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Woman With Birthmark (1996)

by Håkan Nesser(Favorite Author)

3.79 of 5 Votes: 2

ISBN

0375425047 (ISBN13: 9780375425042)

languge

English

genre

Mystery & Thriller

publisher

Pantheon

series

Inspector Van Veeteren

review 1: Enjoyable (4th in series, which I am reading in order but perhaps it is less important with this series than with some). Old-fashioned police procedural (written in 1996, so it has taken a while to reach English translation). We know, more or less, who the murderer is from the beginning (although we never learn her name), but the motive - revenge - is revealed in detail only slowly. Although the author is Swedish the setting is not - it is an unidentified European country, with landscape which doesn't match the Netherlands (which it otherwise sounds like). The police team is full of eccentricity and dry wit. These books are really nothing like other contemporary Scandinavian crime authors (there's maybe a hint of Martin Beck in Van Veeteren, but less social comm... moreent).
review 2: Very interesting read. The antagonist is never truly defined or identified until the end. Even then you only get a glimpse of what she was like. Which in turn upsets the applecart of detective novels. Never knowing the who, what, why. Thoroughly enjoyed. The lead protagonist Van Veeteren and his team of detectives have no evidence, minimal leads. Murder after murder with no suspect, no motive other that a vague reference to an incident that is not defined . That happened 30 years previously. less

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