When I picked this book to read, I was under the impression that it was the first in a series featuring female police inspector Ann Lindell of Uppsala, Sweden. It soon became apparent that it was not the first. Evidently, it is actually the fourth in the series but was the first to be translated into English.Never mind. The author actually does a good job of providing the backstories of his main characters, so I did not feel as lost as I might have.This is a police procedural, much in the vein of Ed McBain or Sjowall and Wahloo. It features a unit of the Uppsala police that is led by Inspector Lindell, but, in fact, in this particular book, Lindell is on maternity leave and she is only tangentially involved in the investigation of the crimes detailed. This is where it would have been useful to have read the previous book in order to get the full story of how she came to be where she is in her life. She has a nine-month-old baby son named Erik. She is a single mother, living alone with the baby in an apartment, and she is getting very antsy because she misses her job and the daily contact with her co-workers. We learn a bit about Sweden's social safety net for new mothers, which seems quite impressive. Some readers might find such details extraneous, but I actually found them fascinating. There are two murders to investigate, as well as an assault on a woman, and it is not clear at first whether there is a connection between them. All of this is handled by the unit which Lindell left behind when she went on maternity leave. She actually doesn't make an appearance in the book until about the halfway point. But with the murder of a young man that she knew from having interviewed him in relation to a crime that happened several years ago, she feels inexorably drawn to the investigation and can't help getting involved.I really quite liked this group of police officers. They are presented as simply ordinary, everyday people, who are engaged and involved in their community and who are trying to do the best job that they can to protect it. We get to know some of their flaws as well as their strengths. There are no bad guys among them - although one of them does have a bit of a xenophobic streak - and they go about their jobs methodically and by the book. They are quite different from some of the messed-up Scandinavian police characters we've come to know through Henning Mankell and Jo Nesbo, for example. No dour, psychosomatic, angry policemen (or women) here. And, yes, I was quite taken with the idea of having a woman lead the team. How refreshing!I felt the plot and the characters were well-developed and the way the story was told did give me some insight into Swedish society and expanded my horizons. I like that in a book.The one thing that really puzzled me at first was the title. What does The Princess of Burundi have to do with Uppsala, Sweden? But eventually we do learn where the title comes from, although even then, I felt it was a bit misleading.I like Kjell Ericsson's style of writing and felt that this book showed great promise. I look forward to reading more in the series.
"Życie było zbiorem przypadkowych okoliczności i zawiedzionych nadziei…"Księżniczka z Burundi – wyjątkowo piękna rybka, będąca cennym okazem dla niejednego miłośnika akwarystyki. Hodować można ją jedynie w dużych zbiornikach wodnych, a taki miał właśnie John Jonsson, główny „nieżywy” bohater książki Kjella Erikssona."Grudzień. Czas ciemności." Ciągle osypujący Uppsalę śnieg nikogo nie dziwi. Czego oczekiwać w środku zimy, zwłaszcza na kilka dni przed Świętami Bożego Narodzenia? Wbrew pozorom wyglądająca za mężem kobieta, czekająca na niego z kolacją także pozostawia nas bez emocji, bo która z nas tego nie robi? Sytuacja jednak się komplikuje, kiedy mężczyzna nie powraca na noc, a jego zwłoki – i to brutalnie ugodzone nożem – zostają odnalezione kolejnego dnia w nieopodal leżącym Libroback. Z powodu braku poszlak i narastających trudności z odkryciem mordercy do śledztwa zostaje wciągnięta komisarz Ann Lindell, policjantka przebywająca obecnie na urlopie macierzyńskim.Kjell Eriksson bardzo sprawnie lawiruje pomiędzy wątkami. Raz śledzimy pracę wydziału kryminalnego, innym razem pijemy kawę podczas świątecznych zakupów, a następnym zasypiamy wtuleni pod ciepłym kocem. Każda z postaci jest dość wyraźnie zarysowana, choć zabrakło mi ich portretów psychologicznych. Niby mamy garstkę emocji, niby wtapiamy się w realność tej historii, ale nie identyfikujemy się z bohaterami. Śledzimy jednak kolejne wątki z zapartym tchem już od pierwszych stron książki. Kiedy Berit wygląda męża, dostrzega cień pomiędzy śmietnikami przed domem. Ubrana w ciemnozieloną kurtkę postać nas nie odstępuje, bowiem co i rusz przewija się w tej historii. Podobnie zagadkowy staje się dla nas motyw ukrycia przez Justusa kartonu należącego do ojca. Przywodzi to na myśl nie tylko fakt, że Mały John obawiał się swojej śmierci czy aresztowania, ale i wtajemniczył w intrygę swojego syna…Jestem zafascynowana. Sądzę, że to dobre stwierdzenie kończące tę recenzję. Księżniczka Burundi to książka, która zdecydowanie przekonała mnie do autora, a jednocześnie została uznana za Najlepszą Powieść Roku wg Szwedzkiej Akademii Literatury Kryminalnej. Brzmi dumnie, prawda? Wcale jednak mnie to nie dziwi. Szczegółowo spleciona fabuła, dobrze dopracowane wątki, i co i rusz pojawiająca się niepewność. Wierzcie mi, że dawno nie czytałam tak świetnie stworzonej powieści. Lektura zabrała mi dwa wieczory. Leżałam w łóżku kartkując tę publikację i wcale nie miałam ochoty pójść spać. Każdy rozdział zaskakuje, w każdym pojawia się kolejny element układanki, ale do zakończenia historii jeszcze bardzo długa droga, bo… kto zabił Małego Johna? Ile odkryje Lennart, a ile zdoła obnażyć policja?
Do You like book The Princess Of Burundi (2007)?
I don't usually read a lot of crime fiction but I borrowed this one from a friend, intrigued by the title and the snowy Swedish woods on the cover. A body is found, a bunch of people try to figure out why he was killed. It's okay. I think the best part of this book is its attempt to characterize all the members of the police department looking into the murder, as well as their relationships with each other. I assume the approach has borne fruit in later books by Eriksson, but I probably will not read those as it's not my genre. With this one, it was slow going at first--about fifty pages of frustratingly unsure and even self-contradictory character exposition (could be due to translation problems?)--but I did eventually get caught up and sped through to the end.My mounting frustration with titles derived from female characters gained force from this one. One can see where "The Princess of Burundi" comes from in the novel, but again it seems to put a character at the center who really doesn't earn that place. It feels pretty arbitrary. Oh well, at least it doesn't identify a female character through possession by a male, as do "The Hangman's Daughter" and "The Tiger's Wife."
—Susan
Is there some reason why there are so many Swedes now writing police procedurals?? Anyway, this is very much in the Martin Beck (or now, Kurt Wallander) school of police detective novel. I didn't think such a thing was possible, but this group (the police) almost seemed too screwed up to be either entertaining or believable. And I guess I prefer for the focus to be more heavily on one character rather than on the ensemble. One review describes Ann Lindel as the main detective - wouldn't have bee
—Michael
OK, so I read many of the other reviews about this book before I started to read it. If I had taken any notice, I wouldn't have even turned the first page. I'm glad that I took no notice and went with my liking for dark Scandinavian novels.So, some people don't like the way a different viewpoint is taken virtually at every chapter and sometimes even within the chapter - you get used to this style - it's different - the plot moves on. Others think the plot doesn't hang together - really? I got it, it just takes some work - which is worth taking; this is not a novel to skim read. As for the characters - there is obviously a back story weaving through the plot - it makes it more interesting and I liked the characters.So, to sum up, and without even mentioning the story line (many other reviews will tell you that), I enjoyed my journey through the bleak, cold town of Uppsala with the inhabitants and their often dysfunctional lives. Did I mention I like Scandinavian novels? Oh, yes I did. Try it if you do too.
—Yve-Anne
