Tag: Erik Winter

Day 273: Sun and Shadow

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Cover for Sun and ShadowTwo people are murdered in their apartments and their heads exchanged. Erik Winter and his team try to figure out what this means, fearing that a serial killer is at work. At the same time, Erik tries to cope with his father dying in Spain and his girlfriend’s pregnancy.

Edwardson, as with other Scandinavian mystery writers, tends to depict police work more as a grind than as food for a thriller. In this case, suspense was generated because, from almost the beginning, I was convinced the murderer would kidnap Erik’s girlfriend.

The novel was also clever enough to trick me. I was sure that the murderer was a certain character, but the book made me think that the killer was another person. It turned out I was right all along.

If you are interested in a slower-moving mystery that grows organically and is probably more realistic than our American mysteries/thrillers, you may enjoy reading Ǻke Edwardson.

Day 175: Death Angels

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Cover for Death AngelsAlthough Death Angels is the fourth of Åke Edwardson’s books to be published in the United States, it is the first book in his Erik Winter series. I felt that this mystery flagged in the middle, although the beginning and ending were interesting.

Young men are murdered in a similar way in Sweden and London, so Erik Winter and his team get together with their London counterparts to solve the crime. When they begin to suspect that the murders may be connected with snuff films, Winter asks a childhood friend with ties to illicit porn for help. A break finally comes when a burglar reports seeing some blood-stained clothing in a house he’s broken into.

As I mentioned before, nothing much seems to happen in the middle of the book. It appears that some of the Scandinavian mystery writers are at pains to show realistically how long it takes to solve some crimes. This objective is a worthy one, but they need to also find a way to build suspense or keep the reader’s interest. The characters of the members of Winter’s team are not well developed, although an attempt is made to show other aspects of their lives. However, I especially disliked the subplot of the young cop with a pregnant wife who gets involved with a stripper.

Day 153: The Shadow Woman

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Cover for The Shadow WomanIn The Shadow Woman, a woman is found dead in a park during the Gothenburg Party, a citywide festival that is taking place during a blazing summer. Chief Inspector Erik Winter and his team are having a hard time finding leads or even identifying the body. All they have is footage from a surveillance camera of a Ford Escort and a strange symbol painted on a nearby tree.

Sandwiched into the criminal investigation is the narration of a little girl who doesn’t know where her mommy is and is being kept by strangers. When Winter’s team finally identifies the body, they find that the woman had a little girl. No one seems to know where the child is.

During an investigation that lasts months, Winter and his team begin to find links between the crime and a robbery that occurred 25 years ago. In the meantime, Winter’s long-time girlfriend Angela is thinking of giving him an ultimatum about their relationship.

I haven’t been reading Åke Edwardson’s Erik Winter mysteries in order, making the private lives of the recurring characters a little difficult to follow. The books keep my interest and provide complex puzzles, but I still don’t feel like I get much insight into the personalities of the main characters. The slower pace of Edwardson’s police procedurals is probably more realistic than the speed with which crimes are usually solved in fiction, but the author’s ability to effectively build suspense is also affected by this pace.

Day 30: Never End

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Cover of Never EndNever End by Åke Edwardson is an interesting police procedural. A young woman is raped in the park during a sweltering summer evening in Gothenburg. What concerns the police even more than the rape is the fact that it took place in the same alcove where a girl of the same age was murdered five years ago. Jeanette, the victim, was also choked with something, perhaps a dog leash, while the murdered girl was strangled with her own belt.

Chief Inspector Erik Winter leads the investigation, and Inspector Handler tries to help while dealing with his ex-wife’s death.

The characters were interesting and the solution was difficult to guess. I have read a couple of Erik Winter books so far, and I still find myself unable to get much of a sense of the personalities of Winter and the other detectives. Edwardson provides some personal information about his detectives: Winter is happily married with a young son, and he is grappling with the idea of how much time his work takes away from his family; he is also battling with nicotine withdrawal. But Edwardson really concentrates on the methods and findings of the investigation. Perhaps as you read through the series, you slowly develop an idea of what the recurring characters are like.