He Who Kills the Dragon

Detective Superintendent Evert Backstrom is an obstreperous, corrupt, obese, racist misogynist who pisses off everybody who works with him. And those are his good points.

The second Backstrom novel is similar to the first, with Persson building a procedural around his Falstaffian cop, frequently leaving the readers shaking their heads at the outrageous internal dialogue that he attributes to him, and eliciting belly laughs that are immediately followed with a twinge of guilt at finding such outrageousness funny. It's quite a feat; he manages to keep the character just the right side of offensiveness, while milking his obnoxiousness for all it is worth.

The plot commences with the death of an old man in his apartment, surrounded by empty show more bottles. Backstrom instantly decides it's just one piss-artist killing another piss-artist, nothing to see here, let's all go have lunch. The body is found by a Somali paperboy, whom Backstrom dismisses with a few crude epithets.

There is something that niggles at him though and he seems to be well ahead of his colleagues, leading them a bit of a dance before the team starts to home in on what is really going on. Despite all his unlikeable characteristics, Backstrom is sharp when it counts.

This novel is a guilty pleasure, but probably not for people who consider themselves "woke"; they may just find the character too offensive. show less

Detective Superintendent Backstrom of the Swedish police is a horrible person with something bad to say about everyone, including the woman he's attracted to in his precinct. If he has a redeeming quality, it's being smart enough to know who to put on his task team and whose opinion to listen to that will make him look good. While investigating what seems like a quickly solved murder of a poor old alcoholic, the police start unraveling a much more complicated life than anyone could have expected.
Persson has made a thoroughly unlikable character with Backstrom, which made it pretty impossible to root for him even though I usually like awful characters. I was set to give this book three and a half stars until the very last page, which was show more so icky that I dropped half a star and likely won't read another from the series. show less

Jag gillar Leif GW Persson böcker för de e så mycket mer än bara vanliga kriminalromaner. De är skrivna med humor och dialogerna är roliga. Evert Bäckström är en härlig karaktär utan att vara för överdriven, och eftersom GW har så mycket kunskap om det han skriver är själva brottet i boken något som hade kunnat ha hänt. Rekomenderar boken skarpt!

Here Backstrom has been allowed back leading a murder investigation team after his demotion to the lost property office. His team investigates the murder of 'a pisshead' discovered by the paperboy, who is an immigrant from Africa. In the first of this series, Backstrom's appalling attitudes to women (and work in general) were entertaining because everyone around him provided a corrective contrast and he got his comeuppance at the end. Here, many of the police officers were openly racist and Backstrom's misogyny, corruption and homophobia seemed to have ramped up.

I read the first novel in one sitting, but this one spread over a few days and I found the number of characters to keep track of overwhelming. I think I will stop at #2, show more although I am not sure how many more have been translated into English anyway. show less

Not Your Average Scandi Crime buster

Well you may have read many Scandinavian crime novels, dark, moody and compelling, with bodies dropping like flies all over the place, but may not read one quite like this! This is the second in the Evert Backstrom trilogy by Leif G. W. Persson, but was my introduction to the different type of hero of the hour. He is so much different if it was ever filmed I could audition for the role, as he is sometimes referred to by the author in the text as similar to the US series of NYPD Blues’ Andy Sipowicz. This brings a different style to the usual dark stuff from our northern European cousins, this has humour and the best description of Backstrom is by the publisher as repulsive, small, fat and primitive show more which makes it a great novel to read.

Superintendant Evert Backstrom is under instructions to start leading a healthier life style and is on this kick at the opening of the novel when a car is sent to pick him up and take him to a murder in an non descript apartment block. When he gets to the crime scene his first thought is that it is yet another pisshead murder, but first looks can be so deceptive. He is found by the Somali paperboy Septimus Akofeli who in turn later turns up dead, with no real connection to the original murder.

Evert Backstrom who starts to not only ignore his doctor’s advice and unleash himself headlong in to the investigation and at the same time consumes enough food and drink to drown a battleship. At the same time he is not liked by his superiors, but the new chief of the Western District needs Backstrom somehow to clear these murders up, even though she doubts he will.

During the course of his investigations he manages to tread all over his former mentees airport heist and murder investigation. At the same time he thinks some very un-PC about all over his colleagues and witnesses and is not afraid to sleep with a barmaid or a prostitute. At the same time he manages to get his 15 minutes of fame while annoying many of his colleagues while actually solving the murders and taking out some heavy criminal leaders. There is a wonderful twist at the end of the novel for the reveal of who the murderer was, very clever and also dotted with humour.

This is a great crime novel different from what you normally expect from the Scandinavian crime genre. It has the murders it has plenty of humour and a few twists during this procedural aspects of the book. I would highly recommend the book as it is well written, plenty of imagery and plenty to get your teeth in to. Really you should not like anything about Backstrom as he is repulsive and completely unlovable character, but you do end up liking him, somehow! show less

an enjoyable read. a lot less dark and psychologically laden then many of the north country mysteries.Backstrom is fairly repulsive, but somehow, everything seems to work out as it should

He is such a pig, but I found it hard to put the book down.