The Inspector and Silence and Munster’s Case by Hakan Nesser

Ever since the success of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, publishers are translating Nordic crime novels into English as fast as they can gobble up the rights.

The good news is that if you find a winning series, there is usually a backlog of titles. The bad news is the English translations are published sporadically and often out of sequence.

But in the case of the Inspector Van Veeteren mystery series by award winning Swedish author Hakan Nesser, it doesn’t much matter as the books stand comfortably on their own. Pick any one in the long running series and dive in. 

Bookish and sedentary Van Veeteren solves most of his cases while enjoying a glass of wine, not examining evidence. As the cases are Nordically knotty, he is frequently stumped, but always rallies.  A Poirot without the affectations.

I recently finished The Inspector and Silence and Munster’s Case, which I highly recommend. Dark and neatly plotted.