Van Veeteren absorbs the known facts, meets with the suspects and witnesses then sets out to solve the crime. There is little camaraderie with others on his team and only a slight interaction with any part of the process. Does he operate by gut instinct honed by years of doggedly pursuing justice or divine inspiration? Who knows? That remains a mystery. At one point he states that “if we were a movie, you and me..Or a book, then of course it would be unforgiveable of me to tell you certain things at this point in time. It would be a kick in the teeth of cinemagoers, an insult to the genre as well.”  Okay, perhaps at this time but at some time is only fair.

High school philosophy teacher Janek Mitter awakes one morning with a whopper of a hangover only to discover the bathroom door locked and his wife of three months inside- facedown in the bathtub and he has only a partial memory of the evening. He has no defense and is swiftly tried and convicted. It seems an open and shut case until he too is murdered. None of those questioned seems particularly helpful.

Van Veeteren’s investigation appears disjointed. The interviews are often perfunctory revealing few clues to the reader yet often to Van Veeteren.  He rarely confides in his fellow officers either so that when he finally pulls together all the information that he alone has assimilated there is a feeling of incompleteness.

This is no CSI situation where every scrap of evidence is analyzed and science convicts the guilty nor is it a “cozy” mystery with complicated back stories for the primary characters where their interaction is part of the plot. No, this is like a Bergman film where folks wander, brooding, against a dark landscape with occasional dialogue or action.  The title is appropriate for most of the story takes place in the mind of Inspector Van Veeteren. Even his team considers him distant.

This is a book though and not a film. There is no voice over to enlighten the viewers only Van Veeteren chewing on a toothpick, adding up the clues but not letting the readers in on how he made his conclusions and then taking action. He orders faxes to be sent out, demands old case files, makes international phone calls and then-it’s over. Case closed. The who is there but not really the why?  Altogether, as Nero Wolfe would say, “most unsatisfactory.”

Please, give me some of the English aloofness and slightly supercilious attitude of Sherlock Holmes and spare me the silent, introspective Swede.

--Jane Davis