This is one of the most poorly written books I've ever started. 7 pages in is enough. But why am I beating on Helene Tursten for her first Inspector Huss novel? She's written more in the series and people have evidently bought them and read them. Some of our own folks here have written positive reviews. Here's my reasons: Scandanavian crime novel authors Jo Nesbo, Asa Larsson, Stieg Larsson, Henning Mankell et al. So much intense writing, so much attention to character development, such limpid prose. Not every writer can measure up to these authors' standards, but this book strikes too wide from the target. Don't take my word on this. Let me point out a few lines:"She must have sighed audibly, because Superintendent Anderson turned to her and asked, "'Is something bothering you?'" "No, it's nothing. It's depressing weather. Depressing, with scattered suicides. Depressing. Depressing." The superintendent nodded in agreement and stared gloomily at the black rain {note that this SHOULD be the end of the sentence but,sadly,is not} being flung against the windshield by the gusty wind." What a surprise: rain being flung against the windshield by wind and not by a gigantuan hairdryer. The tone of each voice is so similar, often without emphasis and certainly without signature wording or behaviors, that they might be speaking for each other.The actions of most characters, whether minor or major, are given a full if insipid descriptive force. Here, from the very first page after an unnamed man has fallen from a (What? We aren't told.): "A man in a light-colored coat had just rushed around the car and opened the door on the passenger's side when the old lady with the dachshund started screaming. The man turned quickly, squinted through the rain, and caught sight of the heap nearly thirty meters away. He kept his grip on the door, slowly tilting his head back, and looked up at the top of the imposing apartment building. A faint moaning sound rose from his throat but he kept catatonically still." The man is already on the ground but OUR man in this sentence is faintly moaning at the top of the imposing building. Why? And why is the building imposing? Is it uber tall, is it decorated like a wedding cake, does it have gilded trim? And "catatonically" still?I get that the author wants to emphasize stillness, but catatonia is also marked by repetitive small movements. The simple word "very" would suit and sound much better. The next minute gives us a small woman getting out of her car and "running nimbly over to the motionless figure on the ground." Now get this "Her slenderness was emphasized by the stylish Chanel dress she was wearing." WHAT? Why do we care that she was wearing a Chanel dress? Is it important that she has self-indulgent tastes in clothing? Incongruous information like this detracts from the tension the author is trying to building. We've got a screaming old lady and her screaming dog, described as such earlier, plus another person faintly moaning in the background but we need to know about this lady's couture? Incredibly, Miss Tursten has more to say about this well-dressed wonder woman. "She had mastered to perfection the art of running in high heels. She elbowed her way through the crowd frenetically and reached the inner circle." End of first page. I see this woman behaving like an unsettled stork, flapping through the crowd during a demonstration of her MASTERLY running in high heels. I've run in high heels and I was pretty fair at it. But mastery is not what any woman with a bendable spinal cord has of that activity. Most of us are delighted to complete our journey upright and with both shoes. Arrgh! I can't recommend this book I can't recommend this writer. But I can pack up my snarkiness and seared sensibilities and take this gem back to the library where another Karin Fossum awaits me. And I can be grateful that here I have a forum in which I can loose my deep disappointment.
I was happy to pick up a female detective novel (centered around Detective Irene Huss, former Swedish national judo champion, now 35 and working homicide in Stockholm while raising twin teenage girls with her chef husband) from a mystery writer who was also a woman. What seemed at first like the usual "Schwedenkrimi" (as the Germans call it) was actually something much meatier. The meat was not in the whodunit itself, however, and it also took its sweet time emerging. It was that Helene Tursten actually captured the incremental nature - the slow burn - of the procedural in a way I have not yet seen carried off in print. And, not least, she wrote a book whose characters engage the reader more emotionally than usually seems to be the case in this genre.False leads were followed - check. Detective work involved a great deal of drudgery and took some time - check. Working homicide was a team effort, with each team member playing his pertinent role - check. No grand genius cut to the heart of the matter in a flash of inspiration, but rather a competent (and quirky) group of professionals steadily chipped away at the mystery until it was solved. Irene Huss, though the center of the book, was never the only detective to do all the key interviews or end up in all the most important places at the important times. All of which made the story all the more credible. Of course, she had to be a bit predominant, quick on the pickup - mainly (in this book, at least) due to her emotional intelligence, though a bit of coincidence was also involved in a few plot points (though never incredibly). But then again, would it even be possible to have a lead genre character not present at the book's climax or somehow entangled in the main thread? A novel focused on and in fact named for a single character would make no sense if that character were not somehow the emotional heart of the book. But in addition to her fidelity to believable procedure, Tursten demonstrated other virtues. She was, for instance, able to keep Irene as the book's "human touch" while allowing other characters to carry emotional resonance as well. I am thinking mainly of the surprising, interesting and affecting Holocaust/skinhead subplot that involved one of her daughters and one of her colleagues. It was at this point that I realized Detective Irene Huss was no standard-formula procedural. The book transcends genres and easy labels a bit. I am looking forward to reading more Irene Huss novels.My only complaint would be that the translation, which seemed to be aimed at the UK market, was neither fish nor fowl. Some passages were very difficult to follow and obviously needed to be rethought and/or restructured in English for comprehension. A few notes (or even better, textual additions) might have helped for things unfamiliar to a non-Swedish audience. I say all this as a professional translator. An English translation for the UK can't simply be spell-checked in US English, repackaged and shipped out across America. This book, for various reasons (Helene Tursten's minimalist style of dialogue being one of them: it obfuscated even more for those who don't speak Swedish), really needs and deserves its own, completely new English translation for the U.S. market.
What do You think about Detective Inspector Huss (2004)?
I think my favorite television channel is MHZ because they have international mysteries. At first, they had Wallander and Varg Veum, and some werid Italian mystery were everyone was sleeping with everyone. Not only that, but the Detective mano couldn't figure out his partner's daughter was his, even though everyone watching knew within two secs. Eventually they changed the mysteries up and started showing other ones, including Irene Huss. The Irene Huss movies aren't my favorite. They are rather melo-dramatic, but I liked the character and the actress who plays her enough to try the book when Amazon put it on sale. (In fairness, Huss is better than the Detective Burno whoseit mysteries. Filmed in Venice, but done in German).The book is, as always, better than the films, even though Sammie the dog is a different breed in the book. The mystery isn't as compelling or dark as say Rebus or Erlander. There is something to be said, however, for not being dark. This is the best aspect of the series. Irene has a dog, a husband, and two daughters. Is her life perfect? No, but her life is normal. And that is actually really good. She has a healthy home life and is good at her job. She isn't super, booze swilling detective genius, but she isn't dumb either. She is very skilled in judo, but she isn't super crime fighting butt kicking girl. And it is the mental as well as physical aspect of judo.The character of Irene is really what rises the series.
—Chris
On vacation, I was lucky to find a bookstore in a place settled by Norwegians (Poulsbo, Washington); they had a lot of Scandinavian authors of whim I had heard, including Helene Tursten. I had already read through most all of the Scandinavian authors brought to fame here by the Girl With a Dragon Tattoo series and was thinking I had run out.But this is an entirely new series, for me, anyway, and it features a woman detective. Probably because of that, the central character does not solve mysteries by being a loner, but instead is one of a whole team of detectives. So along with the Swedish context and the mystery, you also get the group dynamics in the story. And the team has its jerks and its couples and allies, etc. So that makes it interesting as well. Plus, e detective has a family with teenaged twins, one of whom is going through a skinhead phase; that provided an opportunity for some interesting history from the Swedish perspective.At first, I was not sold on the story. There are some places with some very awkward wording, perhaps translation errors. S o it was slow going in the beginning.But I ended up really liking the book; I purchased a couple more and will get on to,them soon.Overall? Try them out. With a female author and detective, they are definitely different from the others in the spotlight right now but they are simply good in another way.
—Genie
A tedious read, that becomes even more frustrating when you realize, approximately 25 pages in, that the killer is revealed (by clothing) in the prologue. The translation is clunky, not that I speak Swedish, but the wording is often odd. In one scene, the inspector notices a wall of graffiti: amongst the racial slurs, and cuss words, is the expression "Kilroy was Here!". It's 1998, not 1948.I also took issue with the roving point of view. The story was told mostly from the perspective of the Inspector and Superintendent, but would occasionally dart into the mind of another character. It wasn't omniscient by any means. It was just sloppy.Overlong, with too many plot-lines, and plenty of male chauvinism, I'm hard pressed to recommend this to anyone. Reader, beware. There's a hardback (Soho books) with this cover & that's what I reading. It isn't a kindle.
—Katie
