so long ago?

The sub-plot focussing on a psychologist whose daughter was recently killed by a drunken hit and run driver is an interesting one too. The driver serves only 4 months of his sentence which to the girl's father seems far too short. An organisation called United Victims is calling for the re-instatement of the death penalty, not just in Denmark. NEXT OF KIN is also about crimes, particularly sexual ones, where the perpetrators are never found, but where the victims continue to suffer.

This was a good read. Thanks to Dorte of DJ's Krimiblog for bringing Elsebeth Egholm to my attention.

My rating: 4.6

Elsebeth Egholm's website

The Dicte Svendsen series:

• Tre hundes nat, 2011 ('Three Dog Night')
• Vold og magt, 2009 ('Against All Odds')
• Liv og legeme, 2008 ('Life and Limb')
• Nærmeste pårørende, 2006 ('Next of Kin')
• Personskade, 2005 ('Personal Damage')
• Selvrisiko, 2004 ('Own Risk')
• Skjulte fejl og mangler, 2002 ('Hidden Errors')

Review: THE FINAL MURDER, Anne Holt

• Format: Kindle (Amazon)
• File Size: 997 KB
• Print Length: 400 pages
• Publisher: Corvus (July 1, 2011), translated by Kari Dickson from Norwegian. Originally published in 2004.
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services
• Language: English
• ASIN: B0058BS03A
• Source: I bought it

Synopsis (Amazon)

A talk-show star is found killed in her home, her tongue removed and left on her desk, cut in two. And when a second body, that of a right-wing party leader, is found crucified to the bedroom wall with a copy of the Koran inserted into her body, Superintendent Adam Stubo is pulled from leave to lead the investigation. Is there a celebrity-slaying serial killer on the loose? His partner, Johanne Vik, agrees to help with the case but begins to see a pattern, one that traces back to her FBI days. If she's right, the pattern will end in the murder of the investigating officer: Adam.

Vik and Stubo series (Fantastic Fiction)

1. Punishment (2006)
aka What Is Mine
2. The Final Murder (2007)
aka What Never Happens
3. Death in Oslo (2009)
4. Fear Not (2011)

My Take

Adam Stubo is aware that there is no-one on his murder investigation team who is as capable of  detailed criminal profiling as his wife Johanne. But Johanne has recently given birth to a new  daughter and really needs her rest. Adam is delighted when she agrees to work through the case notes with him at night at home. But Johanne is fearful about the threats to her family's safety and to Adam himself this case might pose.

It took me a while to settle into this book. The style of the opening chapters felt a bit heavy but by mid-book things were flowing smoothly. A bit predictably, each of the victims has secrets, and the police investigation struggles to decide whether there is a single killer or whether these are separate crimes.

The reader knows more about what is happening than the investigators do, but why these murders are happening is kept from us until the very end.

I thought Johanne Vik's constant anxiety about her new-born daughter felt very authentic.

My rating: 4.5


I also reviewed 1222

About the author

Anne Holt spent two years working for the Oslo Police Department before founding her own law firm and serving as Norway's Minister for Justice in 1996/97. Her first book was published in 1993 and she has subsequently developed two series: the Hanne Wilhelmsen series and the Vik/Stubo series. Both series will be published by Corvus.

Review: DREGS, Jorn Lier Horst

• Format: Kindle (Amazon)
• File Size: 541 KB
• Publisher: Sandstone Press (August 12, 2011), translated from Norwegian by Anne Bruce
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services
• Language: English
• ASIN: B0076M4Q3M
• Source: I bought it

Synopsis (Amazon)

Meet Chief Inspector William Wisting, Head of CID in Larvik, Norway, the latest unforgettable import from Scandinavian crime fiction. An experienced policeman who is familiar with the dark side of human nature, he lives in challenging times for the Norwegian police force, meeting them with integrity and humanity, and a fragile belief that he can play a part in creating a better world. A police report of a shoe containing a severed foot washed up on the sand introduces CI William Wisting. Soon a second is washed up, but it is another left. Has there been some kind of terrible accident at sea?

My Take

An excellent Norwegian police procedural, #6 in the William Wisting series, but the first to be translated into English, that has me grinding my teeth that there are not more available.

The idea of the appearance of using specific body parts, in this case left feet, washing up on beaches one after another, is not a new one but definitely a good hook into a murder mystery.

William Wisting, Chief Inspector of Police, is at burn out point, and at the beginning of the novel we meet him as he leaves the doctor's surgery where he has had some blood tests. He believes that crime in Norway is beginning to pay, growing rather than decreasing, and that none of the counter measures are effective deterrents. His daughter Lina is a journalist writing an article on the effects of long prison sentences on criminals, particularly those who have committed murder. There is inevitably an overlap between elements of her father's new case, and the interviews with murderers that she has set up.

As the number of left feet being washed up on nearby shorelines reaches 3, the police establish a link between one of them and an old man who disappeared from a nursing home 9 months earlier. But three elderly men disappeared without trace at that time, and the story is made more complex by the fact two women also disappeared: one a schizophrenic disappeared 9 months ago, and one, more recently, also from the nursing home.

A very engaging read, with good strong characters.

My rating: 4.7

Check this news report from 2008

About the Author

Jorn Lier Horst was born in 1970, in Bamble, Telemark, Norway. He has worked as a policeman in Larvik since 1995. His debut novel in 2004, Key Witness, was based on a true murder story. The William Wisting novel series has been extremely successful in his native Norway as well as Germany and the Netherlands. Dregs is his first book published in English.

Review: THE FLATEY ENIGMA, Viktor Arnar Ingolfsson

• Format: Kindle (Amazon)
• File Size: 823 KB
• Print Length: 349 pages
• Page Numbers Source ISBN: 1611090970
• Publisher: AmazonCrossing (February 21, 2012)
• Translated from Icelandic by Brian Fitzgibbon.
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services
• Language: English
• ASIN: B005O3CL50
• Source: I bought it

Synopsis (Amazon)

Near a deserted island off the western coast of Iceland in 1960, the dawning of spring brings new life for the local wildlife. But for the body discovered by three seal hunters, winter is a matter of permanence. After it is found to be a missing Danish cryptographer, the ensuing investigation uncovers a mysterious link between the researcher and a medieval manuscript known as The Book of Flatey.

Before long another body is found on the tiny island. This time, in the ancient Viking tradition, the victim’s back has been mutilated with the so-called blood eagle. Kjartan, the district magistrate’s representative sent to investigate the crime, soon finds himself descending into a dark, dangerous world of ancient legends, symbolism, and secret societies to find a killer.

Nominated for the prestigious Glass Key award for Nordic crime fiction, The Flatey Enigma will keep you guessing until Kjartan has cracked the code.

My take

This is a novel set on two levels - the primary level the investigation into the death of a body found on a remote Icelandic island. The nearest "big" island is Flatey and it appears the body has been dead for some time. So it is not a case of real urgency for the Reijkavik Police Department and so they've assigned Kjartan, who has just started working for the district magistrate in a clerical capacity. Kjartan has to determine who the dead man is and how he died. While he does that he will stay with Grimur, the administrative officer for the district of Flatey.

The Book of Flatey is a compilation of various medieval Icelandic sagas. The second level of the story is the Flatey Enigma, a set of 40 questions that have puzzled  those studying the Book of Flatey for over 30 years. Those attempting to solve the enigma are meant to answer the questions in library on the island of Flatey using the copy of the manuscript there. They are not meant to take anything away for future reference. The 40 questions appear, with possible solutions, throughout the novel, as a conversation between two of the characters.

THE FLATEY ENIGMA is set in June 1960 and provides fascinating descriptions of Icelandic remote island life at that time.

Kjartan the investigator has a past he is trying to hide. The island doctor Johanna and her father who is dying of cancer also have hidden pasts. The island of Flatey certainly has its share of strange, even inbred people, one at least who has never left the island, and one who has dreams and sees "little people".

So this novel is crime fiction with a difference, a very Icelandic flavour. The  extracts from the sagas in the Book of Flatey are gruesome to say the least. There are connections between various characters that are unexpected, even though at least two of them come from Denmark.

THE FLATEY ENIGMA was nominated for the Glass Key given by the Crime Writers of Scandinavia in 2004. It was published in English by Amazaon crossing in 2012.

My rating: 4.5
About the author


Viktor Arnar Ingolfsson was born in Akureyri in the north of Iceland on April 12, 1955. He finished his B.Sc.degree in civil engineering from The Icelandic College of Engineering and Technology (ICET), in 1983. He has taken courses in script writing run by the Icelandic Film Producers and at the Institute for Continuing Education at the University of Iceland. In 1990 and again in 1995 Ingolfsson attended classes in Public Relations at the George Washington University in Washington DC. Ingolfsson started working for the Icelandic Road Administration during his summer vacations from school 1969, and has worked there full time since 1983. Since 1985 he has supervised the institution's publications and contributed to Public Relations.

Viktor Arnar has published six mysteries, the fifth of which, "Daybreak" in 2005, was the basis for the Icelandic TV series "Hunting Men," which premiered in 2008. His short stories have appeared in magazines and collections. His third novel, "Engin Spor" ("No Trace"), was nominated for the Glass Key prize, an award given by the Crime Writers Association of Scandinavia, in 2001, and "Flateyjargáta" ("The Flatey Enigma") was nominated for the same prize in 2004.

Review: THE ABOMINABLE MAN, Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo

• Kindle (Amazon)
• File Size: 2010 KB
• Print Length: 288 pages
• Publisher: Harper Perennial (April 3, 2009)
• Sold by: HarperCollins Publishers
• Language: English
• ASIN: B002RI9QWG
• Source: I bought it

Synopsis (Amazon)

The seventh classic instalment in this genre-changing series of novels featuring Detective Inspector Martin Beck.

On a quiet night a high-ranking police officer, Nyland, is slaughtered in his hospital bed, brutally massacred with a bayonet. It's not hard to find people with a motive to kill him; in fact the problem for Detective Inspector Martin Beck is how to narrow the list down to one suspect. But as he investigates Nyland's murder he must confront whether he is willing to risk his life for his job.

Written in the 1960s, these masterpieces are the work of Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo – a husband and wife team from Sweden. The ten novels follow the fortunes of the detective Martin Beck, whose enigmatic, taciturn character has inspired countless other policemen in crime fiction.
The novels can be read separately, but do follow a chronological order, so the reader can become familiar with the characters and develop a loyalty to the series. Each book will have a new introduction in order to help bring these books to a new audience.

My take

This was a thoroughly enjoyable read. It both analyses what makes people commit horrendous crimes, and what constitutes good policing.

We learn early on that the high ranking police officer killed was not a good policeman. Martin Beck's colleague Kollberg says "he was a barbaric son of a bitch of the very worst sort." His name was never discredited, and complaints against him never got past the submission stage. And many of the current personnel in the Stockholm Police force were incredibly loyal to him because he had trained them.
As the blurb indicates, there is no shortage of people who would be glad to see this person dead, but just one has reached the point of no return, deprived of both his wife and his daughter by this man.

The authors also make some interesting commentary on what happened to the city of Stockholm in the 1960s when 90% of the old city was demolished to make way for "modern" development.

This series follows the changes in Martin Beck's personal life as he rises in the force. He is now the chief of the National Murder Squad, his marriage has collapsed and he unashamedly lives for his work.

One of the most enjoyable aspects of these novels is the amount of descriptive detail included, and small nuances in relationships between the men who make up Beck's team. Beck is very demanding, but he does not demand any more from them than he does of himself.

My rating: 4.7

Other reviews on MiP
4.7, ROSEANNA
4.7, THE MAN WHO WENT UP IN SMOKE
4.5, THE FIRE ENGINE THAT DISAPPEARED
4.5, MURDER AT THE SAVOY

Review: PHANTOM, Jo Nesbo

• Published by Harvill Secker 2012
• translated from the Norwegian by Don Bartlett
• ISBN 978-1-846-55521-3
• 452 pages
• source: Library book

Synopsis (Random House Australia)

Summer. A boy is lying on the floor of an Oslo apartment. He is bleeding and will soon die. In order to place his life and death in some kind of context he begins to tell his story. Outside, the church bells toll. Autumn.
Former police inspector Harry Hole returns to Oslo after three years abroad. He seeks out his old boss at Police Headquarters to request permission to investigate a homicide. But the case is already closed: the young junkie was in all likelihood shot dead by a fellow addict. Yet, Harry is granted permission to visit the boy's alleged killer in jail. There, he meets himself and his own history.
What follows is the solitary investigation of what appears to be the first impossible case in Harry Hole's career. And while Harry is searching, the murdered boy continues his story. A man walks the dark streets of Oslo. The streets are his and he has always been there. He is a Phantom.

My take

An interestingly structured, but very noir book, with the dominant narrator a boy who is already dead. And a rat with a problem.

Harry Hole is a very changed person physically, with a titanium finger to replace one lost in THE SNOWMAN, and a dreadful scar on one side of his face. He has returned to Oslo because of a newspaper report he read and a suspicion about the identity of the perpetrator of a murder. When he tries to get a job in the police he is told the case he wants is already solved and so he goes it alone, calling in favours, going right to the top, and uncovering a drugs network to top them all.

Inevitably he contacts Rakel, the love of his life, but he also realises there is no going back, there is only the future. But do they really have one? Not in Norway it seems.

I struggled to get into this book and then to bring all the strands together. I'm still not sure that I have the definitive grip on who did what and why. It seemed to me to be bleaker and darker, if that is possible, than earlier novels.

My rating: 4.7

Other reviews of PHANTOM to check

• Petrona
• Euro Crime (Karen Meek)
• Crimepieces
• The Crime Segments 
• Crime Watch,
• The Game’s Afoot

Other reviews on MiP of Jo Nesbo novels
NEMESIS
THE REDEEMER
5.0, THE SNOWMAN
4.8, THE LEOPARD
4.7, HEADHUNTERS 

• Jo Nesbo on Facebook
• Jo Nesbo website
• Complete list of Harry Hole books, including the one set in Australia that started it all. Not yet available in English.