Die Frau mit dem Muttermal

Inspector Van Veeteren #4

by Håkan Nesser

Zwei Männer sind tot. Auf ganz ähnliche, brutale Weise ums Leben gekommen. Mit vier Schüssen niedergestreckt, zwei in die Brust und zwei in den Unterleib. Zweifellos handelt es sich um denselben Täter, aber erstmal tappen Inspektor Van Veeteren und seine Leute im Dunkeln. Dann stellt sich heraus, dass die beiden Toten vor dreißig Jahren gemeinsam ihre Offiziersprüfung beim Militär ablegten. Schon bald erkennt Van Veeteren, dass auch die ehemaligen Kameraden in Gefahr sind. Kann er die nächsten Morde verhindern?

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

285 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1996

About the author

Håkan Nesser is a Swedish author and teacher who has written a number of successful crime fiction novels. He has won Best Swedish Crime Novel Award three times, and his novel Carambole won the Glass Key award in 2000. His books have been translated from Swedish into numerous languages.

Håkan Nesser was born and grew up in Kumla, and has lived most of his adult life in Uppsala. His first novel was published in 1988, but he worked as a teacher until 1998 when he became a full-time author. In August, 2006, Håkan Nesser and his wife Elke moved to Greenwich Village in New York.

Series:
* Inspector Van Veeteren
* Inspector Barbarotti

Reviews

[Jim Fonseca · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great Swedish mystery. Our chief detective is divorced. He’s a chess player and classical music enthusiast. He seems like a great guy without the overwhelming quirks that a lot of literary and TV detectives have these days.

Men from a military graduation class thirty years ago are being killed one by one; two shots to the chest; two to the groin. While the mystery unravels, we get a bit of the local color of urban Sweden.

This story, one of a series of Inspector Van Veeteren mysteries, also has more assistant detectives than usual and we learn a bit about each one’s love life and home life. A good read.



This was my 4th book in the Van Veeteren series so I obviously enjoy them. GR says of the series: “These books play out in a fictitious city called Maardam, said to be located in northern Europe in a country which is never named but resembles Sweden, the Netherlands, Poland and Germany. The names however are mostly Dutch.”

I have read several others of Hakan Nesser’s Inspector Van Veeteren series. Below are links to my reviews of ones I have read. I rated all a ‘4’ except #5 which I gave a ‘3.’: There are ten in the series and all are available in English.

Mind’s Eye #1

The Inspector and Silence #5

Hour of the Wolf #7

The author has a more recent series of six books in the Inspector Barbarotti series that I thought I might like to try. If you look just on GR none of these are listed in English, but if you search for them on the web, there they are in English. Go figure.

Photo of the author from Wikipedia

[Jeffrey Keeten · Rating 4 out of 5]

”It was hard to put her finger on exactly what it was, but she could feel it in her body. Feel it in her skin and in her relaxed muscles; a sort of intoxication that spread among her nerve fibers like gently frothing bubbles, and kept her at a constantly elevated level of consciousness, totally calm and yet with a feeling of being on a high. As high as the sky. An orgasm, she thought in a state of exhilaration, an orgasm going on for an absurdly long period of time. Only very slowly and gently did it ebb away, subsiding lazily into expectation and anticipation of the next occasion. And the one after that.

To kill.

To kill those people.”

Men, seemingly unrelated, are being shot and killed. The modus operandi is exactly the same. They answer the door and are shot twice in the chest and twice in the groin. Are these random men or are they bound together by some thread not readily apparent? It seems obvious it is a woman. Men don’t tend to shoot other men in the tenders, but this is an unusual set of cases, and maybe any assumptions that have helped close other cases will prove to be ineffective.

We know who the killer is. You, as the reader, will have all you need to catch the killer, but Inspector Van Veeteren and his colleagues will not have your advantages. Serial killers are notoriously difficult to catch anyway, and one like this, with absolutely no leads, is almost impossible.

Basically, they have to wait for the killer to kill again and, hopefully, make a mistake. With each death, they will have at least one more potential, definable intersection with the other victims. ”’What’s preferable?’ Reinhart said. ‘Two victims and a murderer who gets away with it? Or three victims and a murderer who gets caught?’” We are almost biblical in our desire to see people punished, and certainly the detectives who chase these killers feel unsatisfied if a serial killer gets away, but from a citizen standpoint, we’d just rather the murders stop. Although it is disconcerting to think that we might be riding on the bus next to the murderer or shopping in the same store or having dinner with them sitting six feet away, we really don’t know who we are brushing shoulders with when we are out in public. The man who smiles at us at the coffee shop might have three women chained up in his basement, or the woman who holds the door open for us at the bookstore may have killed two of her three husbands and is in the bookstore to find a better method for the third.

The frustrations mount as the Swedish detective team feels like they are not only a step behind but really not in the game at all. At one point, the boss yells at Van Veeteren to use that “blasted intuition of yours.” He is known for his leaps in logic, much the same way as the other fictional character from the Henning Mankill Wallander series. It is intimidating to his colleagues, this blasted intuition, but when the threads for the current leads snap,...they all look to Van Veeteren to make a new connection that will allow them to finally close in on the killer.

It’s been many years since I’ve read a Hakan Nesser. When I think of Nordic Noir, the first author I usually think to pull from the shelf is Jo Nesbo, but recently, when I plucked a Nesbo from my shelves, I noticed Nesser nestled right next to Nesbo’s books. I made a mental note to myself to be sure and grab Nesser next time. The first five in the series are with Van Veeteren as an inspector, but the rest of the series features him enjoying his retirement and owning a bookstore. Despite his new occupation, it seems he cannot help but lend a hand when the police become stumped with a new case.

Six movies have been made of Nesser’s books starring Sven Wollter, who will always be remembered by me as the Viking chief in my favorite movie The 13th Warrior. He is perfect to play Van Veeteren, and I’m sure I will enjoy his performances. Unfortunately, Wollter died on November 10th, 2020, from complications due to COVID-19. He was eighty-six years old and joins a long list of people, famous and otherwise, who have been taken by this dreaded virus. RIP Viking King. May your tankard always be full and your heart be always merry in Valhalla.

If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit http://www.jeffreykeeten.com I also have a Facebook blogger page at:https://www.facebook.com/JeffreyKeeten and an Instagram account https://www.instagram.com/jeffreykeeten/

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting. Read it more for the characters than the mystery - it was fairly clear where this was going pretty early on, but still very well written.

[Tony da Napoli · Rating 5 out of 5]

My favorite inspector VV so far. I enjoy that the author uses the entire detective team and not just VV. After a few books you get to know the different characters. Like TV's Barney Miller.

[Karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the fourth novel in the Inspector Van Veeteren series, but you don’t need to have read the other three to understand everything.

At least I haven’t read the rest of the series and I don’t think I missed anything important (or anything at all).

Maybe if you know what happens in the previous books you have more insight on the characters, but they are described here as if the reader is meeting them for the first time.

The book in general is okay, but most of the plot is predictable.

Once you figure out the sex of the murderer, than it appears obvious why the victims are murdered.

[Julie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoy this rather morose thoughtful series. It is interesting to follow along with the investigations & follow the detectives' reasoning. Each world weary character is developed with realism by the author. There are rare glimpses of humor also!

[Brianne · Rating 4 out of 5]

i like this series - they are easy/fast to read and offer decent crime plots - i just wish they were more suspenseful.

[Rachel (not currently receiving notifications) Hall · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars

My first venture into the novels of Håkan Nesser was by virtue of the exceptional standalone thriller, The Living and the Dead in Winsford, set in a rural village located in Exmoor and I was struck by the mesmerising prose and how well Nesser tempered the pace to maintain knife-edge tension until the closing moments. From then on I wanted to read more of his novels and came upon Woman with Birthmark, the fourth novel in his now concluded and hugely popular, Chief Inspector Van Veeteren series. A similarly bewitching tale, this novel only reinforced my first impressions and is another masterpiece of construction.

Woman with Birthmark surrounds the unravelling of several bizarre crimes and the sordid history that lies at the very heart of them. Opening on a blustery and rain-swept day in December, twenty-nine-year-old Maria Adler is the sole mourner at her mother's funeral and is struck by how fitting the abysmal weather and lack of attendees is to the shambolic life that her mother lived. At the bedside of the stricken woman, Maria learnt the history behind her mothers fortunes in life and interprets her mothers pleas not to cry at her funeral and to "go out and do something" as a motivation for avenging the fate she suffered. Whether this is a literal interpretation of her mother's exhortations is never tackled, but one suspects that some free license has driven the bitter Maria. As she uses the final family savings to purchase the information needed and set about her mission she is fuelled with a determination. From here Nesser takes readers straight into the life of staid Ryszard Malik, a businessman who becomes unsettled by the curious series of phone calls he receives whereby words are never exchanged but a memorable musical interlude is played down the line in full. Frustratingly familiar, the excerpt plays over in his head as he becomes sure than he is being followed and someone is watching him. Several days later his wife returns home from a evening out to find his body in the hallway and riddled with gunshots wounds, two in the chest, two below the belt. Making headway on who might have launched this attack given his lack of enemies and an unclear motive proves an uphill struggle, until a second murder takes place in the town. Replicating the exact style of the first, the police based in the fictitious city of Maardam located in Northern Europe are faced with the unenviable task of predicting a next target and stopping what seems ominously like the work of a would be serial killer.

Woman with Birthmark focuses on the police investigation that surrounds this case, and the momentous task of finding what connects these two men to the perpetrator and indeed to each other. The confused ramblings of the widow of the first man reveal the disquieting series of phone calls that arose prior to his murder and when it is discovered that the second victim had also reported such an occurrence, Chief Inspector Van Veeteren leading the investigation is alerted. Van Veeteren is tasked with predicting it that will be the end of the murders or if there are more to come and extricating a possible motive. Inspector Reinhart's girlfriend is very keen to deliver her own opinion that the below the belt gunshots are clearly the mark of a wronged woman. As the two men who realise that they could be next potential targets come together and determine that their only option is to ensure that their pasts do not see the light of day, they are held captive in a waiting game of who will be next. There is some satisfaction for the reader that living with their guilty consciences marks every one of the eventual victims last thoughts and consumes them, like a noose tightening with every day. The three narratives climax into a three way game of cat and mouse as the perpetrator hunts her target, a marked man seeks to draw his enemy out and the police are powerless to do much more than second-guess, anticipate and eventually respond. As the police respond and are set on the trail of a woman who is both perpetrator and an unwilling victim in the sorry saga, Van Veeteren is left to cast a jaded eye over the occurrences and finds himself a bit part player in a campaign of destructive vengeance.

It is thinly veiled that the perpetrator behind these murders is Maria Adler and readers will draw the obvious conclusion about the motive behind her vengeance, but Nesser points readers in the correct direction. When the connection between the two men is found, Van Veeteren is faced with finding a lower common denominator which a subset of the wider group are privy too. When it becomes clear that a dark deed is clearly the starting point of these incidences, police are faced with teasing men with a guilty conscience to reveal themselves, and there is a certain inevitability that there is little point in attempting to protect potential victims 24/7 when they will not admit their own past and incriminate themselves. Resources are finite and the length of the investigation makes this case a thorn in the side of the team. With no knowledge forthcoming and no men coming forward, officers are curiously powerless in much of the affair.

Chief Inspector Van Veeteren is the philosophical figure on which the police spotlight surrounds as he marshals his fellow detectives and ensures his boss and chief of police, Hiller, is kept on-side. Although the novel has a distinctly morose tone and leaves the impression that there are no winners, merely a society all the poorer, Woman with Birthmark is a strikingly humorous tale. The repartee between the close-knit colleagues who surround Van Veeteren is lightly humorous almost all the time; more gentle teasing than gallows humour. Throughout the case Van Veeteren is beleaguered by his infernal cold and his demeanour is every bit of a man struck down by a mild complaint and unwilling to brace the dark days of winter and experiencing the apathy of the January return to work. One of Van Veeteren's own thoughts as he is tasked with addressing the increasingly hostile media at a press conference is its similarity to sitting in the dock whilst on trial and the striking shared characteristics of the two and this is just one of many asides he ponders.

Although Van Veeteren it frequently irascible, you are never left with the feeling that a smile is too far away, almost as is his occasional bursts of temper are more for show and for invigorating his colleagues. He recognises that even in the most difficult cases he has to maintain a focus with the family lives and demands of his team. His ruminations over a bottle of beer with his classical music playing add much to this novel and reflect awareness of the fine line that separates his career from that of the perpetrators he hunts. Indeed on several occasions Van Veeteren seems to admire the gall of the perpetrator orchestrating this whole affair with chilling calculation.

Although Håkan Nesser never goes as far as moralising on the situation that plays out in the novel, it is very clear by the jaded despondency of Van Veeteren and Inspector Reinhart that this tragic situation has somehow simply balanced the scales of justice. Whether Maria Adler's mother was supportive of the vengeance her daughter wreaks is never covered, but Van Veeteren himself just seems increasingly wearied by a society where behaviour of this type and vigilante action is more common, reflecting the belief that turning to the police might not always provide the only course of action.

This novel flows effortlessly well and the translator, Laurie Thompson, has done a remarkable job bringing Van Veeteren to an English readership. I certainly intend to seek out other novels in this series and spend more time being entranced by the insightfulness of Nesser's meandering delivered through the eyes of his brilliant protagonist, Chief Inspector Van Veeteren.

[Patrizia · Rating 4 out of 5]

È gennaio, un mese che Van Veeteren odia. Gli piacerebbe poter andare in letargo, ma un omicidio dà il via a una nuova indagine, che si rivelerà molto difficile. Nessun indizio, nessun movente evidente, una serie di morti di cui venire a capo. Il tempo passa, l’assassino si rivela preciso, efficiente, particolarmente intelligente.
Arriverà la soluzione, ma non tutte le tessere andranno a posto.

[Nancy Oakes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hakan Nesser is another one of my all-time favorite writers of Scandinavian crime fiction. Woman With Birthmark is #4 in this series featuring Inspector Van Veeteren, a veteran detective in Maardam, whose location remains a mystery in itself. These books you can read as stand-alone novels, but there's always a plus to reading a series in order.

A solitary mourner at a funeral is at the heart of a baffling series of crimes. A young woman made a death-bed promise to her mother and has cleared the way to begin her plan of revenge. Her first victim is a businessman who has recently been receiving some very odd phone calls. There is no voice, just a song that plays over and over again. Shortly after a little fender-bender, his wife goes out one night leaving him home alone, and comes back to find him shot to death. Enter the police and Inspector Van Veeteren, who after their investigation, come up with very little to make a case, never mind an arrest. When another murder occurs in the same fashion, the members of the Inspector's team know that they must find some sort of a connection between the two dead men. Not only are they worried about a possible serial killer, but the press doesn't understand why the police are not doing their job and makes no bones about publishing how they feel. But the two victims lived very different lives, so the team has to begin the tedious and difficult task of linking each victim's pasts together, not only to identify the killer and the why, but to possibly warn anyone else connected with these two men.


It's not a mystery, per se; the reader knows the who (sort of) from the very start. What drives the killer is what slowly unravels throughout the story, teased out a little at a time. As in all of his Van Veeteren books, Nesser's writing, his plotting genius and his characterizations all speak for themselves in this story. He doesn't pad the writing with a lot of great detail and gets right to the crime and the search for a solution. Van Veeteren doesn't seem to suffer from the angst that many other Scandinavian detectives are full of and he has this very dry wit and sarcastic sense of humor. I've seen this book reviewed as being too slow with little punch, but trust me -- this is far from the case. If you want bang-bang shoot 'em up, look elsewhere. This one is much more subdued and cerebral.


I have followed this author's works in order of translation and have NEVER been disappointed. I can definitely recommend this book to readers of Scandinavian crime fiction, and for those who want quality and intelligence in their crime.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Oh shit! he thought as he took a swig of his beer. I’m beginning to lose the plot. If I weren’t a police office, I’d probably have become a murderer instead. It was only a random thought, of course, but nevertheless, somewhere in some obscure corner of his brain he realised that there was more meaning in it than would be sensible to acknowledge. It had something to do with the concept of the hunt…” p93

I must admit that veteran Swedish Crime author Håkan Nesser is among my favourites and his Chief Inspector Van Veeteran series is really solid and credible for me in terms of the authenticity of characters, their thought processes and something of their psyches. There’s a ‘humanness’ to the characters and that brings something credible to the reading experience for me. It doesn’t always mean that the plot is amazing or that there isn’t an element of predictability or the occasional cliche, but it does mean that I’m reading something that ultimately I can find some degree of relatedness to.

Woman with Birthmark is the fourth in the Van Veeteren series and centres round seemingly random and extremely cold blooded murders that is challenging to find any real thread tying them together. Underneath is a fairly tried and true reason and rationale which I could kind of guess, however, this did not detract from the reading experience for me. I know I’m biased to many of the Scandi authors and a four star rating from me for this one highlights how much I enjoy this series. I would have given 5 stars however the predictability for me didn’t allow that. All the same, I’ll be looking forward to Van Veeteren number 5.

[Stephen · Rating 4 out of 5]

You must be a fan of the police procedural genre of mystery fiction to read Hakan Nesser. I'll go one further and say you have to be a fan of Scandinavian gloom as it effects the characters and the plot. If you read and enjoyed Henning Mankell, then you know exactly what I mean. The atmosphere is somehting altogether different from a book set almost anywhere else on the planet.

Also, you are reading in translation. Yes, I know, all translators are traitors, but without them we wouldn't have half the good books we do have, and hardly anyone in America would ever read Proust. The translator, Laurie Thompson, does a very good job with this book, because it doesn't sound like a job done by a new graduate of ESL.

The mystery is good, but when reviewing mysteries one doesn't want to give away too much. All I will say is that it is a revenge and the reader will have very little trouble putting together what the revenge is avenging. The killer is very clever, and I'm not sure but what the moral ground might be more under the killer than under the victims.

What goes around, comes around. If we all remember that, there might be fewer murder mysteries.

[Kasia · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5⭐

[Mark Stevens · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Shadows’ “The Rise and Fall of Flingel Bunt” (a gem of an instrumental) plays a key role in “Woman With Birthmark.” Like that song, there’s something clean, effortless and neatly scripted about Nesser’s plot, too. The song is played over the telephone by a woman stalking various men—men who later are shot in violent and intentionally up-close-and-personal ways. Also like that song, the feeling of reading this is light and airy. There’s a nice build and a nifty crescendo. Nesser shifts point of view readily among a variety of characters and does so with no sign of strain. The story skips along. The energy is innate.

Sorting things out is Inspector Van Veeteren and his myriad associates, who are stymied at first. Readers are slightly ahead of Van Veeteren in at least figuring out the probable motive. But that’s fine. The tension revolves around the race to track and catch the murderer before she acts again. As the book progresses, Nesser lets us see more and more of the murderer and her underlying motives. The ending is a surprise shift away from predictability (and I hope that’s not a spoiler). “Woman With Birthmark” has plenty of dark Scandinavian vibes to it and Van Veeteren is perfectly jaded. He’s seen it all. He’s not opposed to a cold shower in the winter. He loves classical music, a dark movie theater and his beer.

The victims are from a large group of men—35 in all—who share a common past. And the stalker is efficient. “There was something impressive about her,” thinks Van Veeteren. “And frightening, of course. The feeling that she had full control over what she was doing was incontestable. Her way of striking and then withdrawing, over and over again, suggested both coldness and decisiveness.” Sure, this sounds familiar. Even occasional mystery readers have been down this road before. But “Woman With Birthmark” is a story well told. It hums along.

[Ellen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Woman with Birthmark
~Vintage
(20)
Inspector Van Veeteren Mystery, March 15, 2012
By Ellen Rappaport (Florida)
This review is from: Woman with Birthmark (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard) (Paperback)
I've read all of the books in the Van Veeteren series and find that this Scandinavian author is a master among mystery masters. This particular book is no different-spellbinding and intense. I read this book on my Kindle.

The author begins by bringing the reader to a cemetary where an internment is taking place. A lonely figure is the only mourner and that's where the story begins. That solitary figure is the daughter of the woman being buried. Her mother has entrusted her with the responsibility of revenge. Revenge for what? Revenge to be against who?
Then the first murder takes places and Inspector Van Veeteren is front and center. He assembles his personal entourage of assistants to determine why this murder took place and by whom. But before they get anywhere another murder takes place. Soon but quite slowly the group investigates each person and each clue trying to find the link between these victims that may bring them closer to the murderer.
While all this is taking place we are following the murderer on this spree of revenge. And so the plot thickens...
I enjoy being brought into the Inspector's organization and quite simply...could not put this book down.
This author has received many awards and most deservedly so. You will not be let down by Inspector Van Veeteren...so lean back and enjoy.
Ellen

[Charlene Intriago · Rating 4 out of 5]

I decided to continue with this series even though I had my doubts after the last book. HOWEVER, this book was really good. Lots of reviews on this one so I can't add much to the discussion, but this is the story of a woman who was wronged and everyone else who was affected. I did like the fact that the author drew the reader in with bits and pieces of flashbacks into the "why" of what was happening and that Inspector Van Veeteren had a little bit more help from the other detectives in solving the case - even though he does have an uncanny "second sense" in discovering who our killer is. Good title on this one.

[John Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have awarded this author a rare tribute. This is the third of his series that I have read in uninterrupted succession. It is a long time since that has happened.

Another brilliantly told story with its unusual ending.

The author manages to keep our interest even through periods of police procedural episodes when there is little actual action.

I have noticed a difference between this and other books. Here, the police admit that they have no idea and regularly ask what they should do next.

Although I am leaving this series now, I will certainly return. This is my kind of author.

[Lynn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very dark police procedural. The weather sucks and somebody is killing men when they answer their front doors. Chief Inspector Van Veeteren is curmudgeonly as ever, and if it weren't for his team, this would be an utter bleak-fest. I do really enjoy their long-term struggle for a break or a clue that connects the murdered men.

[Maria João Fernandes · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Há males que vêm por bem."

Depois de mais de 30 anos, um segredo horrível vai, finalmente, ser desvendado. Será agora feita a justiça, que foi ignorada no passado?

O quarto livro da série do Inspector Van Veeteren começa com um funeral de uma mulher, ao qual apenas a sua solitária filha assiste. Dias antes do Natal, ao lado da campa da sua mãe, a mulher de 29 anos reflecte sobre a vida miserável da progenitora, tão semelhante à sua, e promete vingança àqueles que considera responsáveis pelos dois destinos miseráveis. Assim, é pelo olhar da assassina que obtemos a primeira imagem de mais um enredo genial de Håkan Nesser. O escritor sueco é habilidoso e não esconde nem por um instante o que nos espera.

Foi com prazer que reencontrei o Van Veeteren! A assassina iniciou a sua missão e o inspector é acordado pelo som estridente do telefone, às 07:55 de Sábado, em Janeiro. Este mês é alvo de desdém por se prolongar indefinidamente, sempre com chuva ou neve, garantido um total de apenas uma hora e meia de sol ao fim dos 31 dias! A par dos meses de Inverno, o inspector sente um ódio crescente pelo telefone. Destino ou coincidência, o nosso protagonista vê-se com uma constipação que teima em ficar.

"Cherchez la femme, if you really must."

A investigação prolonga-se por dois meses e caracteriza-se por falta de pistas, testemunhas, ligação entre as vitimas e motivo. A assassina mantém-se fiel à sua missão e o seu método de matar é o que a define. A par do seu trabalho - nada fácil - Van Veeteren continua a jogar badminton com o seu melhor amigo Münster, xadrez e a ouvir música clássica para descontrair e também reflectir. Em acréscimo, depois da operação bem-sucedida ao cancro, o Inspector Chefe sente um desejo cada vez maior de ter um estilo de vida mais saudável, pois fuma e bebe em demasia! Apesar da melhoria nesta sua atitude perante a sua saúde, a vontade ainda não é suficiente para colocar o novo estilo de vida em prática. Contudo, tenho confiança no bom senso deste homem de meia idade!

A resolução deste caso conta ainda com toda a equipa que já conhecemos. A Jung e Ewa Moreno, a única mulher da equipa, juntam-se dois grandes homens que merecem destaque.

Münster é o colega preferido e melhor amigo de Van Veeteren. Contrariamente a ele tem uma vida familiar feliz e uma paciência enorme que o habilita como o homem ideal para aturar o humor sensível e complexo do Inspector. É de salientar que continua a ganhar todos os jogos de badminton, tal como o perdedor continua a justificar as derrotas com o seu estilo de vida errado ou raquete velha.

Reinhart,com qual Van Veeteren se identifica, desempenha neste livro um papel importante, sendo as suas excelentes competências policiais evidenciadas. Para além disso, ficamos a conhecer este homem lacónico um pouco melhor, tendo acesso aos seus pensamentos sobre a sua vida privada e conhecendo a mulher por quem se apaixonou, tenciona casar e ter filhos, apesar de já passar da meia idade. É de salientar as conversas entre os dois, após o sexo, sobre a investigação corrente. Afinal de contas, por trás de um grande homem há sempre uma grande mulher.

"Hope lives eternal."

A história é trágica e as suas implicações têm um impacto que fica connosco mesmo após a leitura. É com naturalidade que o escritor sueco nos conta esta história triste e, de certa forma, deprimente, através do tom de humor inigualável, já tão característico seu. Nenhuma personagem é secundária e as relações entre a equipa policial são estimulantes. Håkan Nesser tem o dom de nos fazer rir nas situações mais tensas, mostrando o lado mais humano dos seus inspectores que lidam com os acontecimentos e pessoas mais obscuras.

Tal como os livros anteriores, também "Woman With A Birthmark" envolve o leitor a um nível quase surreal. Håkan Nesser tem um estilo inconfundível e considero-o um autor excêntrico, no melhor sentido da palavra. Longe de se enquadrar dentro dos padrões considerados normais deste género narrativo, explora o mundo do crime e o oposto que o combate, de um forma excepcional, focando-se nos detalhes mais ínfimos e sempre relevantes.

Confesso que não resisti e iniciei a leitura do livro seguinte "The Inspector and Silence" antes de escrever este comentário. Adianto desde já que fiquei, como sempre, rendida desde a primeira página. Desde a primeira palavra, permitam-me a correcção.

Apenas alguns meses após a investigação do livro "Woman With A Birthmark", Van Veeteren resolve dar outro rumo à sua vida já tão estimulante, interessante, peculiar e preenchida. E sinto na atmosfera uma promessa de romance, ou será impressão minha?

"Standing waiting for something that never came."

[Bonnie Brody · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is right before Christmas and a woman is burying her mother, the only mourner at her grave. She is 29 years old and has lived a miserable life of poverty and addiction. All she has left, once her mother dies, is her own determination, resolve "and the mission". What this mission is, serves as the marrow of this mystery.

Shortly after Christmas, Chief Inspector Van Veeteren is trying to solve a difficult crime. A man has been murdered by two shots to the chest and two to his groin. By all accounts, the victim was mild mannered, somewhat boring, and had no enemies. There were no witnesses and the only clue there is to work with is that, prior to the murder, the victim's wife had several phone calls which consisted of the same piece of music being played each time. Soon, another man is murdered and Van Veeteren and his team go all out to find a connection between the men.

The team consists of several interesting characters. Each has a personal life that is examined as part of the novel. I have read several books in this series and this particular novel does not come up to some of the other books that feature the same characters. The writing is solid, the Swedish landscape is, as always, interesting and Van Veeteren is an old and wise soul.

[Deb Jones · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is my favorite Inspector Van Veeteren title among the first four in the series -- and I enjoyed the previous three immensely.

Van Veeteren and his team are investigating first one seemingly random murder, then a second with the same MO. The team work to determine what, if any connection, the two victims had to each other in order to determine a motive and move them closer to finding the cold-blooded killer. Will there be more victims, and if so, how many and who?

From the beginning of the story, the reader is clued in to the villain, although her motivation behind her actions remains hidden. Reinhart's lady friend guesses from the beginning that the culprit is a woman from Reinhart's description to her of the wounds inflicted.

Van Veeteren hasn't failed to solve a case in several years. Will this one be his undoing?

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book opens with a woman standing in a cemetry, a lone mourner at her mother's funeral. A man is then shot twice in his chest and twice below the belt following a series of phone calls where nothing is said but music is played down the line. Shortly after a second man, seeminly unconnected is killed in the same way.

Inspector Van Veeteren is struggling with a cold but must find some sort of connection between the two men before someone else dies. This book switches between the viewpoint of the murderer and the ongoing investigation. It is a good read and another Scandinavian author I would recommend trying. This book is the fourth in the Van Veeteren series but can be read as a stand alone novel

[Jim Coughenour · Rating 3 out of 5]

A few months ago it was the girl with the dragon tattoo. Now there's a woman with a birthmark. Is this a Swedish sub-genre?

I enjoyed this one more than Mind's Eye. There's not much of a mystery here, and the crimes are more observed than solved - so it's not much of a policier either. The pleasure is all in the writing - especially in the mildly morose character of Van Veeteran. I still prefer Håkan Nesser to most American writers. Maybe I'm just an American sucker for that world-weary sophistication.

[William · Rating 4 out of 5]

I agree with several of the positive reviews, this is about the characters and not the crime being played out or solved. Pace is slow and underwhelming just like a real life occurrence.

[Kathy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Maybe I will try another Van Veeteren as several were available from my library and I did borrow others, but based on this one...maybe not.

[Erica · Rating 2 out of 5]

Title: Woman with Birthmark: An Inspector Van Veeteren Mystery (Book 4)
Author: Håkan Nesser
Format: Paperback, 336 pages
Genre: Crime, Mystery, Police Procedural
Publisher: Vintage Crime/Black Lizard
ISBN: 9780307387233
Translation Release Date: March 9, 2010
Rating: 2 1/2
[Read | Skim] [Buy | Borrow]

I read the previous Van Veeteren mysteries and I have to say this is my least favorite. Woman with Birthmark is for all intents and purposes a police procedural. It follows the detectives knocking on doors, doing interviews, fielding phone calls, and not getting anywhere -- at all. It was frustrating to me as a reader, but perhaps the most frustrating part is that the killer is revealed at the very beginning; which left me nothing really to try and figure out. What's not revealed is the why and if you're an astute reader you'll figure out the why after the first murder, if not than you're sure to get after the second.

Sadly, the characters are not memorable including the ones that have already appeared in previous Van Veeteren novels. I found myself asking from time-to-time who is this one and what's his/her significance. I didn't see the classic crotchety Van Veeteren, I had grown fond of. Perhaps he's mellowing since his illness or simply he's "an old sod, an old, tired detective who's seen too much and doesn't want to see much more" (WB 281).

Sometimes I felt as though the detectives weren't very smart, which would account for what I felt to be their lack of let's get this murder solved. However I had to remember that the killer was quite clever and didn't leave them anything to nibble on. I was hoping that her last victim would have turned the tables on her, but alas no such luck. And to be honest, that was the twist I came up with in my head to keep reading the novel.

I was surprised by the twist at the end and I had hoped that it would turn out differently, but at the same time I could have cared less. I was just on page count down mode. I wasn't vested in any of the characters and didn't like them either.

No, I take that back. I liked Winnifred Lynch, Reinhart's girlfriend. She's the only one that determined the murderer was a woman. Not even that silly female detective Ewa Moreno got that.

I skimmed quite a lot of the novel, but there were parts I had to read. If you skim over the extraneous stuff (and there's a lot of it) you could probably have Woman with Birthmark finished in a couple of hours.

Woman with Birthmark is the fourth in a series of 14 Van Veetern novels. I'm not sure I'll finish the series, but we'll see what the Inspector and Silence has to offer.

[Mysterytribune · Rating 4 out of 5]

Woman with Birthmark (or in Swedish "Kvinna med födelsemärke") is a 1996 novel by Håkan Nesser, which won the Best Swedish Crime Novel Award in the same year. The English translation of the book was released in 2009 at the time when there was a Swedish Crime Fiction hype in the market. The book has also found its way into Television and a Swedish mini-series covered the novel in 2001.

A brief Summary:

Inspector 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. An utterly dull man, the only suspicious activity his surviving wife can report is a series of peculiar phone calls.

Repeatedly the telephone would ring, offering no answer but an obscure pop song from the 1960s. This siren song would be linked to an identical murder, but the true connection remains unknown.

With a cool, critical eye, Van Veeteren pursues his subject across the country, wading through outrageous leads and fruitless tips in this chilling mystery from master crime novelist Håkan Nesser.

Our Take:

A main plot which instantly absorbs the readers: Several middle aged men are murdered, all shot twice in the heart and twice in the testicles. Although the reader can easily guess that the killer is a woman who is seeking revenge against the victims, the answer to mystery is only revealed when Van Veeteren digs deeply in the past of each of the murdered men.

The book is a fast paced police procedural which at 326 pages, is a relatively quick read. Nesser is a master at dialogue and character development and for those readers who enjoy the cold atmospheric descriptions of Sweden, this book will be an entertaining read.

We somewhat felt sympathetic to the murderer as we learned more about this disturbing tale of revenge. Throughout the story, the dose of suspense in the story is not very high and readers are most of the times ahead of Van Veeteren in at least figuring out the probable motive. However, the suspense picks up at the end and a great twist changes everything: The ending is a surprise shift away from the predictability in the whole story.

There is more at http://www.mysterytribune.com or @mysterytribune

[Elena · Rating 3 out of 5]

Woman with Birthmark is the fourth novel in the Inspector Van Veeteren series, but you don’t need to have read the other three to understand everything. At least I haven’t read the rest of the series and I don’t think I missed anything important (or anything at all). Maybe if you know what happens in the previous books you have more insight on the characters, but they are described here as if the reader is meeting them for the first time.

The characters are well written. As is it a group of characters, some have better lives than others, but they are all more or less happy. Not much of their home lives is described though, so there may be details in other books that point to the opposite.

What I liked about this novel is that the murderer is a woman and that she is shooting her victims and not poisoning them. This confuses the detectives, because at first they believe the criminal is a man.

The book in general is good, but part of the plot is predictable. Once you consider the possibility that the murderer is a woman, her reasons are a bit obvious. The victims are all men and they’re shot “below the belt”. It is easy to imagine why.

[Ken · Rating 4 out of 5]

Swedish crime novels are all the rage. This is a departure from my usual Italian mysteries but I became familiar with Chief Inspector Van Veeteren by watching international mysteries on TV. The auther, Haken Nesser, depicts Van Veeteren as a thoughtful and dutiful dectective in the last few years of his work. Indeed, in some stories he has retired to running a book store but can't give up the investigation work...much to the chagrin of his former subordinates. This is the first book I've read from the series and I'm picking ones that I haven't seen on TV.

This is a story of a serial killer out to take revenge for something that took place thirty years before. That event plunged two lives into a long spiral that is just now coming to an end. Van Veeteren tries to make sense of what is happening. How many victims will there be? What are the connections? What is the motive?

The location is never really revealed. These stories take place in an imaginary country somehow hovering around northwest Europe and lower Scandinavia.

[Heyhansen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Yes. Another swedish crime thriller. Enjoyable, not unlike watching a crime tv show I suppose. But with a title like that I had to read it right?
This time Van Veeteren is after a female killer who is not only way ahead of him but also her prey. A really gloomy story actually, but the way it's offset with light banter and character insights into the police force it feels "light" rather than dark for some reason.