Comment

Jan 10, 2012CB2295 rated this title 4 out of 5 stars
This is book #4 in the Detectives Ann Lindell and Ola Haver series set in Oslo but was the first to be translated into English; one British reviewer said it’s “a very good book but humourless” and another said “cold, unrelenting, grim, excellent” but other reviewers say it’s only so-so; I think those reviewers are only half right and I don’t know what the basis for the criticisms could be, because it’s a rather good police procedural; and no, it’s not “humourless” but even if it were, this is a murder mystery and not a joke book, though people used to airport stuff might be expect it to be a laugh a minute as indeed a few of the better ones are; anyhow, all murder mysteries are “grim” to one extent or another; but I do not think it is at all “cold” and the characters are often given a mix of good and bad features and are sufficiently well-described that their motivations and internal conflicts become understandable to the reader; and whatever it is, it is not “so-so”; one of the book’s best features is that it is Swedish and the translator has not stooped to changing things Swedish into alien things American for the sake of greater US book sales