The Dead of Summer

In a holiday caravan park on the Swedish island of Gotland a man is shot while jogging early one morning and police are, at first, baffled by the crime. The man owned a successful construction business, had a loving wife and family and seemed a most unlikely candidate for such a grim murder. Both police and the local journalists working on the story have to wade through lots of interviews with the man’s family and associates before any hint of a motive emerges. In fact it’s not until there is a second murder some way into the book that a genuine suspect becomes evident.

While I would like to start every series at the beginning and read them in order, I simply do not have enough hours in my life so I was pleased to see that this book, show more though fifth of a series, was recommended at Euro Crime as a good entry-point to that series. As always Euro Crime steered me in the right direction as I did not find myself at a disadvantage despite having read none of the earlier books. At the start of this one the investigative team is being led by Karin Jacobssen while her boss, Anders Knutas is on holidays. She is looking forward to heading up her first investigation on her own though nervous enough to ring Knutas and let him know about the murder. This backfires on her as he soon returns from holidays, unable to let the investigation take place without him. This is the source of a well-depicted thread in which Jacobssen worries that Knutas believes her incapable of doing the job and him having to explain his reasons for stepping back in so quickly.

We spend quite a bit of time following this and other personal issues of the various police officers as well as the journalist who is working on the story. Knutas is suffering something of a lull in his marriage and there are some unexpectedly awkward moments between himself and Jacobssen, though these do not resolve as you might expect (a point in the book’s favour). The journalist, who has clearly been involved in early stories, is also experiencing some personal problems as the mother of his daughter has become very distant and this thread provides another point of interest. Even Karin Jacobssen’s own personal history becomes important towards the very end of the story and, like all the other significant characters, she is nicely and believably drawn.

I thought the pointers to the final solution to the mystery were a little bit too obvious to give this element of the novel the highest ratings for suspense, but the plot is perfectly serviceable. It’s all quite logical and flows very well, with a quite absorbing (though ultimately irrelevant) side thread that gently probed the issue of foreign workers in Sweden. Some of the sentiments expressed sounded awfully familiar which made me realise yet again just how many similarities there can be between two apparently different cultures on opposite sides of the globe,

I did thoroughly enjoy this expertly translated and delightfully narrated audio book with thanks to Tiina Nunnally and Simon Shepherd respectively. I am becoming quite enamoured of having translated books read to me as the correct pronunciation of the names of people and places seems to add something to the authentic feel. I will definitely be eager to read the next book of this quietly absorbing series and may even be tempted to go back and read some of the earlier ones (well at least the one I have sitting on my TBR shelves).

My rating 3.5 show less

I didn't like this book. The characters seemed wooden and unengaging; some of their actions were unconvincing. The mystery was bleh. The writing style felt chunky and amateurish to me. (Maybe it was the translation.) There was one section, near the end, when things seemed like they were picking up as the clues came together. But at the very end, the story took an unconvincing turn with a huge info dump about one of the characters, totally taking the story in another direction altogether. It just didn't work for me at all. I'm not even sure why I finished it. I probably wouldn't have, except I used it as my bedtime book because it wasn't exciting enough to keep me awake at night. Only the ending was so aggravating, it's kept me awake show more tonight after all, for all the wrong reasons. show less

I keep seeing Scandinavian etc novels on the shelves. The blurbs keep telling me in breathless prose how wonderful and arresting and glorious these books are. I keep falling for it.

No more.

I think it's the translations, not the books themselves, but they are just so clumsy. Look, the quality of writing means a lot to me. I appreciate that other people don't think it's that big a deal, but I can't enjoy a book if the writing doesn't appeal to me.

The way these books are written/translated robs them of flow, poetry, beauty and anything else I might look for. It even heads out of dull and workmanlike prose, which I can ignore. Instead it's clumsy and overly-formal.

It's such a shame. I love crime novels, especially moody and atmospheric show more ones. But if you;re going for moody and atmospheric the writing really sells it.

I think more publishers need to invest in translators who are also writers. show less

“Fresh Meat” by Jordan Foster for Criminal Element

Crime fiction generally is not the best place to look for a vacation spot. If Hannibal and Clarice had transported their bloody tango to the sands of some tropical beach, readers probably wouldn’t be queuing up to follow suit. So why is it that, despite the body count, I’d gladly take a holiday on Gotland, the Swedish island where Mari Jungstedt sets her whodunits?

Let’s start with the pros: it’s removed from the hustle and bustle of Stockholm and there are plentiful bars and restaurants all apparently within bicycling distance (this is Sweden, after all). Since Jungstedt sets the story in late summer, the weather is cooperative for long beach walks and lots of swimming. Even show more Detective Karin Jacobsson takes a dip at one point. That’s just what you do in July in Gotland. Even when you have a double murder to solve.

Which leads me to the cons. It can’t be ignored that in Jungstedt’s Gotland, there are corpses. Bullet-ridden corpses. This is where the whole it’s-an-island-and-we-can’t-escape notion begins to sound less appealing. Since the first victim is shot point blank in the forehead and then seven more times in the stomach during his morning run along the beach, taking in the lovely scenery Gotland has to offer might not be in your best interest after all. Maybe there’s a shop in Stockholm you can visit that sells summer-weight Kevlar. Stock up before you get on the ferry. Speaking of the ferry, you better hope you don’t miss the last one of the day. Then you’re really stuck.

Read the rest at: http://www.criminalelement.com/blogs/2012/05/fresh-meat-the-dead-of-summer-by-ma... show less

Out for a run on the island of Faro (just off Gotland in the Baltic Sea), Peter Bovide is attacked, murdered. By all accounts he was an ethical man, a good husband and father. Was this random?

The investigation is led by Karin Jacobsson, assistant to Anders Knutas. The team finds little of forensic interest. It appears to have been a clean, well-planned murder. Nobody saw anything, although it happened in a public area.

Peter's wife is interviewed, along with persons staying on the island and others on Gotland, where the family lived. There is little joy but several possible motives. Weeks into the investigation a second murder happens, much like the first.

In this novel Jacobson is given the chance to prove herself because Knutas is off show more on leave with his own family. But he can't hold back and returns early, intrigued by this case. There is acrimony among the team because of Karin's recent promotion, and Knutas's action doesn't help solidify her position. Thus she has the double duty of holding her own while trying to solve the case.

While I enjoyed the book, I got only a vague sense of who both Knutas and Jacobson are. I would have liked more personality, more dialog, more detail. show less

Another blood-soaked outing on the peaceful Swedish island of Gotland with Mari Jungstadt's two protagonists, Inspector Knutas and the journalist Johann Berg. This time, in the fifth novel in the series, another major role is taken by Knutas' chief deputy, Karin Jacobsson. They are trying to figure out who put a bullet through the forehead of a family man vacationing at a campsite on the remote sub-island of Faro. That's not the last murder, and there's plenty of mystery to unravel. The sometimes cooperative, sometimes confrontational relationship between Jacob and the police continues, as does his on again off again relationship with his rather tiresome girlfriend Emma.

A good mystery read, with a strong sense of place, and some show more interesting characters. These novels do require one to suspend the will to disbelieve, in that murder isn't really all that common in Gotland -- when I visited the island, a hotel keeper told me that there had been one murder on the island in the last 35 years. But that's true of Scandi crime fiction in general. show less

A Swedish police procedural based in part on the island of Gotska Sandon and featuring Anders Knutas.
Started well but became a little plodding and predictable. The dialogue and characterisation were weak even stereotypical at times. This is the first of this series I've read - won;t be reading many more in a hurry.