The Streets of Babylon, by Carina Burman
The Streets of Babylon is a historical crime novel. The setting is London in 1851, the year of the Great Exhibition. Euthanasia Bondeson makes her debut on the crime novel scene. She is self-centred, tactless,   provocative and irresistible woman, who smokes cigars. Together with a Welsh police inspector, the successful Swedish authoress and amateur sleuth goes in search of her beautiful companion, who has disappeared in the narrow streets and alleyways of London. It is a world of high society and artists as well as beggars and whores.
With skirts flapping Euthanasia forges her way through this romp of a crime novel, surveying the streets which Sherlock Holmes himself will not tread until a whole generation later.
"I have seen a good many cities. Berlin is a charming conglomeration of small villages, while Paris is truly urbane. But London surpasses them both. One can never quite make out London and the Londoners. Everything is here"
Swedish writer Carina Burman is a Ph.D and Assistant Professor at Uppsala University. She has written extensively on 18th and 19th century literature and has made a name for herself as a skilful writer of pastiche reflecting the language and atmosphere of days gone by. She is the author of five fiction novels. This is her second crime book.
It is a good, exciting book. It didn't really get to me, though. Maybe it's because I am male. But Euthanasia was a little too remote for for me, a little too elevated in her comments about the world. However, while I didn't like the characters all that much, I did enjoy the plot. Recommended with some reservations, is my conclusion.
Order The Streets of Babylon by Carine Burman from amazon UK.
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Borkmann's Point, by Hakan Nesser
International bestseller Hakan Nesser made his U.S. debut with this excellent whodunit. Borkman's Point won the Swedish Crime Writers' Academy Prize for Best Novel in 1994.
Nesser's protagonist, in Borkman's Point as in other books, is Inspector Van Veeteren. He is a crusty, world weary, police officer. The horrors of twenty-first-century crime weighs   heavily on his shoulders, and he is at times quite grumpy, but with a great sense of humor and even, sometimes, a little charm. Like Mankell's inspector Wallander, Van Veeteren listens to classical music and works methodically to solve crimes. He also plays chess, has been recently divorced, has the vice of smoking and loves fine wines. but there is also more than a little Maigret in the Stockholm sleuth.
In Borkmann's Point, Chief Inspector Van Veeteren is vacationing when his superior calls to ask him if he could assist the Kaalbringen police department in solving the murders of an ex-con and a wealthy real-estate mogul, both of whom have been murdered with an ax. The victims appear to have no connection to each other.
Bored and restless, Van Veeteren agrees, happy to be able to apply his knowledge and experience to tracking the killer down. To Van Veeteren, like always, it is only a matter of time before the killer is caught. He believes deep down that he will recognize the murderer once he encounters him. His confidence is misplaced, however, as the investigation drags on for several weeks without uncovering a single promising lead.
When the killer claims a third victim and the town's best police investigator disappears without a trace, Van Veeteren, who has left only one case unsolved in his long career, intensifies his hunt. The inspector believes that in every case a point is reached where enough information has been gathered to solve the crime with "nothing more than some decent thinking."
Borkmann's Point is a well-written, thoughtful novel. Borkmann's Point is on the process of police work, the art and arduousness of investigation and detection. The book has been well received. It's a great read, and provides a good introduction to Hakan Nesser and Inspector Van Veeteren. Recommended!
Links to Borkmann's Point or The Mind's Eye , both by Hakan Nesser, at amazon UK! Also, links to amazon US: Borkmann's Point: An Inspector Van Veeteren Mystery, Mind's Eye: An Inspector Van Veeteren Mystery (Inspector Van Veeteren Mysteries) , and the most recent Woman with Birthmark: An Inspector Van Veeteren Mystery .
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The Stonecutter, by Camilla Läckberg
The Stonecutter is the third novel by Camilla Läckberg translated into English. It features policeman Patrik Hedstrom and his wife Erica Falck from Fjallbacka in Sweden. Patrick and Erica now have a newborn daughter,  Maja. Erica suffers from a post-birth depression, and Patrik has a hard time coping with all the new demands on him at home.
In The Stonecutter a little girl is found dead in a fisherman's net. The post-mortem reveals that this is no accidental drowning! The girl has fresh rather than salt water in her lungs. Also there are traces of soap in her lungs and ash in her mouth. Someone has murdered the little girl indoors, dressed her and thrown her into the sea. So now Patrik has a murder case that requires his full attention. To some extent he is relieved to be able to return to work.
This murder case is a delicate one for Patrik, partly because the victim is a child, partly because she is the daughter of one of Erica’s friends, Camilla. Also, it is hard to see what the motive for this terrible crime could possibly be. Patrik and his colleagues follow every possible lead. And as they dig, more and more dark secrets from the little community of Fjallbacka surface. The police find evidence that indicates that the parents may have molested their other child. They find a neighbor that is involved in a child pornography ring. They reveal feuds between neighbors, and deep family conflicts. There is much not immediately visible behind the idyllic façade of small-town Sweden, and some of it is not pretty at all.
At the same time as well follow the investigation of the murder case, we also follow the destiny of Agnes, the daughter of a rich owner of a stone quarry, from the 1920s to the present. She gets involved with a stone cutter, gets pregnant, and finds her father rejecting her, withdrawing all her privileges and forcing her to marry the stone cutter - a man for whom she has no love - when he finds out.
In the present Patrick and his colleagues tear into the heart of Fjallbacka. As other children are attacked they frenetically chase down leads, but without seemingly making much progress. As well, mistakes and conflict within the police force result in the death of an innocent witness. When Patrick in the end connects the dots and finds the solution, it turns out to solve much more than he had anticipated. What he finds is a deep hatred and evil that has been build over long, long time.
Läckberg shows us some of the not so very social sides of social democratic Sweden, another parallel world where an evil mind lurks behind the scenes. Läckberg's writing is getting better and better, and she is becoming more and more popular in Scandinavia. Reading The Stonecutter it is easy to see why.
The Stonecutter is an interesting, exciting and action-packed crime fiction novel, even better than Camilla Läckberg’s earlier book The Ice Princess and the most recent,The Preacher. It is great reading and the ending is a winner! The novel is excellently translated by Steven T. Murray - a true pleasure to read. Läckberg is very good at describing the effects of crime on a small community with close ties and relationships among people, and also does a great job at showing how the past may, in some circumstances, exert an active influence on the present. Great entertainment!
The Inner Circle
(A Lonely Place), by Mari Jungstedt
The Swedish TV journalist and crime fiction auhor Mari Jungstedt has written a series of crime books where the action takes place at the beautiful and quiet Swedish island of Gotland, a place for which Jungstedt seems to hold a lot of love (see our reviews of Unseen and Unspoken). In this new interesting police procedural, The Inner Circle (or A Lonely Place, as it is called in Great Britain) a ritual killing occupies centre stage.
In The inner Circle, the 
starting point is with an archeological dig site, uncovering a Viking fortification dating back over a millennium (which gives Jungstedt an opportunity to educate readers on Viking history and legends). On this site, there is an international group of some twenty young archeology students. They are a happy and fun-loving crowd, partying together every night. Then one of them, the twenty-one-year-old Martina Flochten, disappears. When her naked body is found hanging from a tree, there is every indication that she has been the victim of a ritual killing.
Inspector Anders Knutas, heading the investigator into this crime, is posed with difficult questions: What do the marks on Martina's body signify? Is there possibly a connection between Martina's death and the recent and unsolved brutal beheading of a Gotland pony? Detective Superintendent Knutas is in for some serious frustration while trying to make sense of these seemingly senseless acts!
The police, and Inspector Anders Knutas, suspect the head of the dig site, Steffan Mellgren. He is married, has a wife and four children, but even so has a reputation as a Casanova. They think it possible that he is the mysterious lover Martina was supposed to have been meeting in secret, and whom none of her fellow archaeologists have actually seen. However, this theory turns out to be slightly flawed, as Mellgren himself is later found killed in exactly the same manner as Martina. Now Inspector Knutas is back to square one.
Inspector Knutas and his team work intensely to catch the killer. Even so, more bodies turn up, all of whom have been killed and mutilated the same way.
The Inner Circle is a very good book. Mari Jungstedt integrates a dose of Scandinavian mythology and addresses current issues on Gotland as well, while still mostly keeping up a fast-paced and intricate plot as Knutas and his colleagues close in on the killer, and gradually uncover the secret that connects the victims. My only complaint is that I think there is a little too much idle talk at times. However, even so, The Inner Circle is a very enjoyable, exciting Swedish crime fiction book: dark, atmospheric, and character-driven, and with an intelligent plot at the center.
You can also order Mari Jungstedt's A Lonely Place (paperback) or The Inner Circle: A Mystery (Inspector Anders Knutas Mysteries) (Hardcover) from Amazon UK.
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