Reviews

The Department of Sensitive Crimes by Alexander McCall Smith

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book_concierge's review

3.0

Digital audiobook narrated by David Rintoul

From the book jacket: In Malmo, Sweden, the dedicated detectives who investigate “special” cases are members of an elite squad known as the Sensitive Crimes Division. The first case: a man stabbed in the back of the knee. Next: a young woman’s imaginary boyfriend goes missing. And in the final investigation: eerie secrets that are revealed under a full moon may not seem so supernatural in the light of day. No case is too unusual, too complicated, or too, well, insignificant for this squad to solve.

My reactions:
Gosh, but I enjoy visiting with Alexander McCall Smith’s characters! This is somewhat of a farce of police procedurals. Detective Ulf “the Wolf” Varg and his team certainly have “interesting” cases. He is the head of this unit but is ably assisted by Anna Bengtsdotter (who loves Varg’s car … and possibly Varg, himself), Carl Holgersson (who actually likes to complete paperwork … go figure), and Erik Nykvist (who seems more interested in fly fishing than detecting). There is no case too strange or confusing for this team. I particularly liked the case of the missing imaginary boyfriend!

David Rintoul does a fine job of narrating the audiobook. He brings these characters to life and strikes just the right balance between seriousness and tongue-in-cheek commentary.

dohec021's review against another edition

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1.0

One of the worst books I’ve ever read - only finished it out of pure spite. Pretty much every single plot point revolves around the selfish, petty and sexual whims of the underdeveloped female characters?? It’s marketed as a Scandi noir but no-one dies? There isn’t any sort of singular thread running through it’s more just like a series of episodes? The writer clearly thought that the protagonist was going to seem infinitely cool and wise purely because he… reads philosophy and interrupts the narrative by asking quite basic existential questions? The only reason it got 1 star is because some of the characters are written with charm and heart, e.g. Varg’s depressed dog Martin and Blomquist.

alidottie's review

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4.0

This book reads in the tone of 44 Scotland Street, but revolves around one Swedish detective, Urg Varg, along the lines of Precious Romatswe (but no one will ever be quite as wonderful as Mma Romatswe!) . I do like Detective Varg. He's a good guy--trying to be a good person all the time. I am sure I will enjoy this series.

danileighta's review

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It's hard to give a star rating to a book like this. Meandering and witty, the British humor will hit you right away with our main characters taking frequent tangents to talk about anything except the main plot points. I used to become so frustrated by this kind of book, just wanting soooooomething to happen (and there are a few cases solved, if circuitously), but now I'm really enjoying McCall Smith's tongue-in-cheekiness.

Do not read if you like a fast pace or are a plot-driven person, but pick it up if you like Ellis Peters, or Seinfeld.