Hakan Nesser - Inspector Van Veeteren series (5 novels)

Håkan Nesser (born February 21, 1950) is a Swedish author and teacher who has written a number of successful crime fiction novels. His books have been translated from Swedish to Norwegian, Finnish, German, French, Polish, Danish and Estonian. An English translation of Borkmanns Punkt was published in 2006 under the title Borkmann's Point.


Borkmann's Point
Borkmann's rule was hardly a rule; in fact, it was more of a comment, a landmark for tricky cases ...In every investigation, he maintained, there comes a point beyond which we don't really need any more information. When we reach that point, we already know enough to solve the case by means of nothing more than some decent thinking. In his memoirs, Borkmann went so far as to claim that it was precisely this ability, or the lack of it, which distinguishes a good detective from a bad one. A wealthy real-estate mogul is brutally murdered with an axe in the quiet coastal town of Kaalbringen, apparently the second victim of a serial killer. Chief Inspector van Veeteren, bored of his holiday nearby, is summoned to assist the local authorities. But as the investigation proceeds there seems to be nothing to link the mogul with the first victim, a seedy ex-con. Another body is discovered, again with no apparent connection to the others, and the pressure mounts. The local police chief, just days away from retirement, is determined to wrap things up before he goes. Then there's a fourth murder, and a brilliant young female detective goes missing - perhaps she has reached Borkmann's Point before anyone else ...This riveting novel, full of fascinating, quirky characters and vivid settings, introduces the chess-playing Inspector van Veeteren - a detective already beloved by his European readership - and marks the UK debut of Hakan Nesser, a chilling new voice in crime fiction.

The Return
A new case for Chief Inspector Van Veeteren - the complicated history of a nearly perfect murder. On a sunny August day a man is released from prison. On a rainy April day children at play find his corpse. The fact that the dead man is Leopold Verhaven only becomes clear after some time because the mutilated corpse is without its head, legs and feet. Who would be interested in killing this man, a double murderer who spent 24 years in prison?
Determined to let no case go unsolved, Chief Inspector Van Veeteren reopens the case. What he discovers is that Verhaven was a star sprinter before he went to prison for allegedly killing two of his lovers. However, he never confessed to the murders and spent a lifetime proclaiming his innocence. Was he killed because someone thought he had not been punished enough? Or was someone afraid of Verhaven's revenge? A terrible suspicion stalks Van Veeteren: had Verhaven been telling the truth? Was he really innocent?

The Mind's Eye
Chief Inspector Van Veeteren knew that murder cases were never as open-and-shut as this one: Janek Mitter woke one morning with a brutal hangover and discovered his wife of three months lying facedown in the bathtub, dead. With only the flimsiest excuse as his defense, he is found guilty of a drunken crime of passion and imprisoned in a mental institution.
But Van Veeteren's suspicions about the identity of the killer are borne out when Mitter also becomes a murder victim. Now the chief inspector launches a full-scale investigation of the two slayings. But it may only be the unspoken secrets of the dead'"revealed in a mysterious letter that Mitter wrote shortly before his death'"that will finally allow Van Veeteren to unmask the killer and expose the shocking root of this sordid violence.

Woman with Birthmark
A mother's dying wish sealed with a deadly promise. Four men with a secret they thought they'd buried decades earlier. A detective in love. A man desperate to live despite the shadow of his guilty past. After hearing her mother's deathbed confession and following her mother's dreary funeral, Maria Adler realizes she has no other option but to seize upon her mother's imperative to do something. Dissolving the life she loathes, Maria changes her appearance and disappears. When she emerges, revenge is her sole occupation.
Van Veeteren and his associates are left bewildered by the curious murder of a man shot twice in the heart and twice below the belt. A quiet, utterly dull man, the only suspicious activity his surviving wife can recall is a series of peculiar phone calls. Repeatedly the telephone would ring, offering no answer aside from an obscure pop song from the 1960s. This siren song is linked to an identical murder, but the true link between these heinous crimes remains unknown while a daughter's pride grows with the satisfaction of vengeance and another detective's lover offers telling insights that only an outsider could deduce.
With the critical eye and cool observation necessary for a successful chess match, Van Veeteren pursues his subject across the country. Wading through the outrageous leads and fruitless tips, he chases his mark. A breathless thriller full of deception, blackmail, and cold murder, Woman with Birthmark is a chilling read.

The Inspector and Silence
She finally found the body long after the sun had set. Darkness had begun to spread through the fir trees, and for one confused moment she wondered if it wasn't just an illusion after all...When a woman reports the disappearance of a girl, from the summer camp of an obscure sect: Pure Life, Inspector Van Veeteren is called to investigate. But is the woman telling the truth? Who is she? And what lies behind the sect leader's fanaticism? When the girl is later found raped and murdered, the public pressure to solve the case increases. But when Van Veeteren's questions to the members of the sect are met with silence, it becomes clear that the inspector will need to rely on his own intuition to find the answers...