Denne svenske politikrimi er den niende i serien om kriminalkommissær Erik Winter.For mange år siden forsvandt en femtenårig pige fra en sommerkoloni ude i skærgården. I nutiden forekommer der en række skudepisoder inde i Göteborg, først kun materiel skade, men tredje gang bliver en person dræbt. Winters team har svært ved at komme af stedet, men til sidst opdager de, at en enkelt person kæder de to begivenheder sammen.
Bogen er en typisk Winter-krimi. Plottet er udmærket, og vi får også alle svarene til sidst, men hvis forfatteren og hovedpersonen havde været kvinder, ville bogen formodentlig være blevet kaldt en femikrimi. Edwardson leverer en lille bid plot, og derefter en lang gennemgang af Winters personlige problemer og overvejelser, samt alle hans medarbejderes personlige problemer med partnere, uden partnere, med nye partnere osv. Og så en lille bid plot igen, fulgt af en ny runde filosoferen om livet, døden og alt det ind imellem.
Edwardson skriver godt og hans personer er meget troværdige, men hvis han havde skåret to hundrede af de fem hundrede sider væk, ville jeg måske have lagt denne biblioteksbog fra mig knap så mange gange.
Åke Edwardson, Nearly Dead Man.
This Swedish police procedural is the ninth in the series about Chief Inspector Erik Winter.
Many years ago a fifteen-year-old girl disappeared from a summer camp in the archipelago. In the present some shooting incidents take place in Gothenburg, first with material damage only, but in the third case someone is killed. It takes some time for Winter´s team to get into the case, but finally they see that one person links the old and the new story.
The book is a typical Erik Winter novel. The plot is good, and we get all the answers in the ending, but if the writer and the protagonist had been women, this novel would probably have been called ´femikrimi´. Edwardson delivers a clue followed by a long tour of Winter´s personal problems and considerations plus the personal problems of each and every man and woman on the team with partners, without partners, with new partners etc. And then a clue plus a new round of Winter´s philosophizing about life, death and everything in between.
Edwardson writes well, and his characters are nuanced and credible, but if he had cut two hundred of the five hundred pages away, I might not have put the book down quite as many times.
The book was a library book.
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9 kommentarer:
Oh dear, obviously an overlong story. Do the books still hold the same quality of writing on the 9th story as on the 1st? I sometimes think these series can go on to long.
Dorte - I know exactly what you mean about the length of a book, and the amount of time the author spends focusing on side issues. This one sounds as though a little more editing would have been a good idea...
Tracy: in my opinion the first handful of these are better, but I think there are readers who love this ´philosophical´ detective.
Margot: I am quite sure he does it on purpose. But while I really love Håkan Nesser´s Van Veeteren, I think there is far too much focus on Winter´s private life. Nesser never forgets he is in the middle of an investigation.
Dorte I read Sun and Shadow back in 2007 and the pace of the story was funereal. I did not enjoy it and your review does not encourage me to read another.
I am starting to enjoy the Lackberg more although it is clear that on their performance so far none of the Fjallbacka police will be given accelerated promotion to lead a homicide squad in Malmo or Gothenburg. ;o)
Uh-oh. 500 pages=too long for me to read (at least at this point in my life...)
Elizabeth
Mystery Writing is Murder
Norman: some readers say this is the last Erik Winter in a series of ten. I won´t miss them either, but the first ones were more regular crime novels.
Elizabeth: if they are compelling enough, I don´t mind long ones, but I am not sure I would have finished this one if I had not decided to use it for my Scandinavian challenge.
I am so glad to have your reviews to guide me through the crime novel jungle. Precise and exact. (pardon my english, it is a bit rusty).
Haven't read any of his books yet, have seen them often enough and they seem very popular, although I guess other Scandinavian crime writers are more up there these days and keep getting mentioned all over the place.
Søren: thank you, but remember, this is only my point of view (I have heard others express similar ideas about Edwardson´s development, though).
Louise: the problem is that once you have got to know Erik Winter and his family, you like them very much (okay, I know, I am just not good at giving up a series I once loved). But I laughed at Norman´s term: a funereal pace.
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