[Book Review] Woman with a Birthmark by Håkan Nesser

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: ⭐ ⭐ 1/2
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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.

Book Chat: Borkmann’s Point by Hakan Nesser

Borkmann’s Point: An Inspector Van Veeteren Mystery
by Håkan Nesser
Paperback, 321
Translation Published June 2009 by Vintage (First Published 1994)
Translated by Laurie Thompson
Rating: 3/5

Could it be true there is

a necessity behind most murders, a compulsion stronger than anything behind [an]other action? (BK — 294-295).

Perhaps it’s true or perhaps it’s nothing but pure hokum.  The Axman in Håkan Nesser‘s Borkmann’s Point certainly thought murder was a necessary means to an end.

Borkmann’s Point is the second installment in the Inspector Van Veeteren Mystery series.  I didn’t enjoy Borkmann’s Point as much as I hoped.  Even after the second read.  The plot was very thin and the characters, except for Beate Moerk, remained static.  Oddly enough I didn’t like DCI Van Veeteren as much in this novel as much as I liked him in Mind’s Eye (click here to read my review).

Inspector Van Veeteren is on vacation and asked to assist with two gruesome murders in nearby Kalbringen in which the heads of two victims have been severed with what is suspected to be an ax. Van Veeteren is just as cantankerous

Book Chat: Mind’s Eye by Hakan Nesser

Mind’s Eye: An Inspector Van Veeteren Mystery
by Håkan Nesser
Paperback, 278
Translation Published June 2009 by Vintage (First Published 1993)
Translated by Laurie Thompson
Rating: 4/5

When I read Mind’s Eye by Hakan Nesser the first time, I didn’t like at all. I didn’t get it and I didn’t know how I could write a review about a book I disliked so intensely. I put it in the pile of books (finished, unfinished, not yet read) and forgot about it. I came across it when I was going through the pile and thought I should give it another shot. And I’m glad I did! 😛

Mind’s Eye by Swedish author Hakan Nesser is the first novel in the Detective Chief Inspector (DCI) Van Veeteren series, which takes place in the fictional city of Maardam in Northern Europe.  It is a crime procedural about a cantankerous police detective, DCI Van Veeteren on the hunt for a killer.  He is not, convinced the right man (Janek Mitter) has been convicted of murdering his wife (Eva Ringmar).