It's more a psychiatric study than a real mistery

books:


	• The Cruel Stars of the Night: A Mystery (Ann Lindell Mysteries) Kjell Eriksson St. Martin's Minotaur, 2008 - 336 pages average customer review:based on 7 reviews view larger image
	for more information click here

highly recommended

A New Star for American Readers

There is a new light on the horizon!
Those who love an intelligent read and don't feel the need for a bookcover to hide behind will be glad for the entrance of Kjell Erikson to their bookshelves.
His characters are humanly drawn and his plots are careful. These are people we can live with in our own lives---even the bad guys!
I recommend "The Princess of Burundi" as well.
First rate!

A slow spiral of a mystery that pulls you in...

Petrus Blomgren had written a suicide note, but he was murdered before he could kill himself. The Uppsala Violent Crimes detectives begin looking for the killer. Soon there are two more similar murders of elderly men. Laura Hindersten reports her father missing. There appears to be nothing to link the victims together, there's little the police can do except to check and recheck every clue and every person they can find who knew the victims. The reader, as well as the various detectives, is left to try to fit the puzzle pieces together.

In some ways, this novel is frustrating with so many clues, so many detectives, so many victims, relatives, and interrelationships. But quickly, you become absorbed in the lives of the people involved. Laura Hindersten's father was a tyrant and now without him she's tasting freedom but years of repressed anger snaps out as we watch her spiral into insanity -- or so it seems. Stig Franklin, attracted to Laura, weighs the dangers of an affair against his bland relationship with Jessica. Ann Lindell accepts a date with another officer and begins to think perhaps the time has come to look beyond herself and her son. Each character is fully developed and while we may not get a chapter viewpoint into their life when they appear on the page it's obvious that they have a life off screen and this is just the intersection with the reader.

The tempo is slow and methodical throughout the investigation. The various threads circle and touch until they begin to weave through each other creating or adding to other threads that finally lead us to the solution. If you want pulse pounding action you get it in the last couple of chapters but otherwise it's a slow steady accumulation of people, snippets of lives affected by the death of a neighbor, a friend, or a family member. It's a book you can lose yourself in. The conclusion is satisfying -- the police identify the culprit but we don't tie up every end neatly and you're left wondering what happens to these people after you close the book and put it on the shelf.

for more information click here

Build slowly to WOW

Laura Hindersten's professor father has gone missing and, while he may have just took off without telling her (though tyrannical, he is exceptionally eccentric), she is convinced something horrible has happened to him.

The members of the Uppsala Violent Crime Division are certain the professor - an expert on the Renaissance poet Petrarch - will turn up. But they are much more concerned with the murders of several elderly men in the region and how that may affect the upcoming visit by Queen Silvia, scheduled to arrive in a few days to open the new Academic Hospital.

Police Inspector Ann Lindell suspects there may be links between the murders and the missing professor, a hunch born out by evidence presented by the professor's colleague. As the body count and public anxiety increases, there's pressure on Inspector Lindell and the rest of the team to determine if the deaths are the work of a serial killer.

The Cruel Stars of the Night, the sequel to Kjell Eriksson's critically acclaimed debut, The Princess of Burundi, once again features the Uppsala Violent Crime Division and Police Inspector Ann Lindell.

Police procedurals are standard mystery fare, yet Eriksson takes this well-worn formula and crafts something extraordinary. His character-driven mysteries feature an ensemble "cast" and the personality and motivation of each member of the Uppsala Violent Crime Division is fleshed out in tandem with the details of the case. Eriksson's police men and women are very human, each with their own way of balancing work and home. Lindell, a single parent raising a young son, wonders if she is a "good" parent, while coping with loss and loneliness.

This is not an action-filled thriller. Eriksson lets the tension build slowly, playing out the psychological clues like an expert angler - ensuring his audience is hooked before ratcheting up the tension. Readers may be able to takes breaks from Eriksson's work in the early chapters; however, once the pieces begin to fall together, The Cruel Stars of the Night becomes impossible to put down.

Armchair Interviews agrees completely.

for more information click here

It's more a psychiatric study than a real mistery

It's a very good analysis of a full progression to what we call madness, and a nice description of police officers and their procedures. For the reader it's quite easy to tell who is the serial killer, but also is possible to understand that the police has not all the clues. I enjoyed the book.

reviews: page 1, 2

Winner of the Swedish crime Academy Award for Best Crime Novel, Kjell Eriksson received wide critical acclaim for his U.S. debut, the international bestseller The Princess of Burundi. Now, this spectacular follow-up thriller opens with the abrupt disappearance of an elderly professor, followed quickly by the suspicious deaths of two more old men. Inspector Ann Lindell instinctively knows that she is tracking a most cunning serial killer, and as she closes in on the demented murderer, a diabolical death trap awaits.

for more information click here

hot