Review: THE KILLER'S ART, Mari Jungstedt

Publisher: Transworld Publishers (Random House) 2010
Translated from Swedish into English by Tiina Nunnally
Length: 305 pages
ISBN: 978-0-385-61707-9
Source: my local library

Read an extract here

This is #4 in Mari Jungstedt's Anders Knutas series set in Gotland, Sweden.

Publisher's Blurb
It is a cold wintry morning in the picturesque port town of Visby when art dealer Egon Wallin’s battered and naked body is found hanging from a gate in the town’s old city walls. His was a very public death, but who killed him and why?

As Inspector Knutas begins his investigation, Egon’s secrets quickly begin to come to the surface. He died on the eve of leaving his wife. Is his death a spurned lover’s revenge? And when a painting by a new cause-célèbre artist is stolen from his gallery, more questions are raised.

Another theft and another death, this time in Stockholm, widens the search for the killer. As the police piece together the clues, one scandal is followed by another and Inspector Knutas will discover that beneath the patina of glamour, the high-society world of art collecting hides many secrets – some worth killing for.

My take:

I found THE KILLER'S ART just a little "flatter" than previous titles in the series, although I will still keep Mari Jungstedt on my list of Swedish authors to follow, and Gotland on my list of places to avoid.

What made it seem "flatter"? To start with, Detective Anders Knutas didn't seem as sharp as he should have been. He has a rather ambivalent attitude to journalists - on the one hand he regards them as a threat to his investigation and on the other hand he wants to maintain a good relationship with Johan Berg from Swedish television in particular. Knutas regards himself as a good judge of character and at least twice in THE KILLER'S ART his judgements receive a bit of a knocking

I thought perhaps Jungstedt tried to incorporate too many story lines in the plot. There is the main murder of Egon Wallin and the spider's threads branching out from there. Then there are the developments in the relationship between Johan Berg and Emma, the mother of his child. This is a relationship that began in the first of the series UNSEEN.The third main story line is the relationship between Knutas and one of his detectives Karen Jacobsson, who is ambitious and wants a more authoritative position. This was in many ways the weakest part of the plot and I felt it detracted from the main story. The decision that Knutas makes is a divisive one that deflects his team from their main focus on the murder for a while.

The resolution of the puzzle of who killed Egon Waller and why takes a long time and a lot of police resources because the original crime scene held so few clues. If the murderer hadn't been so obsessed by the idea of "unfinished business" then the original crime may have gone unsolved.

My rating: 4.4

Other Jungstedt titles reviewed on this blog:
4.7, UNSEEN
4.5, UNSPOKEN
4.5, UNKNOWN

Other reviews of THE KILLER'S ART to check:
Crime Scraps,
DJ'sKrimiblog,
International Noir Fiction
EuroCrime

Inspector Anders Knutas, Gotland, Sweden (courtesy EuroCrime)

• Unseen	2006	1
• Unspoken	2007	2
• The Inner Circle (apa Unknown)	2008	3
• The Killer's Art	2010	4
• The Dead of Summer	2011	5

Review: UNKNOWN, Mari Jungstedt

This edition published by Corgi 2010
English translation by Tiina Nunnally 2010
ISBN 978-0-552-15889-3
430 pages
Originally published as THE INNER CIRCLE: A MYSTERY  (2008)
Originally written in Swedish.
Source: local library

Publisher's Blurb
It’s summer on Gotland and an international group of archaeology students are excavating an ancient Viking site. The camaraderie and holiday spirits of the group are shattered when one of their number, a Dutch student called Martina, disappears. Rumours abound about a secret relationship she was having with someone on the island, but is her disappearance simply a lover’s intrigue? When the body of a horse is discovered in a local farmer’s field, other rumours begin to circulate. The horse had been decapitated and the head has vanished. Why would someone take a dead horse’s head? As Inspector Knutas begins his investigation, echoes from Gotland’s Viking past begin to trouble his search. When Martina’s naked body is found hanging from a tree, with what look like ritualistic markings on her skin, there can be little further question. Someone is calling to the old Gods of Gotland. Martina has been killed according to the Viking ritual of the three-fold death, and the one thing the ritual points to is that more deaths will follow.

My take:
Note to self: put Gotland on my list of dangerous places never to be visited! (My list includes St. Mary Mead, and Midsomer and neighbouring villages - what does yours include?)

For a summer vacation spot, the small island of Gotland is very perilous. In this, the third in Mari Jungstedt's Anders Knutas series set on this island, the author continues strands begun in the earlier novels. For example, the story of journalist Johan Berg and Emma who have now progressed to having a baby.

The main story was well told and the elements came together quite well. The interaction between the police investigation led by Knutas and the press, represented by Berg, is a bit formulaic and predictable, with Berg releasing details ahead of when the police want to. I didn't come away feeling that I knew Knutas much better
though. There was a little humour with someone from Knutas's past joining the investigation team and insisting on calling him "Knutie". You could feel the thunder in the air!

Another aspect I found interesting is that when some of the interviews need to be conducted in English, Knutas has to use another team member to conduct the questioning, because his own English is inadequate. This adds to his level of frustration with the lack of progress in the investigation. As his own family go off to the mainland for their summer holidays and he has to stay behind Knutas becomes even more frustrated.

So, this is a good read, but make sure you read the earlier novels first to get the best out of the continuing stories.

My rating: 4.5

Other reviews:

• EuroCrime (Maxine Clarke)
• EuroCrime (Laura Root)

My reviews of earlier novels:
UNSEEN
UNSPOKEN

Another novel in the series was published in English in 2010: THE KILLER'S ART.
See reviews at Crime Scraps, DJ'sKrimiblog, and International Noir Fiction

Review: UNSPOKEN, Mari Jungstedt

Corgi Books
Translated from the Swedish by Tiina Nunnally 2007
(completed in Swedish 2004)
ISBN 978-0-552-15613-4
366 pages

Publishers Blurb:
It is winter on Gotland, and fourteen-year-old Fanny is missing. She had no friends to speak of other than the horses she took care of at the local racing stable, and seems to have been an unhappy and isolated teenager, the daughter of an absent Jamaican musician and an instable Swedish mother. Is her disappearance somehow connected to the recent brutal murder of alcoholic photographer Henry Dahlström, who had won a large sum of money at the racetrack right before his death? Inspector Anders Knutas and his team investigate under pressure from the media.

#2 in Jungstedt's Anders Knutas series is at once a Swedish police procedural set on the island of Gotland, as was the first in the series UNSEEN, and at the same time an exploration of how little people often know about each other, even in situations when they should. It is a book I've had on my mental list for some time.

UNSPOKEN is a clever interweaving of three stories: firstly the disappearance of Henry Dahlstrom whose friends know almost nothing about him, and whose wife and daughter have long rejected.  As is often the case it seems in modern murder mysteries Dahlstrom has sources of income that those closest to him knew nothing about.
Fanny Jannsom was not yet fifteen and yet already her mother was assuming that she could be left alone overnight or even for weekends. Again, here is a person with no real friends, and with a secret life well hidden from view. but it is a life that Fanny really wanted to be rescued from.

The third element was one that I had not expected. Reporter Johan Berg had a significant role in UNSEEN, and he became entangled with Emma, a friend of one of the victims. The continuing relationship between the two provides an interesting backdrop to the police investigation in UNSPOKEN, while Johan is constantly prompting Knutas for results.

Jungstedt's is a lighter, almost uncomplicated style when you compare it to other Swedish writers like Henning Mankell and Nesbo, whose novels seem much darker. That isn't to say that Jungstedt isn't dealing with dark situations. I am tempted to compare it with Helene Tursten's particularly in the treatment of the domestic life of the central police character.

My rating: 4.5

Other Reviews to check:

• Maxine Clarke thought it was a great read. Her review is on Euro Crime.
• UNSPOKEN sent Crime Scraps off on a search for the 3rd in the series: UNKNOWN
• Scandinavian Books:  "a book with crisp prose, steady suspense, and flesh-and-blood characters".

Mari Jungstedt (1952 - ) is a Swedish journalist and popular crime fiction author.

Jungstedt worked as a reporter on Swedish national public radio and television, and is still an occasional presenter on TV4's daily talk show Förkväll.

Her first three novels are set on the island of Gotland and feature Detective Superintendant Anders Knutas and the journalist Johan Berg. Two of her novels were filmed for Swedish TV, and her work has been translated into English by Tiina Nunnally.

Mari Jungstedt lives in Nacka, near Stockholm. Her husband comes from Visby, Gotland, and during the summer they stay on Gotland. 

Review: UNSEEN, Mari Jungstedt

translated from the Swedish by Tiina Nunnally 2005, Doubleday Press 2007, originally published 2003, ISBN 978-0-61119-0, 244 pages.

Gotland is an island off the coast of Sweden that blooms with summer visitors. It is a sought-after holiday destination with cabins, holiday shacks, and a few permanent residents. Visitors come by ferry from Stockholm for weekend getaways and short holidays. It is the sort of place the young generally leave to find work.

Summer is just beginning when Helena, Per and their friends gather in the limestone cottage for a Whitsun weekend holiday. Helena has brought together people they haven't seen for a while, but unfortunately Per's jealousy destroys the evening. Within a matter of hours Helena is dead, killed in the nearby sand dunes by an axe wielding murderer.

At first Per is the obvious suspect, but there are a couple of other possibilities among the guests. Within days there is a second murder, a woman of similar age, same "calling card."

The investigation is handled by Inspector Anders Knutas and his team fromVisby, while an investigative journalist, Johan Berg, from Stockholm conducts a parallel inquiry, which seems at times more successful than the police one. Knutas is a methodical investigator, but there are tensions in his team, and he is under pressure to find the murderer before it impacts on Gotland's fragile tourist industry. On the other hand, Berg's mind is not always on the job as he falls in love with a woman linked to the case, but he seems to be able to get people to open up to him in a way that the police can't.

It is Emma, Helena's best friend, one of the guests at the Whitsun weekend, who eventually realises what connects the murders, by then numbering 3, and then the tension really builds.

This was an excellent read. Apart from the murder mystery aspect, it is really a story about relationships on a number of levels, and a tale that points out how our actions from our days of innocence can reach out into the present.

My rating: 4.7

Read the first chapter online

Other reviews:

• Maxine called it "an involving and suspenseful novel"
• ProfMike said "very readable"
• Camilla Lackberg listed it among the top 10 Swedish crime novels.
• Dorte, on the other hand, wasn't particularly impressed. She seems to like the third novel, UNKNOWN, better
  

UNSEEN was Mari Jungstedt's debut novel, and the first in a series set on the island of Gotland.
Euro Crime lists 3 books in the series

• Unseen	2006	1
• Unspoken	2007	2
• The Inner Circle (apa Unknown)	2008	3

and I look forward to tracking the other two down.