A witty, atmospheric Scandinavian procedural

books:


	• Borkmann's Point: An Inspector Van Veeteren Mystery Hakan Nesser Vintage, 2007 - 336 pages average customer review:based on 17 reviews view larger image
	for more information click here

highly recommended

Finally in English!

Nesser's book was published 12 years ago in Swedish and is finally available in English. He joins Henning Mankell as one of Sweden's premier crime novel writers.
This novel is one of Nesser's Van Veeteren series and it's a doozie. Inspector Van Veeteren is called in to help the police officers in Kaalbringen, a small Swedish city, with what appears to be a serial murder.
In his long career Van Veeteren has left only one case unsolved. Naturally the Kaalbringen police expect he will come in and take over their case. But they are pleasantly surprised when the famous detective finds a kindred spirit in the Kaalbringen chief of police, Bausen, and treats his team with deference and respect. Van Veetern is especially impressed with the obvious intelligence of the lone woman officer on the team, Beate Moerk.
What follows is not only a very cleverly constructed mystery but also a portrayal of major characters, each with a "back story". Van Veeteren's customary finesse is hampered by a string of murders which appear to have no connection and then finally the disappearance of a member of the Kaalbringen police force.
This reader was satisfied but disappointed when the book ended - I had to remind myself the next day that there was no more Van Veteeren to read about. Needless to say I hope the translator, as good as she is, is also quick! Highly recommended.

for more information click here

This was a World of Words July Choice

My reading group, a World of Words, chose this book for the July meeting. It was a fun and fast read, not that the pace was necessarily fast, but it was quick to read. This may be due, in part, to the fact that we had just finished Blindness and A Dictionary of Maqiao, both which were quite different from the Van Veeteren Mystery. The members of the group agreed with me that we could not put the book down, but one of the members commented that he liked to follow the clues, and he found no clues to follow in this book. I have no reference for other Swedish mystery, detective novels, but I can reference several I've read that are American, and I enjoyed this one more than some American detective novels. I liked the fact that I did not know who did the crime on the first or second page. I felt as though I might have been missing something, though, when it came to the characters. I've read other books out of order, and many of them can stand on their own, but I felt as though I needed to have read the earlier book, if there was one, to get to know Van Veeteren better. Perhaps the following book in the series may shed more light for me. The inclusion of chess in the book was quite interesting. I am not knowledgeable about chess, but I imagine that there were some clues set forth in the game. I look forward to reading more books by this author. I'm not sure that the book kept me, as the San Francisco Chronicle claims, "on the edge of your seat," but I enjoyed the lighter reading and the mystery. It was not a book I wanted to put down. I read it in only a couple of days.

for more information click here

A witty, atmospheric Scandinavian procedural

Swedish author Hakan Nesser, has his laconic, sardonic series detective, Inspector Van Veeteren, investigate a serial ax murderer in a quiet seaside town, in "Borkmann's Point," winner of the Swedish Crime Writers' Best Novel Award for 1994.

Van Veeteren is not feeling his best after a dreary coastal vacation partly spent with his paroled son, and is looking forward to returning to the city when his superior assigns him a case in a tiny nearby coastal town where two men with nothing in common have been brutally murdered and the police chief is about to retire.

The first victim was a petty thief, drug-dealer and pimp; the second was a successful, self-satisfied businessman. It's not a town that sees many murders and the police chief is more than cooperative. Van Veeteren soon finds himself spending enjoyable evenings playing chess and drinking fine wine from the chief's cellar - carefully collected to last out his retirement.

Point of view switches among the team members, which include Beate Moerck, an ambitious young woman afraid of ending up successful and childless, and Munster, one of Van Veeteren's usual assistants, a young, happily married man with children who soon finds himself attracted to Beate.

The qualities Americans have come to love in Scandinavian novels - dry wit, a calm, philosophical approach, and the cool, northern atmosphere, are here in abundance. Fans of Henning Mankell or Helene Tursten will relish Nesser.

for more information click here

Conclusion does not bear up to scrutiny

I will make an effort here to not give anything away to those who haven't read the book yet, but something struck me as not right when I finished the book. I went back to some earlier passages and found out what was bothering me. Chapter 24 does not stand up to scrutiny after the culprit is finally unveiled. As American detectives often say, "It just doesn't add up". I have now decided that the author changed his mind about who the culprit was going to be part way through writing the book, which is fine as long as you go back and make sure what you have already written still hangs together. Given this, I'm surprised the book won an award in Sweden. I don't expect Swedish critics to forgive the faulty logic.

for more information click here

reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4

Internationally bestselling author Häkan Nesser makes his U.S. debut with this riveting tale of murder and suspense that reveals the deep humanity of the characters portrayed even as it sends chills up the spine.

Chief Inspector Van Veeteren is called to the sleepy coastal town of Kalbringen to assist the local police in the investigation of two recent ax murders. Soon the case turns from bad to worse when another body turns up and one of Van Veeteren’s colleagues, a young female detective, disappears without a trace. Now Van Veeteren must find the killer, and, it is hoped, his colleague, before anyone else comes to harm. Riveting and intellectually satisfying, Borkmann’s Point unfolds like a chess match where each move could prove deadly.

for more information click here

hot