Chambre numéro 10

Inspector Winter #7

by Åke Edwardson, Marie-Hélène Archambeaud (Traduction)

A YOUNG WOMAN IS DISCOVERED hanged in a room in a decrepit hotel, and Gothenburg’s Chief Inspector Erik Winter must try to figure out what happened. As Winter looks around, he realizes that he was in the same hotel room many years earlier, when it was the last known location of a woman who subsequently disappeared and was never found. The two women seem to have nothing in common except for this hotel room, but Winter suspects that there may be other connections.

The young woman’s parents are bereft and unable to explain the puzzling contents of a note she left behind. Winter, however, senses that they are holding back some secret that might help him to find her murderer. As he pursues his hunch and digs into the old police report on the woman who disappeared—one of his first cases as a young detective—Winter becomes increasingly convinced that the two cases are somehow related. Room No. 10 is a first-rate thriller, suffused with the gray seaside beauty of Gothenburg and filled with the characters that Åke Edwardson’s readers have come to love: Winter, the veteran detective who veers between pessimism and optimism but never gives up; Bertil Ringmar, the methodical old-timer whose analytical mind keeps everyone focused; hotheaded Fredrik Halders, whose temper sometimes overwhelms his passion for justice; and Aneta Djanali, Halders’s girlfriend, an immigrant from Burkina Faso whose ability to talk to other women can open new leads. As compelling as they are dedicated, they are an unforgettable team determined to find a bizarre killer.

Genres: Mystery, Crime, Fiction, Thriller, Sweden, Scandinavian Literature, Nordic Noir

502 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2005

About the author

Åke Edwardson is a Swedish author of detective fiction, and a professor at Gothenburg University, the city where many of his Inspector Winter novels are set. Edwardson has had many jobs, including a journalist and press officer for the United Nations, and his crime novels have made him a three-time winner of the Swedish Crime Writers' Award for best crime novel. His first novel to be translated into English, in 2005, was Sun and Shadow. The second, Never End, followed in 2006.

Series:
* Inspector Winter

Reviews

[Athena · Rating 1 out of 5]

I won this book through Goodreads First-Reads.

This was the worst detective murder mystery I have ever read. It reminded me of Ruth Rendell's "The Babes in the Wood" with Inspector Wexford. Both stories were extremely boring because the plot focused more on the internal thoughts of the detectives than the actual mystery itself. That's because the mystery contained nothing entertaining.
In "Room No. 10" Erik Winter is in charge of the investigation of a young woman who is found hanging with one hand painted white. Winter has a hunch that this murder is connected with another one. The dialog between the detectives, the suspects and the witnesses was repetitive and didn't seem to go anywhere. I felt the characters were all just dense. They didn't seem to understand the questions that were being asked, for example "Where were you?" is an easy enough question, yet the characters, any of them really, had to ask for clarification, and even then they barely answered the question.

The other negative aspect of the book was the time sequence. It was hard to determine which point in time they were referring to. Winter was all over the place regarding past and present and I just couldn't keep up.

Overall this book was uninteresting, especially because once the mystery was solved it wasn't anything out of the ordinary, or unique; nothing that hasn't been written already. It certainly didn't warrant four hundred-plus pages.

[Peter Riva · Rating 4 out of 5]

Okay, I'll admit it, I'm the agent here, but having read this a few times, I still get the chills... there are some spine-tingling moments that just don't fade even when you know they are coming. Like a really intelligent movie experiencing it again (and it is an experience) doesn't diminish the tension. Wonderful writer.

[schwimmii · Rating 1 out of 5]

macht sinn dass ich das buch draußen auf einer parkbank gefunden hab; vielleicht gefällts ja dem nächsten der es findet

[Cheryl · Rating 1 out of 5]

I was attracted to this book solely based on the book cover. This is kudos to the book cover design department. Then when I read the premise for this book I was intrigued. You can never go wrong with a murder in the beginning chapter of a murder mystery. I like where the story was going but it is really dragging. Thus far I got to chapter 13 and still not much has happened. Inspector Winter was still trying to figure out more about the victim and her connection with the prior murder. In fact, I could not remember much about a thing that had happened in the last twelve chapters. I finally gave up on this book and randomly flipped the book open to page 406 of chapter 34. There was still 5 more chapters left of the book. Here is where I could tell I did not miss much by skipping most of the book when I read the following conversation:
"There was no pain on Ellen Borge's body, either, " said Winter. "Only the horrible marks."

"Is it connected with this spot?" Halders said. "This place?"

"I don't know what it's connected with,: Winter said. "I don't know if it's even connected."

"On the other hand, we know that we have four murders," said Halders. "And as far as I understand, they're connected."

Really there are only five chapters left and the police still have not put together the murders and the connection or really the motive behind the killings. The motive for it all was not interesting in the least and made me so glad that I did not spend all of my time reading this book to get to the ending this book had. I would have been very upset if I had.

[Elyn · Rating 2 out of 5]

I guess I need more action in my mysteries....this was lots of description is short little bursty sentences. The plot may have been interesting but I found myself skimming just to finish it and cross it off.

[Barbara · Rating 2 out of 5]

Spoilers ahead:

I will give this book two stars because I finished it and did not feel any negativity towards it (some thrillers take the reader to a place of such depravity and perverseness that I want to bathe after reading them).

I liked the cast of characters and wanted to know more about them.

The plot was disappointing, and it did not hold together for me. There were too many things left unexplained: why the painted body parts? One an arm, one just a middle finger-huh? Why the hidden bag of evidence, painted into a wall? Why was the murderer painting that apartment? What was with the shoes? How was Paula forced to hang herself? Why was it so difficult to figure out that a woman who went missing had a sister? Was Ellen living in a closet for 18 years? Why did it take such smart detectives so long to figure things out? Why did it have to rain during the climax? And do they really get lightning storms that time of the year in Sweden?

It was difficult to follow and ultimately unsatisfying, but not offensive. Once used to it, I liked the different writing style and descriptions of a part of the world I have never seen. But the storm was just hokey. Cliche.

[Jon Frum · Rating 2 out of 5]

Goodreads says two stars represents 'It's OK,' so that's what I gave it. This book is a good example of how the sum of flaws can pull down an otherwise enjoyable book. The crime(s) are interesting enough, and the protagonist is fine. I actually enjoyed the fact that there is finally a detective who loves his S.O. and children, and isn't an alcoholic. My father was a cop, and wouldn't recognize today's boozy, miserable policemen.

Now the flaws. Throughout the book this device is used: the characters think to themselves "No. Yes. No." Over and over again. This is a gimmick, and literary gimmicks wear thin quickly. A critical scene involving a boy and his barking dog is never really explained. The ability of the killer(s?) to remain unseen is never really explained. The significance of the color white (a running theme) is never really explained. And how the victims' bodies got to where they are found is never really explained. The 'explanation,' as such, is so superficial that it just can't account for the necessary details.

I finished the book, and I didn't hate it, so I can't go to one star, but I'd rate it properly as 'competent mystery/procedural, full of holes.'

[EDian · Rating 1 out of 5]

Like watching paint dry? Like reading descriptions of how long and boring it is to watch paint dry? This is the book for you. I could only read about three pages at a time before dozing off. Yes, it is a murder mystery. Here' s a mystery. How many Gothenburg detectives does it take to solve a crime? Only the one, but lets bring in 7 move to confuse the plot.

[Lorrie Brown · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was really looking forward to reading this one....but I really struggled through it. It took too long to see the connections and was quite muddled.

[Martyna Grodzka · Rating 1 out of 5]

1,5 🌟
okropna nuda, wynurzenia głównego bohatera cringowe. Beznadziejna książka.

[Paul Pessolano · Rating 3 out of 5]

“Room No. 10” by Ake Edwardson, published by Simon and Schuster.

Category – Mystery/Thriller

This is another mystery/thriller that has come out of the hot bed of mystery/thrillers, Sweden. Edwardson is one of Sweden’s best selling authors and this is one of several books featuring Chief Inspector Erik Winter.

Winter is called out on a case at the Hotel Revy, a run down hotel that is to be closed. A woman, Paula Ney, is found hung and it looks like a suicide, except forensics determines that she has been murdered. Winter has a case of déjà vu when he realizes that eighteen years ago he was called out on a similar case, same hotel, same room when a woman, Ellen Borge, who had gone missing and has never been heard of since.

Paula Ney left behind a note that asks for forgiveness that has the detectives baffled. They are also having a difficult time with her parents in that they are not very forthcoming of Paula’s past. Paula’s death and its ramifications prove too much for her mother and she has to be institutionalized. The plot thickens when she leaves the hospital and is found murdered in another hotel.

There is no end to the number of suspects, clues, and possibilities throughout this book. It is a tangled web the author weaves that leads the reader down one wrong path after another until all the secrets of the characters and revealed and lead to the murderer.

A very good mystery that is just too long. The reader will become distracted and lost due to the superfluous parts of the book that have nothing to do with the crime. If you can handle it, the ending will make it worthwhile.

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

I generally liked this whodunit, but I would have to say that Ake Edwardson is no Henning Mankell. This novel, set in the Swedish city of Gothenberg, involves a series of murders of women, and a mysterious use of white paint on their bodies by the criminal.

The case also involves a particular hotel room, thus the title, and the fact that one woman was killed there and another had disappeared after using the room nearly 20 years before.

While Room No. 10 shares the Swedish noir attributes of gloomy weather, lots of slow, incremental spadework and introspective detectives, this one is so atmospheric that I almost never thought the investigation would make any progress. There is a lot of standing around in empty rooms, almost mystically listening for clues, or repeated rounds of the cops testing each other with questions that often seem to go nowhere.

I appreciate the Scandinavian tendency toward slower, more contemplative crime books, but this one could easily have lost 50-100 pages without hurting its ambience.

The pace of the novel does pick up quickly in the last few chapters as things come to a head and our hero is in mortal danger, but I could never shake the feeling that a more aggressive investigation would have uncovered key clues far earlier than the police in this story did.

[Danita · Rating 2 out of 5]

As the story progressed I found myself intrigued and in parts the rhythm of the writing was somewhat lyrical and thought it gave me insight into the character. But then after awhile I began to find it annoying and the story became plodding, bogged down and meandering. The mood and atmosphere it created in one section either disappeared or became distracting in the next.

I don't think this really warranted being a 400+ page read. Throwing other names of character or two at the end who were only vaguely mentioned earlier seemed superfluous and only served to confuse a rather confusing ending. Then there was an attempt to neatly tie everything up without a very good explanation of what was intriguing at the outset and a rather significant aspect of the story, or maybe I missed it because I was almost skimming just to get to the end of the book, because for what was to be a taut mystery, I only really found myself bored.

[Jeffrey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Certainly a much better book than his last, Sail of Stone, Room No.10 was an very well thought-out and intricately layered mystery that offers readers teasing clues as to the solution but keeps pulling the rug out from under us - Edwardson spent a lot of time here taking us into Winter's past as a young police officer and that added a significant amount of depth to his characterization - I also very much appreciated how Edwardson doesn't have Winter solve the case too quickly - he manages to make the mystery interesting but also to give readers a sense of how difficult it sometimes can be to put all the pieces together.

[Sharon Layburn · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars
When a woman is found hanging in room #10 in a shady, run-down hotel, Inspector Erik Winter realizes that he has been to this exact room before- almost twenty years earlier while investigating the disappearance of a seemingly happy housewife, a mystery that was never solved.
Although this is the 7th novel in the series, readers should have no problem jumping right in. Give yourself a few pages to get used to the authors writing style, then you'll find your attention captured by Winter and his investigative crew. Between the nicely rounded characters and the intriguing plot, I was absorbed- especially by the world-weary but still driven and determined main character.

[Jammin Jenny · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is my first foray into the land of Inspector Winter and I really enjoyed it. Enough plot twists to keep me guessing, and spooky killer images (like the painted hand on the cover of the book). I liked how Inspector Winter and his team worked together by theorizing the who and the why, and how he figured the more recent murder was likely linked to a disappearance in the same Room No 10 at the Revy Hotel 20 years earlier. Loved it.

[Walt · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was one of the most frustrating reads I've ever forced myself to finish . I'm not even sure at the end of over 400 pages I know what happened. So many words , so little clarity. Super weird sentence structure sometimes . Seems like a nice detective but not really ! First & last read in this series for me . This was just to much of a wordy ramble for me.

[Gary Van Cott · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 Stars. I can only conclude that the author was feeling old when he wrote that book because that seems to be a constant theme for the main character. This is a long and tedious book which only gets interesting near the very end. The author continues has habit of having similarly named characters, in this book beginning with the letter "B."

[Timo Tiilikainen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is second Erik Winter book that I've read. I like it better than the first. The book is about family : the police is a family and everybody has a family. A sort of a
Philosophical book with comic relief as well.

[Naomi · Rating 2 out of 5]

Meh, I could never get into this book. The writing was very dry compared to a better chunk of the author's contemporaries. The characters and the storyline left a whole lot to be desired.

[Gisela Hafezparast · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not for me. The writing style really irritated me and the plot was less than exciting. Only finished it because so many others thought it was so good. Nope, note for me.

[Mike Cuthbert · Rating 5 out of 5]

Edwardson’s Erik Winter is a moody dude and no more so than in this complex double mystery. Investigating a murder in Room No.10 in the Reva Hotel in Gothenburg, Winter realizes that there was a murder some eighteen years before in the same hotel, same room. He sets about investigating both of them simultaneously. That leads to a bit of confusion in the plot as the time frame flops back and forth, but it is an intriguing idea. Of course, the two murders are related, but that’s not all that’s related as we discover late in the novel. Winter’s relationship with his partner Angela is tested again, as it has been previously, and he tries to plan a vacation with her and their two girls—as soon as he solves the murders in Room No.10! He has the help of Bertil Ringmar, now retired, as well as Aneta Djanali from Burkina Faso and Fredrik Halders with whom Winter has crossed swords many times. Some, who don’t warm to Winter, will find this large novel a bit slow, but I rather enjoyed the philosophical and personal asides that kept developing character while not noticeably slowing down the plot development. A solid winner for Edwardson and those of us who appreciate his work.

[K · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you've read others' reviews of Room No. 10, you'll note a common complaint concerns the slow pacing and length of this novel. I ha read these reviews and thought twice, but having enjoyed other works by Ake Edwardson, elected to read it anyway. .
They were right. Despite a really complex psychological plot and a typically Nordic noir vibe, the story drags. Things unfold far too slowly and it isn't until the last fifty or so pages that the whole thing accelerates to a satisfying pace. This should have been edited more vigorously -- it could have been a four star book but for the aforementioned weaknesses.
Fans of Edwardson might still wish to enjoy (the ending is more or less worth it), but readers new to this author or genre will be better served by one of his other works.

[Marssie Mencotti · Rating 4 out of 5]

Maybe this Chief Inspector Winter book is a favorite because the rest in the series have not been translated and so I leave the Chief Inspector here at the end of this wonderfully tangled tale. It seems as though the murder from a generation before and the recent ones are linked and in the reader;s mind they are but nothing seems to tie them together. Slow and painful police work, including clues left unfinished and dreary hotels are your milieu. This adventure challenged me with oddities and dead ends and "What was the murderer thinking?". There were also some very compassionate relationships that formed between those going through the crimes. I'll miss you Chief Inspector and hope that Simon and Schuster pick up the ball and get the last three books translated.

[Kristi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Inspector Winter / Åke Edwardson has a tic that occurs when the detective is thinking. In his mind he says. Yes. No. Yes. No. Yes. No. This if often irritating maybe - maybe not - maybe - maybe not - maybe. Because the case deals with disappearances / murders which are almost two decades apart, time changes occur frequently. Sometimes there are no clues as to whether the narrative is in the present or the past. This an easy problem to fix with writing structure, but not always easy to discover when reading. Despite these factors, the mystery is complex and compelling. I will continue to read the series. Kristi & Abby Tabby

[Ton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Remarkable that a quadruple murdercase has to be solved by just a few crime officers. That does not seem very realistic. Apart from that the plot is rather complicated, just because of the fact that Winter does not want to see the obvious, at least not before the end. So often in this crime series we hear Winter say 'there is somethging so nearby but I just don't see it'.
Probably I try to compare this all too much to real practice, but why not? On the other hand it should not be too simple, not too obvious, or we would not have such a pleasant read.

[Curt · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am amazed I finished this when I reflect how uninteresting and boring this was. A solid premise led to a slow burn type investigation that never had a spark. The ending which was supposed to be exciting was just frustrating. Stupid idoitic behavior from a detective and then an action scene that takes place off page, what the heck?
The only reason I kept reading was to find out if I had guessed correctly as to "who done it" and sure enough I did. Bottom line, predictable and dull.

[Niki Florin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bij sommige boeken vind je het jammer wanneer je ze uit hebt. Hier niet. Het was niet slecht maar ik ben blij dat het uit is zodat ik een ander kan beginnen en ik weet zeker dat dit boek niet lang in mijn herinnering zal blijven hangen. Er is iets waardoor je steeds een onafhankelijke buitenstaander blijft. Je voelt je niet betrokken en hebt ook niet de drang om verder te lezen om te weten hoe het verder verloopt.

[Marty Greenwell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Started out somewhat skeptical as to the over riding use of conversations between the detectives themselves. Liked the fact that this takes place in Goteborg, Sweden. I felt like I was there. Too confusing as to the number of non-police, their relationships, etc. Didn't close out with my questions answered.

[Angela · Rating 3 out of 5]

The premise was cool and the twist totally unexpected. I liked all the descriptions of the city too. But it did take me a second to catch up every time the story switched from present day to the past. I didn't really connect with the characters. Maybe I should have started with #1 instead of #7? And even though they caught the killer, there were still so many questions.