The Cruel Stars of the Night, by Kjell Eriksson

The Cruel Stars of the Night is the second novel by Swedish author Kjell Eriksson that has been translated into English. The first was the highly praised novel The Princess of Burundi (released in the United States 2006, but winner of the Swedish Crime Academy Award for Best Crime Novel in 1992).

The murder of an elderly farmer and the disappearance of a classics professor are the events that start the action. The Violent Crimes Unit of Sweden’s Uppsala police department is baffled by the seemingly random nature of the crimes: the vanished professor may or may not be linked to the homicide they’re investigating, a crime that itself has no apparent motive.

"Why kill two seventy-year-old farmers? Just as in Blomgren’s house, nothing here was touched. Straight into the house, bash the old man’s head in, and leave the same way. That’s how the whole thing must have happened."

Eriksson eschews crackling dialogue and facile descriptions in favor of longer, slower developing profiles of the principal men and women of the police unit: Ann Lindell, Ola Haver, Sammy Nilsson, Allan Fredricksson and others. Their investigation proceeds in parallel with the story of Laura Hindersten, daughter of the missing man. Eriksson balances these stories nicely as the detectives reach for clues. Ann Lindell emerges as the most compelling investigator, but the others are also distinct individuals.

Inspector Lindell is thorough, something of a loner in the squad, and a single mother with a young son to look after. It this book, Eriksson again displays considerable finesse in portraying the inner lives of his cast and in showing how the various inspectors attempt to cope with the strains of the job.

The Cruel Stars of the Night is an interesting book, due to author Eriksson’s restless inquiry into Laura’s state of mind, and his eye for detail at every turn.

Kjell Eriksson has been compared both to Henning Mankell (The Man Who Smiled) and to the late Ed McBain. Eriksson’s sense of humor lingers beneath the surface. The Cruel Stars of the Night is not an action-filled thriller. Eriksson lets the tension build slowly, playing out the psychological clues like an expert angler - ensuring his audience is hooked before ratcheting up the tension. It is possible to take breaks from the book in the early chapters, but once the pieces begin to fall together, The Cruel Stars of the Night becomes difficult to put down.

The Princess of Burundi (Ann Lindell Mysteries), Eriksson's first book, is also a wonderful read!

Never End, by Ake Edwardson

Swedish author Ake Edwardson's 12 Erik Winter novels are best-sellers in Europe, but this is only the second of the series to be published in the U.S., following last year's Sun and Shadow. In Europe, Åke Edwardson is known as a master of the stylish and gritty crime novel.

Ake Edwardson is a three-time winner of the Swedish Academy of Crime Writers’ Award and it’s easy to see why. Edwardson weaves rich, psychologically satisfying tales. His writing is nuanced and literary, and his characters are deep and fascinating.

In Never End, a heat wave hits the Swedish coastal city of Gothenburg. School is out, and parks and beaches are teeming with people. Then a corpse of a young woman is found in a hollowed out area within a thicket of trees in a local park. Pathology reports show that she had been sexually violated and strangled. Chief Inspector Erik Winter, in charge of the investigation, is stunned as the crime is eerily similar to an unsolved rape and murder committed 5 years ago in the exact same location.

Winter mobilizes his team to pore over the evidence but soon there is another young victim who was raped but survived. Her fragile psychological state provides few clues for Winter. Chief Inspector Erik Winter, now forty-one and a father, assembles the scant but grisly details of the crimes, and begins to see an eerie connection to the five-year-old unsolved rape/murder, a case he, in typically obsessive fashion, has refused to let go cold.

Has the same rapist re-emerged to taunt the police and flaunt his stolen freedom, or are these copycat crimes? In the absence of any hard leads, and haunted by the case he could not solve, Winter hunts for a link bridging the victims, convinced that each crime holds the key to the others.

Never End is a top police procedural, with a very likable main character and deep characterizations. A great read!

Other great books by Edwardsson include Sun and Shadow: An Erik Winter Novel and Frozen Tracks: An Inspector Erik Winter Novel.

Missing, by Karin Alvtegen

Sibylla Forstenström is the daughter of a rich but insensitive merchant and his wife. After a depression and an unwanted pregnancy she flees as an 18 year old girl from her family and the institution where she is kept. Now Sybilla Forsenstrom doesn't exist. For fifteen years she has been excluded from society and, as one of the homeless in Stockholm, she takes each day as it comes, keeping all her possessions in her backpack - apart from a knife and salami. She is always well-dressed and displays impeccable manners. One night, in The Grand Hotel, she charms a susceptible businessman into paying for her dinner and room. His dead body is discovered the following morning and Sybilla becomes the prime suspect. When a second person is killed in similar circumstances, she becomes the most wanted person in Sweden.

Fearing that her homeless state means guilty, she eludes the cops with some help and begins investigating the homicides. Her inquiries are entertaining as she sees the clues differently than the cops. And she displays considerable smartness and courage, as well as an uncanny ability to think and act outside the box - sometimes far outside it.

Missing is not only an excellent crime novel and a wonderful, very exciting book. It is also an exploration into the terrifying isolation of a woman who has rejected the values of her background and the intimacy of her family. Alvtegen is a sensitive writer with considerable empathy, at the same time as she uses stunningly direct prose in a plot of tremendous pace and nerve. Missing Missing would be a mistake on your part!

Other great books by Karin Alvtegen include Betrayal and Shame.