I picked up this copy at a library sale recently, and it appears to be the third in a series or the third to be translated into English.

The detectives in the city of Gothenburg are very busy, not only do they have a mysterious attacker who is bashing young men in the back of the head with some kind of long-handled instrument (despite 4 attacks, no one is dead yet), but they are also getting some unsettling reports from parents who tell them their children said they have sat in a car with a strange man (yes, of course, he had candy!) I know it says on the book that this is a DCI Erik Winter novel, but the story follows at least four detectives (all male, a few token women officers play minor roles) in their investigations into these two complex cases which makes for a fairly congested mystery — congested in a good way.

Apparently Winter (did I mention how weird it was to keep reading "Winter" in the sentences of a Swedish crime novel?) was a bit of a detective prodigy as a very young man but now that he's middle-aged his giftedness seems to only be good detective work and a bit of a sixth sense/intuition (allegedly more than the usual "hunch" but it didn't really seem extraordinary). And I may be wrong about this, I haven't read the first two books. Winter, btw, has a live-in partner (a woman) and a very young daughter.

So, this is a well-done, congested, complex mystery which builds very slowly. By the time you reach page 270 or so, you can't put it down...and you have 100 pages to go! This certainly is another great Swedish crime novel - right up there with Mankell's. Makes one wonder what's in the water up there... ( )

Very enjoyable read. ( )