Tag: Inspector Van Veeteren

Day 288: The Return

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Cover for The ReturnDuring a nursery school outing in a forest, a little girl finds a body. A corpse, headless, handless, and footless, is buried in the woods and has been there at least six months.

Inspector Van Veeteren has some difficulties even identifying the body. Any man the age of the corpse who has been reported missing does not fit the description.

Van Veeteren has already entered the hospital for colon surgery before a woman reports that the body may belong to her estranged brother–once a famous athlete who was accused of cheating and was later found guilty of murdering two of his ex-lovers. It appears that the victim, Leopold Verhaven, had been released from prison shortly before the murder.

The investigation of Verhaven’s murder naturally leads back to the murders for which he was imprisoned. Van Veeteren has plenty of time to read the trial transcripts in the hospital and finds that Verhaven was convicted on very little evidence. Eventually the team is lead to consider whether Verhaven was guilty of the murders at all.

As Van Veeteren follows up on his own while on leave, his team having been removed from the case, we get a lot of insight into his character, although not as much into that of his team members. This novel is interesting and dark, and in the course of it, a line is to be crossed.

Day 178: Borkmann’s Point

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Cover for Borkmann's PointI don’t know what tipped me off about the murderer in Håkan Nesser’s Borkmann’s Point, but I guessed the result early on. I do not think the solution was obvious, though.

Inspector Van Veeteren interrupts his vacation to help find a murderer who has killed two people with an ax in the small coastal town of Kaalbringen. There don’t seem to be any links between the victims except that they recently moved to Kaalbringen, and the police aren’t finding any leads, so Van Veeteren occupies his time playing chess with the retiring police chief. Then, another man is murdered.

Some scenes in this police procedural are written from the murderer’s point of view, a technique that could be hackneyed but works fairly well here. The writing is taut, and the pace, although not rapid, keeps you engaged. I have commented before on the pace of some Swedish police procedurals, thinking it is more realistic than that employed in American mysteries but can flag. I did not have that complaint about this novel, however.

I thought the novel is more involving than some of the Swedish mysteries I have read but not as involving as others. I believe an opportunity was missed, though, in that more could have been done with the setting in a seaside town.

Day 60: Mind’s Eye

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Cover for Mind's EyeMind’s Eye is the first of the Inspector Van Veteren series by Swedish mystery writer Håkan Nesser, although it is the third published in English. Mostly a police procedural, the book also is somewhat of a psychological thriller.

A woman is drowned in her bath tub and her husband, Janek Mitter, is on trial for her murder, but Inspector Van Veteren is not quite sure the police got it right. Mitter, whose only alibi is that he was asleep and who cannot remember what happened that night, is found guilty and incarcerated in a mental hospital.

One night when Mitter is not given his drugs, he remembers someone in his house the night of the murder and trieds to call Van Veteren. He also sends a note to that person. That night he is murdered. Now Van Veteren thinks the police need to start over by examining the woman’s past.

The book was interesting enough, and I am ready to read more about Van Veteren. I was able to guess the solution–although not the exact identity of the murderer–well before the end, but the book kept my attention.