The Beige Man by Helen Tursten

In a departure from most Scandinavian crime novels which feature gloomy, hard drinking, isolated detectives of the male persuasion, Tursten’s Swedish Inspector Irene Huss is a wife, mother of two teenage girls, and a jujitsu champion. The Nordic noir atmosphere is still very much in evidence– the subject of this novel is sex trafficking after all– but dialed back a bit.

I found the plot of The Beige Man a bit convoluted, but I read it on my Kindle, where I have a tendency to rush. If you aren’t familiar with The Inspector Huss series, I highly recommend it. Tursten also has another excellent series featuring Embla Nyström, a Detective Inspector with the Gothenburg, Sweden, police force.