Book Review: Borkmann's Point

Reviewed By: Lynn Harnett

Borkmann's Point     Amazon US PB Amazon US TPB Amazon US HC Amazon Canada PB Amazon Canada TPB Amazon Canada HC
Hakan Nesser
Class/Genre:   Mystery   Police Procedural   Hard Boiled
Series: Inspector Van Veeteren
Vintage Crime Paperback, March 2007
Mystery, Swedish crime, police procedural

Swedish author Hakan Nesser, has his laconic, sardonic series detective, Inspector VanVeeteren, investigate a serial ax murderer in a quiet seaside town, in “Borkmann’s Point,” winner of the Swedish Crime Writers' Best Novel Award for 1994.

Van Veeteren is not feeling his best after a dreary coastal vacation partly spent with his paroled son, and is looking forward to returning to the city when his superior assigns him a case in a tiny nearby coastal town where two men with nothing in common have been brutally murdered and the police chief is about to retire.

The first victim was a petty thief, drug-dealer and pimp; the second was a successful, self-satisfied businessman. It’s not a town that sees many murders and the police chief is more than cooperative. Van Veeteren soon finds himself spending enjoyable evenings playing chess and drinking fine wine from the chief’s cellar – carefully collected to last out his retirement.

Point of view switches among the team members, which include Beate Moerck, an ambitious young woman afraid of ending up successful and childless, and Munster, one of Van Veeteren’s usual assistants, a young, happily married man with children who soon finds himself attracted to Beate.

The qualities Americans have come to love in Scandinavian novels – dry wit, a calm, philosophical approach, and the cool, northern atmosphere, are here in abundance. Fans of Henning Mankell or Helene Tursten will relish Nesser.

Lynn Harnett

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Lynn Harnett