Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)Yet another police mystery from Sweden (what is it with these Swedes? They have one of the lowest murder rates in the world and one of the highest proportions of murder mysteries).
This one is set in the cathedral town of Uppsala. Its strength is the way the author reveals the workings of an entire police department. We get to know several of the detectives, not only at work but in their personal lives as well. The panorama of the book then is quite wide. We also get an interesting cross-section of the seamier side of Uppsala society -- the single mother trying to raise two teenage boys and hold down a job, the disaffected immigrant community and we also see a little bit of Uppsala's underworld focusing on the burgeoning problem of drugs in a place which had been largely immune to such problems.
The book runs into difficulties when the author also tries to get inside the head of his villain (I'm not giving anything away here -- it is revealed early in the book). This is a Mexican who has come to avenge the death of his brother killed in a drugs deal gone bad. Here, the book goes completely wacky. How can this poor former illegal immigrant to the United States buy a ticket to Sweden, rent a car, murder someone and then hang out in open sight for weeks on end? The motive for the killing -- a tattoo -- is also unrealistic.
The end of the book comes as a severe anti-climax. So yes, there is a lot that is good here but I would view it as a flawed effort.
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