A quietly gripping and very engaging Swedish police procedural. A man is beaten to death in his darkroom and found a week later. Henry Dahlstrom was a photographer and full time alcoholic who had had a large win the race track before he was killed. Chief Inspector Anders Knutas leads the investigation into Harry’s murder finding a simple case to be rather slippery in fact. At the same time a young girl, Fanny, who has a strained home life with her mother, develops a friendship with an older man that starts to develop into something more serious. When Fanny goes missing the threads that tie both cases together twist very neatly together to a very satisfactory conclusion.
The lot mechanics are excellent, the murder investigation is driven in a professional, competent way by DCI Knutas, as each lead is pursued the list of suspects gets smaller and answers more elusive. The disappearance of a vulnerable child increases the pressure and the investigation has to manage the additional work. The reveals are nicely staged and the final unravelling is very well set up.
The cast are very engaging, Mari Jungstedt has a gift for quickly establishing a character, as she does with Henry Dahlstrom, as much as for steadily developing one as she does with Fanny. That both victims are given the space to clearly register with the reader is crucial to the story, the investigation is in part an investigation into them as much as their circumstances and they are given their due importance.
Ander Knutas is a professional police officer with a functioning marriage and a stable relationship with his young children. He avoids being a genre staple or being dull by virtue of being fully developed so that his life outside of his work and his relationship with his work is thoughtful and engaging. The supporting cast are given the chance to establish themselves and they take it in full.
There is an interesting sub plot regarding a relationship between a married woman and a television reporter which is essentially independent of the main narrative. Mari Jungstedt is able to write this without it ever appearing distracting or redundant, it feels natural within the story. This s very impressive as it widens and deepens the general context for the events and Gothland in particular. It acts as a satisfying balance to the investigation.
Tiina Nunnally’s translation is transparent, the language never jars or suggests that the story and context are wholly and naturally Swedish. Excellent crime fiction.
