Although peripatetic Swedish author and teacher (he started in Uppsala before moving to Greenwich Village and then to London) Håkan Nesser has a fairly impressive bibliography his English language publishers are taking their time about getting his work translated. A quick glance at the listing below will demonstrate exactly what I mean.
His first series, based in the fictitious northern European city of Maardam (the names seem to be mostly Dutch, though there seem to be Swedish, Polish and German elements as well) feature Van Veeteren, a detective who ends up owning an antique book shop.
A second series that started with Människa utan hund (Human without Dog) are apparently obviously set in Sweden and feature Inspector Gunnar Barbarotti, a Swedish detective of Italian descent.
Read:
Woman with Birthmark (2009), the fourth in the Van Veeteren series, which opens with the funeral of a woman where there only mourner is her twenty-nine year old daughter who regards her own life as over and launches a vendetta on those she considers responsible for her mother's sad life and lonely death. It’s obvious one of them is businessman Ryszard Malik, who receives a number of unsettling phone calls where a piece of music is played repetitively. When he’s shot (twice in the chest, then in the groin) it’s fairly obvious there’s a sexual motive involved.
Van Veeteren starts the investigation, though there are no obvious clues or motives. Things become slightly clearer when a second man, Rickard Maasleitner, receives the same fate, an it soon becomes obvious the victims were both members of a National Service training group in 1965. The problem is that there were thirty-five members of the group, and when a third member dies the same way...
Knowing more or less what’s going on (you get a clear version of the killer’s point of view as she sets about her vendetta) it’s a question of whether she can claim a fourth victim before the police catch up with her.
A good read, and I’ll be checking the library shelves for more.
Investigate availability of:
1988 Koreografen
1993 Det grovmaskiga nätet (English: The Mind's Eye, 2008)
1994 Borkmanns punkt (English: Borkmann's Point, 2006)
1995 Återkomsten (English: The Return, 2007)
1996 Barins triangel
1997 Kommissarien och tystnaden (English: The Inspector and Silence, 2010)
1998 Kim Novak badade aldrig i Genesarets sjö
1998 Münsters fall (English: The Unlucky Lottery, October 2011)
1999 Carambole (English: Hour of the Wolf, 2012)
1999 Flugan och evigheten
2000 Ewa Morenos fall
2001 Svalan, katten, rosen, döden
2002 Och Piccadilly Circus ligger inte i Kumla
2002 Kära Agnes
2003 Fallet G
2004 Skuggorna och regnet
2006 Människa utan hund (Inspector Barbarotti)
2007 En helt annan historia (Inspector Barbarotti)
2008 Berättelse om herr Roos (Inspector Barbarotti)
2009 Maskarna på Carmine Street
2010 De ensamma (Inspector Barbarotti)
2011 Himmel över London
