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spestories's review
4.0
I found the plot and characterization was excellent. The detail about the locale, people, and activities gave a lot of substance to the story. Thankfully I was able to find many of the places on maps.google.com and have some sense of geography--where things happened and geographic relationships. I will definitely read more Tursten and Inspector Huss.
sandin954's review
4.0
An excellent police procedural set in Sweden featuring a very realistic female inspector. I really enjoyed the interplay between the different members of the police force and the plot was entirely engrossing.
tessisreading2's review
4.0
The translation is stilted and the prose is very matter-of-fact, but it's a really interesting book, not least for the Swedish view of Finns.
kynan's review
3.0
TL;DR: A humorous and interesting Swedish police procedural with a strong cast lead by a strong leading lady. Graphic in terms of violence and sex.
TL: Detective Inspector Huss is a Swedish police procedural set in the late 90s. As the title might suggest, the protagonist is Detective Inspector Irene Huss, a member of the Göteborg Violent Crimes Unit. She's also a mother to two teenage daughters, wife to a local chef, and beloved walker and pee-companion to a lazy dog. She is but one of a wide cast of characters, all of whom really push themselves out of the pages of this book (as long as you can keep up with the Swedish names)!
The story opens with a suicide and (surprise!) quickly morphs into something much more sinister. The evolution of the investigation is the story and although it's not really a surprise when you find out who the evil mastermind is, the way the book makes it to that endpoint, the way the investigation doggedly tracks the (lack of) evidence, the way that each member of the investigation team, and indeed all of the people they interact with are "real" people are what make this book so interesting. Everyone is a character; the Prosecutor, the Medical Examiner, the witness and her dachshund Snoopy, everyone! In fact, sometimes even the furniture gets elevated:
That made me laugh! My point is, there're no place-holder plot fulfilling characters, everyone has a life beyond the plot and we get little glimpses of that as we intersect with their path through the investigation.
The plot is tangled and sprawling and, occasionally, a little threadbare, but not enough to detract from enjoying watching the team slowly work their way through it. It's also sprinkled with a bunch of sub-plots and just some general social commentary. I found it interesting that a lot of the issues that are front-and-center today (especially in Australia) are very pointedly glared at. Irene, being a woman, has to deal with a degree of sexism from her mostly male colleagues and, when a fellow female officer ends up being abused by both criminals and police-officers alike, there's a tiny story arc that follows the mental trajectory of one of the supervising officers as he comes to terms with the impudent bigotry of his subordinates and inmates alike.
I had a slightly weird time placing the book in time because it's set just before mobile phones exploded into ubiquity and there are intriguing little reminders of what life was like before you could contact anyone, any time - trying to contact your investigating officers to pull them off a dead lead becomes an hours long process, waiting for them to call in! But mobile phones are weirdly sporadic here and what about pagers that I'm sure folks would have had? Meh, nitty-picky weirdness on my part, I just found it slightly jarring as I struggled to contextualise the action. There's a general air of 90's notstalgia (this was written in them, to be fair) around the whole thing, we even habe non-ironic references to fax machines!
This is a humorous and interesting book that isn't afraid of tackling some pretty big topics and it veers into some extremely graphic violence and sex on occasion. It's not obscene or offputtingly out-of-place (looking at you [b:The Steel Remains|3314369|The Steel Remains (A Land Fit for Heroes, #1)|Richard K. Morgan|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1415581117l/3314369._SY75_.jpg|3352006]), it's in context and fits the story, just a warning if you aren't OK with that kind of thing.
Excellent debut work from Fru Tursten - as a first book this is pretty outstanding and I'll definitely be reading [b:Night Rounds|11505253|Night Rounds (Inspector Huss #2)|Helene Tursten|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1333581051l/11505253._SX50_.jpg|835555] at some stage.
TL: Detective Inspector Huss is a Swedish police procedural set in the late 90s. As the title might suggest, the protagonist is Detective Inspector Irene Huss, a member of the Göteborg Violent Crimes Unit. She's also a mother to two teenage daughters, wife to a local chef, and beloved walker and pee-companion to a lazy dog. She is but one of a wide cast of characters, all of whom really push themselves out of the pages of this book (as long as you can keep up with the Swedish names)!
The story opens with a suicide and (surprise!) quickly morphs into something much more sinister. The evolution of the investigation is the story and although it's not really a surprise when you find out who the evil mastermind is, the way the book makes it to that endpoint, the way the investigation doggedly tracks the (lack of) evidence, the way that each member of the investigation team, and indeed all of the people they interact with are "real" people are what make this book so interesting. Everyone is a character; the Prosecutor, the Medical Examiner, the witness and her dachshund Snoopy, everyone! In fact, sometimes even the furniture gets elevated:
...he turned abruptly to lead the way down the narrow corridor and into a small living room, furnished with "Baldur" the sofa, "Runar" the coffee table and "Diplomat" the booksheld. Irene recognised them from her studies in the '96 IKEA catalog.
That made me laugh! My point is, there're no place-holder plot fulfilling characters, everyone has a life beyond the plot and we get little glimpses of that as we intersect with their path through the investigation.
The plot is tangled and sprawling and, occasionally, a little threadbare, but not enough to detract from enjoying watching the team slowly work their way through it. It's also sprinkled with a bunch of sub-plots and just some general social commentary. I found it interesting that a lot of the issues that are front-and-center today (especially in Australia) are very pointedly glared at. Irene, being a woman, has to deal with a degree of sexism from her mostly male colleagues and, when a fellow female officer ends up being abused by both criminals and police-officers alike, there's a tiny story arc that follows the mental trajectory of one of the supervising officers as he comes to terms with the impudent bigotry of his subordinates and inmates alike.
I had a slightly weird time placing the book in time because it's set just before mobile phones exploded into ubiquity and there are intriguing little reminders of what life was like before you could contact anyone, any time - trying to contact your investigating officers to pull them off a dead lead becomes an hours long process, waiting for them to call in! But mobile phones are weirdly sporadic here and what about pagers that I'm sure folks would have had? Meh, nitty-picky weirdness on my part, I just found it slightly jarring as I struggled to contextualise the action. There's a general air of 90's notstalgia (this was written in them, to be fair) around the whole thing, we even habe non-ironic references to fax machines!
This is a humorous and interesting book that isn't afraid of tackling some pretty big topics and it veers into some extremely graphic violence and sex on occasion. It's not obscene or offputtingly out-of-place (looking at you [b:The Steel Remains|3314369|The Steel Remains (A Land Fit for Heroes, #1)|Richard K. Morgan|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1415581117l/3314369._SY75_.jpg|3352006]), it's in context and fits the story, just a warning if you aren't OK with that kind of thing.
Excellent debut work from Fru Tursten - as a first book this is pretty outstanding and I'll definitely be reading [b:Night Rounds|11505253|Night Rounds (Inspector Huss #2)|Helene Tursten|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1333581051l/11505253._SX50_.jpg|835555] at some stage.
buoymehome's review
4.0
A really enjoyable mystery bought at a charity shop and finally read during my holidays. A comfy read.
saltycorpse's review against another edition
3.0
A strong first novel in a series, though having read her third novel first, Tursten's writing gets even better. A three to the opener mainly because I guessed who the killer was as soon as they were introduced (though not their motives). I really like Tursten's writing, though.
jhbandcats's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
informative
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
This is the first in a multi-book series about a Swedish police detective. It was written twenty-five years ago. I had some problems with it and I’m not sure if it’s just because the book is dated.
There was an ongoing emphasis on men being, at best, woefully ignorant of sexual harassment and sexual assault. I would’ve thought those issues would have been addressed in orientations and by HR. The Detective Superintendent has no clue how to deal with the ongoing harassment that plagues his department and is unaware his outlook contributes to the feeling that any boorish behavior among his staff is acceptable. This is repeated over and over.
The book starts off pretty slowly, or at least it was slow to grab my attention for a murder mystery. There were a LOT of characters, both major and minor, and the author does a good job of keeping everyone straight. There’s pretty good character development even with the minor characters.
The is a lot of Gothenburg geography - street names, neighborhoods - that went right over my head. It would have made sense to a local but I had no idea if any of the references were important to the story or just providing context.
Despite my quibbles I’m looking forward to the next book in the series. The detective is an interesting woman and I want to know her better.
There was an ongoing emphasis on men being, at best, woefully ignorant of sexual harassment and sexual assault. I would’ve thought those issues would have been addressed in orientations and by HR. The Detective Superintendent has no clue how to deal with the ongoing harassment that plagues his department and is unaware his outlook contributes to the feeling that any boorish behavior among his staff is acceptable. This is repeated over and over.
The book starts off pretty slowly, or at least it was slow to grab my attention for a murder mystery. There were a LOT of characters, both major and minor, and the author does a good job of keeping everyone straight. There’s pretty good character development even with the minor characters.
The is a lot of Gothenburg geography - street names, neighborhoods - that went right over my head. It would have made sense to a local but I had no idea if any of the references were important to the story or just providing context.
Despite my quibbles I’m looking forward to the next book in the series. The detective is an interesting woman and I want to know her better.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Gore, Mental illness, Blood, Violence, Alcohol, Murder, Pregnancy, Infidelity, Sexism, Sexual assault, Drug use, Injury/Injury detail, and Drug abuse