Dans met een engel

Inspector Winter #1

by Åke Edwardson

In een eenvoudige hotelkamer in Zuid-Londen wordt het lijk van een jonge Zweed gevonden. Hij is vermoord. Kort daarna vindt een soortgelijke moord plaats in Göteborg. De bloedige voetsporen wijzen erop dat in de kamer een macabere dans is opgevoerd. Voor de 37-jarige hoofdinspecteur Erik Winter vormt dit het begin van een van de pijnlijkste onderzoeken waar hij ooit mee te maken heeft gehad. Hij stuit op een luguber crimineel netwerk dat snuff movies produceert en verspreidt.

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

431 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1997

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

[Jaidee · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars !...a solid and interesting detective debut..atmospheric with vague outlines leaving much for interpretation....inspector winters is intuitive, aloof and quietly attractive....definitely will read book 2

[Juliana Philippa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Am conflicted - wonderful characters and great plot, but the delivery and conclusion fell a little short (3.5 stars)

My library branch is closing down due to renovations and I found Death Angels as I was raiding the shelves - all in a selfless attempt to help them and make it so that they had less books to move, of course ;-). I was intrigued, since I've been wanting to read more mysteries and thrillers, and what with the recent rage for Swedish writers I thought Åke Edwardson would be interesting to try.

Praise
The mystery itself - as in the actual plot - was good and engaging. The crimes are horrid (though in some things we're not given details, but re: below) and as the murders pile up you're increasingly anxious to figure it all out and have the murderer unmasked.

The characters were the second strength of the book, and in some ways may have outshone the plot. Erik Winter, who is our main copper and the man whom the series follows, is very complex and interesting. He's a player, a little disengaged emotionally, and in some ways of a snob, but he's oddly likable and I ended up becoming very fond of him. I also loved Macdonald, his counterpart in England, and thought the juxtaposition between the two of them was great.

The other characters, including Winter's team, are equally compelling, though I'll admit I got very confused between Beckman / Bolger / Bergenhem / Birgersson and Malmström / Möllerström and Helander / Halder and etc. I love how the author gave the easiest name to remember (Winter) to the one character whom we're not going to get confused about anyway - the hero!! I read a Japanese novel recently and while I had no problems keeping those foreign (to me) names straight, I was embarrassingly confused here.

Criticism
I always felt like I was missing something - like there were passages or pages that had somehow been left out, or characters were having conversations or making discoveries while I was "out of the room." It was like I was always a few steps behind and while the characters were making these jumps and assumptions, I had no idea where they were coming from and what was leading them to this place or that place. Also, while we're given certain hints as to what the murders entail, there is not a lot of detail - either about what exactly is being done or for what possible psychological purpose (besides for the obvious).

In some ways, this worked out well because it is a mystery book, so there were some points where the confusion added - positively - to my experience as a reader. One example of this is how the POV of some of the victims and the killer are interwoven into the plot, but very subtly (obviously not referring to the blatant killing scene which starts the book) so that you'll be a few paragraphs and realize, 'Woah, this isn't Winter (or Macdonald or whoever), I'm on the other side of the story here!'

Many times, however, it left me feeling lost, and not in a good mystery-reading way. I'm definitely no Albert Einstein, but I'm reasonably intelligent and pretty quick, so I don't think it was all me. Maybe this is just Edwardson's style - I don't know, I guess I'll find that out when I read his next book - but either way it didn't work for me. It left me feeling very unsatisfied at the end, as if I had been five steps behind, just chasing a shadow around bends and curves, and then when I finally caught up everything was out to see and had been fully discovered ... leaving me floundering and disappointed. Especially because even after that - even in the end! - there were still things left unexplained that I was confused about.

Lovely Poem
Inscribed on an obelisk seen by Winter at the end of the book:

Wild birds plow their way through the far reaches of space.
How many never reach their final destination.
But what difference does that make?
They die free.

Bottom Line
I would recommend this book, but get it from the library. Edwardson definitely has potential and there were so many things I did like about Death Angels that I already have a hold on the next one in the series ... I'm just hoping I don't have the same "left behind" feeling that I did here.

Chief Inspector Erik Winter Series
(As of May 2011, only books 1-5 have been translated into English)
Book 1 - Death Angels
Book 2 - The Shadow Woman
Book 3 - Sun and Shadow
Book 4 - Never End
Book 5 - Frozen Tracks
Book 6 - Segel aus Stein
Book 7 - Zimmer Nr. 10.
Book 8 - Vänaste land
Book 9 - Nästan död man
Book 10 - Den sista vintern

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

“The man's hair was blond and appeared to be parted in the middle like that of a fifties actor…. There was a fussiness beneath his sartorial élan and a touch of arrogance in his step. He was clean shaven, his ears stuck out a little, his face was wide and a bit too handsome…” P153/4

Oh, Åke Edwardson and Chief Inspector Erik Winter, how has it taken me so long to finally commence this Scandi Noir series? Åke, as the author of this police procedural, you have done a sensational job of creating the mood, atmosphere, sense of place and depth of characters that are everything I love about this genre. While Winter is not entirely my cup of tea I know I am going to get to like him more and more. You have given me just enough plot to keep me interested while I pause and ponder over your carefully chosen prose and execution of a genre that is actually not just about solving a crime (as far as I am concerned).

Death Angels is the first of this series and was written back in 1997 and translated from Swedish in 2009. It needs to be read with the that time frame in mind in terms of some slightly non PC language used. Straddling both Gothenburg and London, Winter finds himself in the centre of a particularly gruesome and somewhat unsettling set of murders involving young Swedish and British tourists, potentially at a cross roads re their sexuality. Enough said there. Identical murders are discovered virtually simultaneously on both sides of the North Sea, and soon enough Winter is in London and the stage is set for investigation.

Winter is quite unlike any Scandi Noir protagonist I’ve read. While the tone and pitch of the prose gave me whispers of Håkan Nesser’s books, Winter is certainly no Barbarotti nor Van Veeteran. He’s self contained, lover of jazz, contemplative, and reflective individuals in the genre. He’s well to do, not an alcoholic, never married, smart dresser, comfortable in his own skin, exuding confidence without cockiness. I’m looking forward to getting to know more of his vulnerability as the series progresses.

I like the way that Edwardson gives voice to Winter’s thoughts and doubts (not an uncommon characteristic in Scandi crime novels). As he arrives in London, we hear his thoughts… “whatever direction he took, menace was his journey and his destination. He was alone, and he had no faith in anything”. P151.

Other characters are also given voices, although clearly as secondary parts. Go particular note is Bergenhem, whom I found quite fascinating and an entire dialogue could occur about him and what drives him. Fascinating for me.

Anyway, this was a great intro to this series. Four fat stars and looking forward to more of Winter.

[Jaksen]

A dnf for me.

I hate how I have to say I read a book to review it, but then some might say how can you review a book you've not read? Easy. Read into it and if it bores you, misdirects you, is poorly written, or has started nowhere and is going nowhere you can bet it ends at nowhere.

That's not about this book, btw, or is it? The main problem with this book is the long sections of dialogue where I hadn't any clue who was talking. Several times I had to go back and re-read, very carefully, as the conversation goes back and forth between two people. What, you might say - you couldn't keep track of TWO people? Nope, not when you read as fast as I do, and never - NEVER - tell me to slow down. That's like trying to slow down a speeding train.

So I got tired of constantly thinking - did HE say that? No, go back, back, re-read, okay. If I owned the book I would have written on the page, check-marking where the MC is talking. Also, there'd be a section without any tags and the reader is left to figure out just who is this? Who turned at the railing? Who stepped up to the table? What?

So I guess confusion made me stop before about page 50.

DNF, no rating.

[Leo · Rating 3 out of 5]

A serial killer goes for a hunt both in London and it Gothenburg and we follow Swedish detective/police (don't know, something like it) as he teams up with British counterpart as they tries to solve the case. Eh meh, it was well written and all that. But I didn't find the case that interesting or intriguing and the characters wasn't fleshed out enough for me. Didn't get a connection with them or saw them as any different from all the other crime police procedures I have read. And that's a main problem I've got for most of books like this. I can never really pick apart what's uniqe with each book, just flows into a big musch for me. But I'll keep trying to find a series for me.

[Joseph Soltero · Rating 3 out of 5]

While the story pulled me in enough to keep me interested, I was left with the feeling that something else was lacking. Now that I've had a few days to think about it, I believe those things are plot development and character connections.

The crimes themselves are as the back cover describes it: "macabre", and the book is a fast-paced and "just the facts, ma'am" type of work. In film format, this is perfect. However, in the context of a book, it was as if the author himself shied away from delving more deeply into the brutal crimes and twisted motives he himself was creating - or was simply in a hurry. Additionally, characters' back stories appear to be cut, so that the reader doesn't really form strong connections with the characters, including Winter himself.

*WARNING - MILD SPOILER ALERT*
Spoiler gives vague details about the killer's identity, without revealing any names. These details are only slightly more than the back cover's description, that the killer is playing "a taunt intended for Winter himself."

It comes out towards the end of the book that the killer is someone that may know Winter personally. However, this connection is never explored more in depth. The "final confrontation" is not what I expected, and the end of the book seemed a little anti-climactic because of that.

[Peter Riva · Rating 5 out of 5]

Look, either you love character deiven thriller/crime stories or you don't. If you do, this book (and the one that's coming out in March from S&S) are top notch.
Wonderful writer.

[za_pomniane · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 ⭐

[Deb Jones · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am torn between giving this a 4 or 5-star rating because I have some hesitation about the author's overall style. For now I am going with a 4-star rating, which is no slouch. An interesting plot and cast of characters that sometimes became bogged down for me, but overall it kept my attention and, best of all, had me thinking along with the investigators.

I'm looking forward to reading the next offering in this series.

[Marg · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had to wait a few days to let this book percolate a bit before I wrote a review. While Death Angels had an interesting plot and I was entertained by the story, I had a bit of a problem getting into the book. The novel starts off - bam - at a funeral talking about characters with little introduction and description of who the hell they are or were. That's fine; I'm not stupid; I'll try my best to keep up. Soon more characters are introduced, and more, and, as the reader, I have no idea where they fit into the story or what relationship they have to other characters introduced. And - unfortunately - their names all look the same. I slog on. Don't get me wrong - the story line is interesting and creepy but the main characters and their relationship to one another is confusing. It also doesn't help that I hate the main character, Inspector Winter. This may be because I'm a woman and his treatment of woman in this book - his mother, his sister, the long line of women he has sex with (I can't say "sleeps with" because he never sleeps with them - they have sex, the women leave) - leaves a lot to be desired. I'm not a prude, I understand the fleetingness of modern romance. But Winter treats women like a therapy tool: bend'em over the bed, rip off their underwear, screw'em, and send'em home. He'd probably have a closer relationship with a blow up doll but then who would answer his phone when he's recovering from his "sexual release?" I'm sure men like Inspector Winter exist in this world but I don't have to read about them. Obviously this is a series geared toward "men's men." It's too bad it gets in the way of a great plot line.

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

My first read of Edwardson but not my last.

Erik Winter is a complex character making him all the more interesting. I enjoyed the mix of the procedural of the Swedish and the British cop shops. I enjoyed getting to know the others involved in the investigation, to see their personalities, catch a glimpse into their lives and hope that some will be explored in more depth in future books in the series.

The frustrations shown by the coppers lent an air of authenticity to the story. Edwardson did very well at fleshing out his protagonists.

I'm not sure what it is about Swedish authors in this genre but I'm finding more and more that I really enjoy.

[Calzean · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was hoping this would entice me to read the series but by the end of the book I had had enough of Inspector Winter with his selfish lifestyle and treatment of women as sexual objects. The story revolves around similar murders occurring in Sweden and England. The suspect is found then there was the requirement to find evidence, blah blah.

[Mysterytribune · Rating 4 out of 5]

Åke Edwardson is one of our favorite Swedish novelists and we have reviewed some of the books from his Chief Inspector Winter series in the past (Go here for review of Sun and Shadow and here for Frozen Tracks). Death Angels is another novel in this series and has won the Best Swedish Crime Fiction Award in 1997.

A Brief Summary:

The main plot of "Death Angels" spins around some strange murders of teenage boys that are being committed in both Sweden and London.

Young Swedish men are being tortured and murdered in a similar pattern in both Gothenburg and London. And in all crime scenes, markings of a tripod have been found in the dried blood, as if the murder was filmed.

Inspector Winter flies to London to collaborate with his equivalent lead on the case, Steve Macdonald. They both agree that the murderer is not a typical sociopath and one key question in their mind is why on earth the murderer is committing the crimes. They are both willing to break the rules and do a little illegal activity in search of a clue.

Our Take:

If you want to read the series chronologically, "Death Angels" is the place to start. This crime story has a very formulaic plot but Edwardson provides a lot of richness to it through strong character development which takes us through the mind of a confident, thirty-something homicide detective.

Edwardson writes pure police procedurals, so we should expect large sections dedicated to investigation procedures which might not necessarily provide clues to the main plot in hand. Having said that, the reader shouldn't be discouraged by the pace and the details as the twists and surprises are yet to come in later stages of the book.

Once the the reader thinks everything is figured out, the author provides some nice surprises in the story. The twists come at the right time and leave the reader satisfied with the novel. Overall, this is a solid foundation for a favorite police procedural series and definitely an entertaining read for the fans of Scandinavian Crime fictions. The right order of reading Inspector Winter series is according to the following (unfortunately Death Angels was not the first novel from the series translated into English):

Book 1 – Death Angels
Book 2 – The Shadow Woman
Book 3 – Sun and Shadow
Book 4 – Never End
Book 5 – Frozen Tracks

More at http://www.mysterytribune.com or @mysterytribune

[Dokusha · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ich mag es ja, wenn Krimis ausgefallen sind, aber Edwardsons Stil ist mir zu schräg. Seltsame Sprünge, pseudophilosophische Gedankengänge und das Gefühl, dass er selbst manchmal den Faden verloren hat.
Der Fall an sich ist nicht schlecht, aber mit dem Erzählstil werde ich nicht warm.

[Inga · Rating 3 out of 5]

Audiobook-Rezension:
Krasser Einstieg in die Reihe um Kommissar Winter: In "Tanz mit dem Engel" geht es um Snuff-Movies. Zwei junge Männer werden kurz nacheinander ermordet und dabei gefilmt: Zunächst ein Schwede in London, dann ein Brite in Göteborg. Kommissar Winter kooperiert mit seinem London Kollegen McDonald und bittet gleichzeitig seinen Freund aus Jugendtagen aus der Göteborger Nachtwelt zu Hilfe.

Der Erzählstil ist ungewöhnlich, sprachlich sehr knapp, dennoch entwickelt sich eine Atmosphäre des Unbehagens.
Die Perspektive wechselt rasch zwischen den verschiedenen Kommissaren, was bei dem Hörbuch nicht immer auf Anhieb eindeutig zu erkennen war, da Manfred Zapatka hier stimmlich keine Unterschiede herausarbeitete.
Die Geschichte gewinnt schnell an Tempo und hält die Spannung. Bei der Aufklärung und vor allem bei dem Motiv des Täters fehlt ein bisschen die Authentizität, da plötzlich Psychologie und Winters Vergangenheit eine größere Rolle spielen, wo vorher der persönliche Werdegang des Kommissars wenig wichtig war und die Erzählung duesbezüglich eher Lücken ließ.
Unklar ist hierbei allerdings, ob hier bei der gekürzten Audiofassung vielleicht Dinge auf der Strecke geblieben sind.
Insgesamt solide Krimiunterhaltung.

[Linda Branham · Rating 4 out of 5]

Erik WInter is a Swedish Police Inspector. In this story young boys are murdered in a horrific way in both Sweden and London. Inspector Winter is the lead detective on the case. The story does a good job of character development. Winter is very proper,impeccably dressed, and intelligent... and at the beginning of the story he is dealing with the natural death of a close friend. Inspector WInters counterpart in London is Detective Superintendent Macdonald who is non-conventional in hos choice clothing and hairstyle (he has a ponytail) - and is a good counterbalance to Winter. We also learn a lot about Detective Bergenhem who is a young swedish detective dedicated to his job and trying to prove his worth - especially to Inspector Winter
If you enjoy Swedish mysteriees, this is one worth reading. This is my first book by this author and I will read more. Don;t you love it when you find a new author that you like? :)

[Mary · Rating 3 out of 5]

I do not really know where to start here. The premise was good, but also flawed, and I think there may have been some of this story, lost in translation. It is the first book in the series, maybe things will improve in the second. I had to keep going back and re-reading, because I thought I was missing or skipping over parts of the story. The murder scene was not fully described and I found it frustrating that these details were omitted. Some of the dialogue and descriptive script was just plain crazy. I am willing to give this author another chance, as there is certainly potential, but I just hope he tries not to be too clever and abstract and sticks to writing a good crime story. With all the details included, please.

[Panthère Rousse · Rating 3 out of 5]

Le commissaire Erik Winter, élégant célibataire de 37 ans, enquête de Göteborg à Londres sur des meurtres sanglants de jeunes hommes anglais et suédois. Ses interrogations existentielles et celles de certains de ses collègues prennent un peu trop de place à mon goût dans ce premier épisode des enquêtes de Winter. J'avoue que j'ai eu tendance à survoler certains paragraphes... Mais j'ai assez embarqué dans l'histoire pour avoir du mal à lâcher le livre. Il y a même une trame sonore, si on laisse son imagination voguer au gré des nombreux disques de jazz (surtout Coltrane) qu'écoute Erik Winter. J'ai déjà lu dans la même série Un cri si lointain et c'est nettement mieux.

[Michele · Rating 1 out of 5]

Another sexual pervert serial killer, this time in Sweden. Why do I do this to myself? The writing was tortured. Example:"It had been the kind of year that refuses to let go. It spun every which way and bit its own tail like a rabid dog." This type of thing wears thin very quickly. And it turned out that the killer, or one of them, was an old high school friend and rival of the wealthy detective hero. and guess what else?? The detective completely forgot that this guy had been institutionalized back then. He finally asked his alcoholic mother. That's just not fair.

[Ammar · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not bad start for a promising series than takes place in the city of Gothenburg in Sweden. a crime takes place in London and in Sweden.. is it a serial killer.. the mystery that keeps Inspector Winter on his tip-toe..

[Bettie · Rating 2 out of 5]

nuut

Not the best. First in the series coupled with a different translator.
NEXT

[Elizabeth Sulzby · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ake Edwardson, Death Angels

Noir in most dreaded ways: Death Angels is one of my latest forays into Swedish crime novels/Scandanavian noir and noir it truly is. My review will be affected greatly by the fact that I am an American reader and dependent upon English translations; however, I have spent some time in different Scandinavian countries and also in the Netherlands and also have some interest in aspects of the histories of these countries. I have just finished Death Angels at 4 a.m. and am in the mood that reading it has brought upon me. I am wrestling with why this particular novel has its particular mood--part of my wrestling is that this book has a great feeling of artificiality to me that keeps me from rating it 5 stars and yet at the end it was greatly satisfying as a novel while still being greatly upsetting to me by its enactment of the creation of snuff films as the ostensible primary plot line. (I will return to why I say this is the ostensible plot line later, after tracing my readings of other authors in this genre.)

I started my readings of Scandinavian crime novels with Steig Larssen's popular Millenium trilogy (Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, etc.) and worked my way backwards into the history of these greatly detailed novels. My intrigue with Larssen was the dark nature of the crimes but I was also taken with the main male character Mikael Blomkvists's obsession with reflecting on the nature of democracy in Sweden. The main female character, Lisbeth Salander, is intriguing to me in her own right. However, for me, I was drawn to the interplay between these two main characters: their interlocking but different obsessions with the nature of right and wrong; whether legality in society is superfluous or necessary; and whether or not the future of their own lives truly matter. The popularity of this trilogy in the USA to me seemed more about the oddity of Lisbeth Salander's character and less about the deeper issues that Steig Larssen seemed to be mulling over through both characters. Then Larssen's suicide heightened my interest in his own writings and those of his literary forebearers.

An article in Wikipedia implies that the current swell in reading these novels was started not with Larssen but with Danish writer Peter Hoeg's Smilla's Sense of Snow. Indeed, I had read that novel a number of times when it was first translated into English. I read other of Hoeg's work but finally lost interest through no fault of Hoeg but for reasons I do not recall now--perhaps other events in my life such as work and family.

Death Angels is the first of a series of “police procedurals” by Ake Edwardson called the Chief Inspector Erik Winter Series, Swedish copyright 1997 and English translation 2009. This gave the novel the weight of introducing us to Winter as a character that he takes effort to treat as standing out as urbane, sophisticated, a lover of jazz and good food, tall, good looking, charismatic. The London inspector Steve Macdonald (who we learn is Scots) character is used to set off the contrast with Winter, which he points out through wry comments and innuendo. The urbanity of Winter is also used to let us know he has a love life, including a lover named Angela, and has been to London many times before, knowing areas of London, its clubs, and its music stores.

The Winter series follows well in the footsteps of Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo’s ten Martin Beck crime novels, collectively titled The Story of a Crime. Sjowall and Wahloo are credited with situating the solution of a crime into a group effort within a police unit with a “star” but the star as part of a group of police personnel with lots of cases going on at the same time as the highlighted case. Death Angels fits this description quit well but that made it very confusing to me for a long time into this slim novel (295 pages, waterlogged and well worn in my library copy).

Death Angels is set both in Gothenburg, Sweden, and in South London. The hero, Erik Winter, travels between Gothenburg, Sweden's second largest city as Winter and others point out repeatedly, and South London, a part of London where the white and black citizens often come into conflict and live in segregated although contingent areas. Author Edwardian spends a good bit of detail describing Winter's walks through parts of South London and reflecting on these issues. He is in South London because of the first death of a Swedish young man from Gothenburg who had gone to London, perhaps to "learn the ways of the world," ways which were deadly. But this is not the last death in Death Angels and a second one happens while Winter is in London.

It is not until page 210 that I was certain that the killer in this mystery was striking yet again—and I had to go back and be certain that was the case. This is the turning point in the timing of the book for me—a pretty late turning point. At this point the tempo started up and the unwinding of the mystery began. For me, those last 85 pages had the “feeling” of taking up much more of the novel in terms of psychological time.

In the previous 209 pages, the novel had dragged a bit and the various plot threads were confusing. Perhaps if I had thought of the Martin Beck series more explicitly, I might have had more patience. For instance, back in Sweden, Bergenhem appears to be a cop gone rogue, leaving his greatly pregnant wife Martina for days and hours with a woman he meets in a strip club. This woman he calls alternatively Angel/Marianne/Angel as she describes her childhood traumas to him and avoids telling him what he wants to know about the nature of the various “strip clubs” that seem to hide darker aspects based on what the reader is led to believe are the selling and viewing of “snuff films” or something ominously worse. Even at the end of the novel, I am not sure how far Bergenhem went into an obsession and how much he remained the “cop on duty,” and we are led to think that Bergenhem himself was not certain about that.

Death Angels also takes forward Henning Mankell’s emphasis on Sweden’s problems with its immigrant populations, particularly those with dark skin. In Death Angels, Winter and Macdonald and other characters use the words white and black frequently with even one young mentally handicapped witness stuttering repeatedly over those words, Wh—i-ite, and Bl—aa-ck. Winter reflects on this as he walks the streets of the area of London where Macdonald’s teams are situated. Characters tell him of the lack of jobs, with withdrawal of social supports, and of ways the two contrasting communities relate to each other.
Mankell is one of my favorite authors, not just for the Kurt Wallander series, but for his novels set at least partly in Africa and dealing with how current citizens, poor, rich, and in-between, travel around the globe and interact with each other.

Edwardson makes much of the blue eyed blond haired stereotype of Swedish males in this novel and this starts out right in the first two short chapters. The first victim, Per Malmstrom, was killed in London and much is made of whether or not the “kid’s hair was dark,” as Winter says, or blonde as various witnesses say. As this stereotype repeats about other characters, I was drawn to recall the reputed origins of the term “Anglo Saxon,” for which it has been cited as these people looked “like Angels.” It just hit me that I do not remember the word devil in the book, but the word “evil” is used frequently as what these investigators and victims are facing.

So “Death Angels,” the title: we have two female characters called by a form of the word angel and we have Swedish young men who are killed. We also have at least one villain who has fair skin and hair. What to make of the word “angels” in the title and novel? I am still not sure.

I wrote at the outset of this review that [Death Angels] “. . . was greatly satisfying as a novel while still being greatly upsetting to me by its enactment of the creation of snuff films as the ostensible primary plot line” and I said I would explain why I treat this as the ostensible plot line rather than actual plot line. True, there is at least one snuff film and there may have been others—that is never very clear. But the key film is the enactment of a childhood rivalty. This rivalry is woven in throughout the novel and is perhaps the most satisfactory aspect of the novel. It somewhat relieves me of my dislike of the description of Erik Winter as this urbane fellow who shouldn’t be a police investigator at all and all his peculiarities that his fellow officers react to.

Are we to take Erik Winter as partly “angel” in contrast with his childhood rival? Hmmm. Angels are unattainable creatures and the author has let us know deliberately and with emphasis that Winter’s rival is also “mad,” mentally deranged even though he can act quite sane in daily life.

This is weighty stuff and, for me, made the celebration at the end very puzzling and unsatisfactory. For others, it may work quite well. I look forward to reading at least one more in this series and at that point I will decide if Ake Edwardson’s Winter series has grabbed me.

I have given a few spoilers thus far but I will not give away the finale except to say that three characters are used skillfully to set up the suspense and final conclusion. The one that was the most unresolved for me was “the burglar” and I wonder if he will appear in other writing by Edwardson.


(Footnote: At this point, other authors in this general category that I have read include Jo Nesbo, Jussi Adler-Olsen, Arnaldur Indrison and I am just starting to read Kjell Eriksson.)

[Ver · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was really trying hard to concentrate on this book but I just can't. The voice of the reader together with the stupid talk of the characters makes it impossible for me. I can't bear stupid dialogues in a book so I decided to drop it after about two hours of listening. I have many other interesting books so I'm not going to waste my time on this.

[Karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not bad for a first book in a series, but not great. I will try the next in one in the series. Chief Inspector Erik Winter is in charge of a murder investigation in Sweden of teenage boys. The murders are horrific and in a pattern that makes it clear that the same person is doing the killing.

[Christine · Rating 3 out of 5]

Enjoyable but at times a bit tedious - too much introspection on the part of the main protagonists

[aleksandra ᯓ★ · Rating 2 out of 5]

zmeczylam sie, nawet behawiorysta mroza mnie bardziej wciagnal niz ten kryminal bez praktycznie zadnej akcji…

[Koala · Rating 1 out of 5]

Dnf

[Lauren Edlund · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 1/2 stars.

[Tory Wagner · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this mystery engaging but felt the translation was a little clunky and kept taking my attention away from the storyline.

[Mike Cuthbert · Rating 4 out of 5]

Erik Winter is the youngest Chief Inspector in Sweden. He is also a fan of fine food and good jazz. When confronted with murders in Gothenburg and London that seem to be connected, he teams up with Steve Macdonald of Britain and they track the killer or killers through the world of porn, snuff films and such. Involved in the investigation is Bergenhem, a young patrolman in Gothenberg. His wife is on the verge of delivering her first child but Bergenhem gets involved with a hooker/dancer in the investigation and is torn. Though he has no sex relations with the hooker, Martina, he wants to have relations with her and the guilt is overwhelming. In the process of tracing all of the stories of all involved in the search for the killer(s) we get a good view of Swedish vs. British law enforcement procedures and an elegant inspection of Winter’s lifestyle. He seldom drinks alcohol, for example, preferring mineral or even tap water, dresses elegantly and always, always prefers jazz over any other form of music with Coltrane being at the top of his list. The clues are few, and what they have are misleading, Winter has his preferences among a wide variety of women and the plot does not race along at breakneck speed, but the atmosphere is elegant and unforced—a break from the usual. Winter may be an acquired taste, but he is a very cool taste and his lifestyle is only for the rich and famous so it’s a good read!