More Scandi Noir. I think it’s the dark nights and cold weather that means I’m drawn to the genre during the winter. I know it’s spring now but I haven’t quite caught up blogging about the books I read last month yet. Just this one and one more to go, then I have February checked off.
Hakan Nesser is a Swedish author whose character Chief Inspector Van Veeteren has become a firm favourite of the Scandi Noir lovers.
I first came across him in Borkmann’s Point – for once I managed to read the first book in the series first – and I love the way Nesser draws his character. On the ‘gloomy meditation’ front, Van Veeteren is comparable to Kurt Wallander.
As with Borkmann’s Point, The Mind’s Eye has a lovely array of beautifully drawn characters with weird and wonderful personalities. Importantly, all are believable.
The Mind’s Eye also includes a complicated story with great plot twists.
Janek Mitter – a teacher – wakes up in his bathroom with no memory of who he is, where he is or what has happened. There’s a beautiful woman dead in the bathroom and she has been brutally attacked.
The woman turns out to be his wife but, even when he is brought to trial for her murder, Janek can remember nothing about that night or who might have attacked his wife.
He is sentenced to be locked up in an asylum for the criminally insane where he does have a brief insight into what happened and writes it down in a bible. But then he is killed before the clue is uncovered.
Van Veeteren suspects that someone in Eva Mitter’s life has led to this double murder and begins digging into her past, unveiling a tragic history and a killer.
This is fast paced and quirky and the courtroom scenes at the beginning is great.
Hakan Nesser is among my favourite Scandi Noir authors, along with Jo Nesbo, Ragnar Jonasson, Yrsa Siggurdadottir and Arnaldur Indridason and this novel certainly didn’t disappoint.
Raynor Reads Stuff 