Mons Kallentoft

Autumn Killing

Detective: Malin Fors

Time:        Present 

Setting      Linkoping, Sweden

Genre       Scandi-Noir

This is the third in the Malin Fors series. Ostensibly its about solving the murder of a wealthy lawyer but as much as anything it is about Fors' descent  into alcoholism and the increasingly strained relationship with her teenage daughter and her daughter's father.

Kallentoft plaits together three narratives in working towards his conclusion. Besides the straight plot of the criminal investigation, As in the earlier novels he uses a device of the murder victim observing Fors and her colleagues at work and also employs a sequence of flashbacks, primarily into the perpetrators history  but mixing it with that of the original victim. Throughout the novel Kallentoft also explores the reflections on events past and present of a number of characters.

The underlying ARC about Fors' problems is paralleled by an exploration of the difficulties many of her colleagues face in their personal lives.

Rating A+

Mons Kallentoft's website 

Previously read novels in the series

Midwinter Sacrifice

Summertime Death

Camilla Lackberg

The Drowning

Detectives: Erica Falk & Patrik Hedstrom 

Setting:      Fjallbacka, Sweden

Time:         The Present

Genre:       Scandi-Noir

This is the sixth of the Falk/Hedstrom Fjallbacka novels to be translated into English. Struictly speaking Falk is not a detective but an investigative crime writer, who by this novel is comfortably married to Hedstrom. Fjallbacka itself is a very small, almost rural,  community 

As in previous novels Lackberg, intersperses the main plot with (in italics) the psychological story of the main, but unknown perpetrator bringing the solving of the crime and the revelation of identity together at the end.

This plot begins with the mysterious and unsolved disappearance of a Fjallbacka resident, while, in an apparently unconnected theme,  a new local author receives poison pen letters  ruining his book launch. Later it is revealed that friends of the missing man (by now the possibly drowned body of the title) are also receiving such letters but seemingly unconnected to the author. Eventually the threads are drawn together relatively seamlessly. The only weakness is whether the transformation of a person over the years so he is unrecognisable is fully credible

The background story ARC concerns the developing relationship of Falk, who in this novel is expecting twins imminently, and Hedstrom. There is another almost comic thread around the Fjalbacka incompetent police chief's humanising relationship with the mother of one of his detectives and his de-facto adoption of the detective's child as a grandson.

Rating A

Camilla Lackbergs web site

Previously read in the Falk/Hedstrom Fjallbacka sequence
The Ice Princess
The Preacher
The Stone Cutter
The Gallows Bird
The Hidden Child*

*This novel involves treachery and betrayal rooted in the Second World War and as in other Swedish Scandi-Noir, Sweden's conscience about its behaviour is explored

Helene Tursten

Detective Inspector Huss

Detective: Irene Huss

Setting:     Gothenburg: Sweden

Time:        Recent Past (1990's)

Genre:      Scandi-Noir

This is the complicated investigation of the murder of a wealthy Swedish industrialist with a sub plot that involves violent criminals, Hell's Angels and drugs and which eventually merges into the main story. Although Huss is the main character, the team she works with are significantly involved in the development.

As this is the start of a sequence of novels featuring Huss, the elements of the background story ARC are laid, introducing a home life with a husband who is a chef and with twin teen daughters.

As is often the case  prejudiced assumptions enter the story. This time with relating to Finnish immigrants ("only a Finn can clean well"). At one stage one of the daughters gets involved with right wing skinheads and begins to Holocaust deny She needs persuasion to abandon the interest. One agent in this is one of Huss' colleagues who has a Jewish/holocaust ancestory and the other is Huss' mother who experienced rehabilitating concentration camp survivors. In so doing Sweden's discomfort in the ambivolent role it played in the Second World War is revealed.

Rating B++

Helene Tursten's web site

J Papachristou


The Halcyon Murder (1)
Murder in the Chapel (2)

Detective      Aliki Notis

Setting          Kalini, A fictional Greek Island

Time             Present
Genre           Mediterranean Noir

Possibly the start of a longer sequence of novels set on a fictional Greek island part way between Greece and Turkey.

Both novels involve Aliki Notis, a young female detective (in the first one with a partner) sent from Athens to investigate a homicide on the island. The island itself is coming to terms with the impact of tourism and the exploration of the cultural tensions between an essentially conservative and traditional lifestyle of the islanders and the liberalism that does or could come with the tourism is key to the novels. The cultural tensions between the islanders and their Albanian immigrant population are also apparent with gossip casting an Albanian as a likely perpetrator.

Notis herself is sympathetic to the sensitivities. She is a modern Greek pursuing a career in the police against her father's traditional view of a woman's role.

Rating A

Peter James

Not Dead Yet

Detective Roy Grace

Setting     Brighton

Time        Present
Genre      English Noir

This is the eighth in the Roy Grace novels set in Brighton, so far all including "Dead" in the title.

The plot centres around a Madonna-like mega-star who is in Brighton to film a historical and romantic epic to be filmed in the Brighton Pavilion and whose life is under threat.

There's also a sub plot involving a dismembered corpse found in chicken droppings on a poultry farm. Apparently a separate story from the main plot, James brings them together effectively as the novel comes to its climax

As with most sequences of novels involving the same characters there is a developing story ARC.

Grace's partner, Cleo nears the end of her pregnancy while Grace seeks to have his long missing wife, Sandy, declared dead to enable his marriage to Cleo. The novel starts to reveal more about Sandy's disappearance and her impending threat to Grace's security.

Professionally Grace solves the issue of the embarrassing leaks from his investigations to the local crime reporter Spinelli, This is possibly solved too easily and the uncovering of the guilty party concludes within two chapters with minimum effort to throw suspicion on one of Grace's team.

Rating   A

Peter James' web site

Novels in the sequence read previously
Dead Simple
Looking Good dead
Not Dead Enough
Dead Man's Footsteps
Dead Tomorrow
Dead Like You
Dead Man's Grip