Guldkalven

Inspector Huss #5

by Helene Tursten

Soho’s perennially popular Swedish crime series featuring Detective Inspector Irene Huss—jiujitsu champion, mother of teenage twin girls, and investigator on Göteborg Murder Squad—is back!
 
Three men have been shot in one of Göteborg's most fashionable neighborhoods, sending Irene Huss and her colleagues on a goose chase through a tony world of expensive cars and fancy homes. All three victims seem to be tied to one person, the glamorous dot-com darling Sanna Kaegler-Ceder, but Sanna isn’t talking, even when her own life seems to be at stake.

Genres: Mystery, Crime, Fiction, Scandinavian Literature, Sweden, Detective, Swedish Literature

283 pages, Pocket

First published January 1, 2002

About the author

Helene Tursten (born in Gothenburg in 1954) is a Swedish writer of crime fiction. The main character in her stories is Detective Inspector Irene Huss. Before becoming an author, Tursten worked as a nurse and then a dentist, but was forced to leave due to illness. During her illness she worked as a translator of medical articles.

Series:
* Irene Huss

Reviews

[Elisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

My first Huss novel, it didn't matter that I hadn't read previous volumes, as the group dynamics are easy to follow. I enjoyed the procedural aspect, hated the main suspect-potential victim, and liked the team of investigators. The resolution comes a bit as a Deus ex Machina, with an implausible visiting agent joining all the dots, but I still liked it.

[Michael L Wilkerson (Papa Gray Wolf) · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was disappointed. This is my 5th Inspector Huss novel and it started off with a Joe Friday bent, dry, clipped, "Just the facts, ma'am." prose. Not what Ms. Tursten has given her readers in previous books.

Then along comes just short of halfway into the book and the afterburners took over and Inspector Huss and her compatriots kicked in with a vengeance. We see Tommy and Brigitta and all the rest contribute as they normally do.

Krister and the twins weren't quite as involved in this novel as in previous works but they were there. But as it was, Irene was quite busy investigating, traveling to Paris and dodging bullets, conducting surveillance and impersonating an assistant nurse. How does she do all of that? You need to READ THE BOOK to find out and if you are a fan of Ms. Huss as I am you won't be disappointed. Oh, and there is ample Sammie, who according to the authors acknowledgements at the end tells us that Sammie is real, her own dog. Somehow that made me smile.

Huss has been involved in international crimes before (see The Torso, the third in the series and The Glass Devil, the fourth in the series) but not to this extent. Here we find not only Sweden's involvement but France, Britain and even the USA. We have possible motives from money to sex to violations of the Mafia code.

It's all too complicated to work. . . but then only someone who isn't familiar with Ms. Tursten's work would be so foolish as to think that.

I would say that my only complaint, and a mild one at that, is the ending, where it's much as if Hercule Poirot were displaying his deductive skills in a drawing room explanation of the crime. Yes, you'll have to read the book to see what I mean. Suffice to say it involves a black, statuesque, beautiful and tall special agent who, it seems, has captured if not the heart at least the physical efforts of . . . uhhhh, some physical exertion of. . . well. . . let's just say Sweden and the USA had a very close relationship.

Intricate, mysterious, adventuresome, action, love, loss and more. If you enjoy Inspector Huss or you think you might then I urge you to read this and others in this series. I doubt you'll be disappointed.

[Greg · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wealthy restaurateur is discovered dead by his wife. When Detective Irene Huss investigates with her partner the wife seems a possible suspect, since she seems to be holding back some important information. Then more victims of homicide show up in a nearby town and they discover that all of the victims have some common business relationships. As the team digs deeper they find that there are some hidden, dark secrets that they just cannot uncover. The clues stretch from Sweden to London and Paris and it will take all of their skills to stay alive as well as solve the mystery.

Helene Tursten is a magnificent mystery writer and "The Golden Calf" is a great example of storytelling and suspence in a police investigation.

[Michael Quillin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Complex plot and solutions with enough happening in personal lives of characters to keep things interesting.

[Lynn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Definitely not my favorite in the series, but Irene Huss does beat up some bad guys :-) so not a waste of time either. I like to pokey realistic way they work on cases as a team.

[Trudy Ackerblade · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not my favorite Helene Tursten but I enjoyed it.

[Holger Sch. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ein weiteres mit Irene... 😉

[Ciaran Monaghan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was the first book I read after a couple of months' hiatus from any kind of reading at all and it was (as always with Scandinavian crime) perfect to get me back into things.

[Cathy Cole · Rating 4 out of 5]

First Line: Fuzzy images from the bank's security cameras flickered across the TV screen.

Three men have been shot and killed in one of Göteborg, Sweden's most fashionable neighborhoods. All three victims have ties to the same woman (Sanna Kaegler-Ceder), but Detective Inspector Irene Huss and her colleagues are still led a merry dance through the world of the rich and shameless because Sanna seems extremely unwilling to talk about what she knows-- even when her life and the life of her infant son are at stake.

When Irene is left to dig through details of the dot-com bubble and how it burst, she also has to deal with the strange behavior of her partner and long-time friend Tommy. Irene suspects that he may be having an affair with someone else on the police force, but she certainly hopes she's wrong.

Helene Tursten's series featuring jiujitsu champion and happily married mother of twin teenage daughters Detective Inspector Irene Huss has become one of my favorite Scandinavian mystery series. As in her other books, The Golden Calf has a plot with more twists and turns than a mountain road high in the Andes, but while you're enjoying a devious storyline, there are always some characters for you to appreciate, too.

In this book, one of the suspects/potential victims, Sanna Kaegler-Ceder, is very memorable indeed. At first, she's so glamorously in shock that the reader is willing to cut her plenty of slack for her behavior. But as more is learned of her past, and when it becomes clear that there is a lot Sanna knows that could dramatically speed up the investigation, the reader's compassion quickly turns to exasperation. Why doesn't she seem to care that the life of her baby is in danger? Why doesn't she even care that her life is in danger, too? Sanna is the catalyst that keeps us reading until everything is revealed.

But Sanna isn't the only memorable character in Helene Tursten's book. Irene Huss herself has kept me returning to this series time and again. She's tall, athletic, and a quiet, observant person who knows when to be forceful. Irene and her husband, Krister, have raised two twin girls who are just about ready to leave the nest. They're both still sane and happily married because of their priorities. Irene is the breadwinner of the family. Krister is an excellent chef who works part-time so the twins can be cared for and the house can run smoothly while Irene is working long hours on murder investigations. Irene and Krister have certain blocks of time each week that they spend just the two of them together, and those times are always greatly anticipated. Many couples should take a page out of their book.

But while Irene's marriage is just as strong as ever, her partner and best friend, Tommy, isn't so lucky. Watching Irene as Tommy's troubles start coming to her attention, as she begins "gathering evidence" before she talks with him, and the final confrontation and its aftermath... watching this long-standing friendship sort itself out through a difficult stretch is every bit as comforting as once again experiencing the love and domesticity of Irene and Krister's marriage.

Helene Tursten knows how to write deftly plotted police procedurals that have characters that live and breathe on the page. Whenever I need a bit of a Scandinavian crime fix, it's always a pleasure to turn to Detective Inspector Irene Huss.

[Nancy Oakes · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well, here we are at book six in the Irene Huss series(fifth to be translated), and I have to say I'm a wee bit disappointed, most decidedly because of the ending. Up to that point, the author had me hanging on to the story's every word and then out of nowhere comes this ending that did not at all fit.

Together with friend and partner Tommy Persson, Detective Inspector Irene Huss is on the scene of a particularly brutal murder in a magnificent home overlooking the bay. The dead man is Kjell Bengtsson Ceder, a restauranteur who is also in the hotel business. Shot at point-blank range, he leaves behind a beautiful young wife, Sanna, and a baby. Kjell's name has come up with the police before in connection with a tragic boating accident which led to the death of his first wife. There is enough to link the killing of Ceder with a double homicide under investigation as well as to another unsolved missing persons case the police have already worked on. When the detectives put their heads together, the common denominator of all of these incidents turns out to be Sanna, via an earlier IT business that crashed when the bubble burst. The problem is that Sanna is not being exactly up front with the police, and nothing the detectives do can persuade her to tell all she knows. Hopefully, the police will be able to convince her before someone else is found dead.

Aside from the already-known crew of detectives and Huss' family, Tursten has done an especially fine job in building the key player Sanna. She comes across as a spoiled, pampered, newly-rich but clueless person, and her character remains consistent throughout the book. Another quality I admired in this novel was the pacing. It was plotted carefully so as to continue to add layer upon layer of suspense, so that the reader is very much drawn into the story and can't wait to find out all of the answers and get to the big reveal. At that point is where I started having problems. Here I am, majorly invested in this story, and it all goes a bit sideways with the rather (imho) flimsy ending that I thought sort of came out of left field. The ride was both fun and kept me completely involved while it lasted, but really, I think she could have done much better in bringing the mysteries to a close.

The book is being well received by many readers, with many 4 and 5 star ratings, and had the ending been stronger, I probably would have rated it up there as well. As happy as I am that Soho Crime is publishing Tursten's previously-untranslated novels, Helene Tursten's work is so much better than this book might acknowledge. I would love to see her get back to that same level of intensity that gave me so much pleasure in the first three translated novels -- Detective Inspector Huss, The Torso, and The Glass Devil.

[Barbpie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Irene Huss is stumped by the case of a serial murderer who is focusing on a small group of dot com business people, shooting them twice in the head and once in the stomach with an antique “ladies” pistol. Her boss, Sven, agrees to send Irene and her collegue to Paris for the day to search two of the victims’ apartment, but their fun is spoiled when Irene’s colleague gets a nasty bump on the head and ends up in the hospital. Oh, and some of the victims receive severed fingers in the mail. Sadly, there is very little mention of Irene’s husband and her twins in the Golden Calf.

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Inspector Huss police procedural detective novels are quite good. Somewhat oddly they have not been translated into English in order as published. I have now read several, all out of order. The novels read well enough in this way but it isn't ideal in the sense that it wouldn't be what the author would suggest. They are a series, after all - but there must be some commercial logic to it. I guess.

The original Swedish version was published in 2004 but the English translation not until 2013 and I only read it in 2020 - there are some moments when one has to remind oneself of the state of cell phone / smart phone communications in 2004 rather than now.

This particular part of the series has one main story line (aside from the usual stories lines about the detectives relationships with each other and the main character's relationship with her family). The story line revolves around a Swedish dot-com company and its failure and some murders. One has to remind oneself of the dtot-com environment of the time, when many companies were started, earned their founders large amounts of money, then quickly failed. The victims and the suspects are all associated with a Swedish dot-com of this sort.

The story flowed along well enough to keep reading with some enthusiasm and the main character, Huss, finds herself working with several other women detective colleagues that for the series are new relationships and those are interesting, but there was something herky-jerky about the plot development.

In general I don't read detective novels with a concern or interest in figuring out myself "whodunit" in advance of the end of novel reveal, but with this I realized I didn't care - towards the end I just wanted to finish the book to be done with it. (After I have made the investment to read most of a book I usually am not going to stop before the end for whatever reason.) Odd.

[Mike Cuthbert · Rating 5 out of 5]

Helene Tursten is a gifted mystery writer. That said, she goes on to prove it in this spellbinder with an incredibly complex finale in which Irene Huss, 5’10” jiu jitsu champion and ace detective in Göteborg, Sweden, is tested several times as she and the rest of her gang track a series of murders that becomes more confusing as each is uncovered. Chief mystery is that surrounding Kjell Ceder, a rich older man with a spectacular younger wife, Sanna. Sanna spends most of the novel attempting to avoid Irene and her partner, Tommy Persson, because of her grief. She does so without success as the two are relentless. The relationship between Huss and Persson becomes more complex as Tommy withdraws and stops talking to his partner. It turns out that Tommy has domestic problems and the discovery almost makes Irene as upset as Tommy is. The two are frustrated, as they must be in Nordic Noir, with their almost incompetent boss, Andersson, who is totally computer illiterate and given to ignorant blatting about every part of the investigation, especially when the lovely Kajsa, also a Göteborg cop, insists that, to solve the crimes they must go to Paris. Andersson relents and allows Irene and Kajsa to pursue the case to Paris where Kajsa almost meets her end and Irene is forced to use her martial arts skills. There are the murders to consider, but also missing fingers on one of the victims, the lack of evidence about exactly what the victims were up to, and there is the matter of the paternity of Sanna’s son to work on. Suffice to say, all questions are answered, though not without a very complex last third in which the FBI gets involved! Tursten keeps the civilian aspects of the police under control so they never take over the plot and the writing is brisk and fun to read. I have one more of her novels in my stack of “to dos” and I am eager to get to it!

[Lata · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is the 5th in the series, but the first one I read. It's been a long while since I read a good old Scandinavian mystery and this one brought back those memories. I wpnder why I took so long to get back these books.
This series is called Inspector Huss series, but the author gives equal roles to all the other detectives. It was good to see everyone working together - in the American or British detective series we usually see the Hero working alone.
We see glimpses of Inspector Huss's personal life which didn't overpower the detective plot. Though I felt Tommy's divorce plot was unnecessary.
The plot gets a bit complicated with multiple murders in different countries spanning more than 3 years. The common connection to all the murders, the dot com diva/ princess Sanna Kaegler-Ceder, was a despisable character. The financial fraud that she and her partner commit (starting a company with lots of promises and attracting huge investments, without a product to sell !) reminded me of the Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes. (Read Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup)

The audible narration was excellent. If I had read this in text format, I wouldn't have got the names right.
Recommended to fans of detective fiction and those who like Scandinavian mysteries I have earlier read and liked the short stories by Helene Trusten (An Elderly Lady Is Up to No Good).

[CherylB · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the fifth book in this series. It features Inspector Huss and her team investing a series of grisly murders. There doesn’t seem to be any motive. And the one person who might have answers is too afraid to talk. It all centers around a group of people who start companies that they either sell or go bust. Usually they go bust after they’ve hustled a lot of investors out of a lot of money. We’re talking millions of US dollars. And they’ve gone global. Not only doing business in Sweden, but they’re in London, New York and Paris. Apparently some of their debunked investors are very, very mad. It takes everyone on the team and a few contacts in London to figure this out. This story is full of action with many twists and turns in the plot. I had to read this one all the way through to find out who did it. And the audiobook is fantastic way for me to learn how to pronounce names and places. Suzanne Toren does an excellent job bringing these characters to life. I highly recommend either versions of this book.

[Lane · Rating 4 out of 5]

Whew! The first 1/3 - 1/2 of this book was so complicated, that I had to stop and write down names and the companies they worked for and draw lines for their relationships from the past and in the present. Plus lots of financial information. But the story was intriguing and I found it like solving a puzzle.

The last portion of the book didn't add so many new elements, so it was easier to keep straight. I enjoy the dynamics among the detectives, led by the irascible, wheezing Andersson. Tursten provides a rich subplot with the daily details of their lives, their relationships and their problems are very easy to identify with.

The actual mystery was complicated, as I've said--victims from Britain, Sweden, France, two or three different corporations, associations through marriage, an unusual couple with a child of curious parenthood--but the book did provide ways to follow the leads and while I didn't guess the solution, it was appropriate and satisfying. A good read.

[Debbie Maskus · Rating 2 out of 5]

Helene Tursten’s books centering on Maude cause laughter and remorse, the The Golden Calf following Irene Huss, fails to live-up to the Maude series. Irene Huss and her chef husband, Krister, and their twin daughters live a hum-drum existence. Krister cooks fabulous meals for his family, especially when Irene must work long hours to solve a murder investigation. This story involves too many extra unimportant characters that drag the story. Who is the Golden Calf? The answer arrives much later in the novel and centers on the true father of Sanna’s baby. A New York Mafia family and money laundering figures heavily in the murders. Too many red herrings in this sea of family obligations. Give me more Maud and less Irene Huss.

[Laura Steinert · Rating 4 out of 5]

I would have said I loved this, IF I had stopped at chapter 23. The end is ruined when a special agent from the United States flies in to solve all their problems and answer all their questions. (Born and raised in the US myself) I am fed up with the "Americans to the rescue" trope created so popular white actors can take lead roles no mater what country or century the movie is set in. The rest of the story is interesting and Huss only gets off track two or three times. Persson's personal life is a mess, and as usual, Huss sticks her nose a few places she shouldn't. This may be the last book before Andersson is forced into retirement. I repeat, mostly great, but skip chapters 24 and 25 and go straight to the Epilogue.

[Dayna · Rating 2 out of 5]

The further I read into the series, the more I suspect the author is getting tired. The one-shot (& even some of the recurring) characters are annoying enough for me to wish they had been denied police protection. The tie-ins were like 'Hail Mary' passes: rushed & hopeful that 1 play would make up for all the rubbish ones. The FBI agent seemed an appeal to Oprah's Book Club; for a while, many authors wagered that the anachronistic appearance of a magical African-American would get their works considered. The only saving grace of this novel was Sammie: who would have guessed that the normally lazy glutton could be a true badass?

[George · Rating 3 out of 5]

#5 in the Swedish mystery series with Inspector Irene Huss of the
Soho’s perennially popular Swedish crime series featuring Detective Inspector Irene Huss (jiujitsu champion & mother of teenage twin girls) Göteborg Murder Squad.
 
Three men have been shot in one of Göteborg's most fashionable neighborhoods, sending Irene Huss and her colleagues on a goose chase through a tony world of expensive cars and fancy homes. All three victims seem to be tied to one person, the glamorous dot-com darling Sanna Kaegler-Ceder, but Sanna isn’t talking, even when her own life seems to be at stake.

What is presented as a highly convoluted case turns out to have a very simple explanation at the end.

[Kelly Callaghan · Rating 3 out of 5]

The detectives split up to investigate 2 murders. However they form part of the one case. All the victims know Sanna but she is unwilling to help. During the investigation the team realise they have to re-open an old case. Then another body is found.

As Irene and the team investigate these murders they learn about the ‘dot com’ bubble and some of the behaviours undertaken by some businesses at the time. The investigation takes the team to Paris and they have to liaise with police in London as well as the FBI.

[Paul Henry · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was an e-book loan from my library and I didn't get into it for several days. I was about 1/2 way through it when the loan ended and the book disappeared from my Kindle, and I'm not really motivated to renew the loan and finish it. It began promising but began to get wordy, digressing into sub plots (for instance her friends' divorce, or her home life) which I couldn't see really were related to the story at hand, former business partners being murdered. Possibly, at the end of the book, the author pulls these disparate story lines together but, like I said, she lost me. Not recommended.

[Debbie Vignovic · Rating 3 out of 5]

One day one of my regular yoga students asked if I liked reading detective and mystery novels, I said yes. The next time she came to class she brought a whole bag of books. This book is deep into the popular Swedish crime series featuring Detective Inspector Irene Huss. It was a good read, I would read more of her books, but I would have to go back to the beginning and I am not sure if all of her novels are translated.

[Catherine Woodman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Irene Huss is a very good protagonist, and her spouse being a chef makes for an interesting combo (although I would definitely like to see more food in the stories!). There are three related murders, but exactly what the connection is is hard to see at first. A fourth person is left alive, and it turns out she is complicated, which muddies the water a bit. Intricate plot, with good writing and interesting characters.

[Marssie Mencotti · Rating 4 out of 5]

Something about Detective Irene Huss that is truly noble. She is qualified, inquisitive, tireless and true. I enjoy the fact that she doesn't whine and gets on with the case like a dog with a bone but works well with her cohorts. This adventure was very complicated with the money laundering and more but I followed it and enjoyed the intrigue. Everyone was connected by the end and I found that I admired the author even more than before. A wonderful crime story and honest characters.

[Seana · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book up to a point, but it was awfully convoluted and had a lot of interconnected characters, who could be hard to keep track of. That might have been all right but the wrap up came a bit out of left field for me.

Still, I've seen other reviewers here say that they generally like Tursten's work but this one didn't work for them either. So I'll probably look up some of her other work at some point.

[Navallo Baynerd]

Qur’an: Chapter 7, Verse 148 onwards—
After he had gone, Moses folk designed a calf made out of their jewelry, a mere body that mooed. Did they not see that it neither spoke to them nor guided them along anyway? They adopted it and thereby became wrongdoers.
When the matter was dropped in their hands and they saw that they were lost, they said: if our Lord does not show us mercy and forgive us, we will be losers.

[Resalo · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a very strong book in the Inspector Huss series. A number of men are found murdered, both in Sweden and Paris with connections to a dot.com firm among them. The motive for the murders is not clear until a sinister link emerges. Once again Tursten does an excellent job of character development.

[Graeme · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love Helene Tursten for her meticulously accurate complexity, her constant character development, her sense of female beauty and sexiness, and her ability to portray a cast of entirely corrupt and lamentable characters without losing their humanity.

[Owlsinger · Rating 3 out of 5]

OK, so I said I was going to space these out more, to prolong the series; BFD...I needed a book, and it was there. Anyway, this was the most complicated story in the whole Irene Huss series - so far. Seemingly unrelated murders and law personnel from four countries are pulled together as the investigations progress. And Irene's unit needs to post a scoreboard to record on-the-job injuries.