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Woman With Birthmark (2009)

Woman with Birthmark (2009)

Book Info

Author
Genre
Rating
3.79 of 5 Votes: 4
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ISBN
0375425047 (ISBN13: 9780375425042)
Language
English
Publisher
pantheon

About book Woman With Birthmark (2009)

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.

3 1/2 entretenidas estrellas, pero...Esto es lo que me ha pasado con esta novela, aunque estoy casi segura de que ello no ha afectado a la nota final: a mi ejemplar, de la biblioteca, le faltaban las ocho (8!) (pen)últimas páginas :O Sí, esa cara se me ha quedado, aunque la cosa ha sido tan surrealista que las páginas perdidas eran de la 292 a la 300 y me dejaron de propina la 301... así que, bueno, no es tan difícil suponer lo que pasaba en las que faltan, teniendo en cuenta el punto al que había llegado la historia y el propio punto final. Lo dicho, la nota no varía (eso supongo, excepto gran sorpresa que me esté perdiendo).¡En fin! Que, por lo mismo, mi comentario no puede ser totalmente válido, pero aún así que quede esto dicho: aunque la historia no es el summum de la originalidad, y el lector sabe mucho y tiene claro el porqué de lo que sucede, no obstante la novela está bien escrita, el ritmo es perfecto para una historia negra y los personajes tienen su chispa. Especialmente de agradecer eso que al principio era nota distintiva del género en su versión moderna, y sobre manera en el escandinavo: los investigadores son eso más que nada, y la vida personal es accesoria pero no protagonista... porque hemos llegado a un punto en el que el investigador y sus dramas roban protagonismo al caso. La investigación en sí, y los procedimientos, tienen grandes visos de realismo, y aunque la historia en sí (asesinato tras asesinato) es bastante tremenda, lo cierto es que el autor no se regodea.En resumen, buena lectura de género, y un grupo de investigación y estilo narrativo lo suficientemente interesantes como para que a uno no le importe repetir.Y que quede claro, por si alguien aún no lo sabe, que este género está lejos de ser mi favorito, pero curiosamente (y ya lo he dicho más de una vez), me parece apto como lectura ligera. Por no mencionar que en la biblioteca crecen como setas... :/

Do You like book Woman With Birthmark (2009)?

Very enjoyable Scandinavian crime fiction.Although it is a '#4' it is completely readable as a stand alone, it is a bit bleaker than several other Swedish crime novels I have read but the style completely suites the story.A woman is leaving her mothers funeral, she was the only mourner and just before her mother died she charged her with doing something very specific. Though we gradually realise the 'something' involves killing people off a list the reason is not spelled out for us.Skip to Inspector Van Veeteren, a man is murdered, then another one, the investigation team must find what links the men to find the murdered and stop them before they kill more...Very enjoyable crime novel.
—Deborah Ideiosepius

Od dawna gdzie tylko mam okazję opowiadam jakie to fajne książki pisze Håkan Nesser. Uczciwie przy tym dodaję, że jednak seria o inspektorze Barbarottim jest sporo ciekawsza niż starsze książki o komisarzu Van Veeterenie. Kolejnym tom przygód tego ostatniego utwierdza mnie w moim przekonaniu. Książka jest na pewno inna od większości kryminałów, ale “tego czegoś”, co było obecne w praktycznie każdej z pięciu części serii o Barbarottim tu jednak nie ma.Håkan Nesser zawsze ma do pokazania ciekawy dramat. I dramat prawdziwy, opisany wpierw oszczędnie, powoli rozbudowywany, by w końcu uderzyć i wywołać u czytelnika prawdziwą depresję. Realizm to mocna strona tego pisarza, plus talent do przedstawiania brutalnego świata tak, że nikt nie ma wątpliwości - tak właśnie świat wygląda. Przy czym Nesser nie jest nachalny ani egzaltowany, nie napawa się własną wizją, co tym lepszy daje efekt.W przypadku serii o Van Veeterenie pisarz jednak trochę za bardzo zaniedbuje swoich bohaterów. Kryminał bez ciekawej postaci to kryminał słaby. O ile sprawca zamieszania w “Kobiecie ze znamieniem” jest niezwykle interesujący, to niestety sam Van Veeteren i jego koledzy to znacznie bardziej tło, niż mocno nakreślone postaci. To już bodajże czwarta książka z serii, a my wciąż nie wiemy jak wyglądało jego małżeństwo, dlaczego doszło do rozwodu, z jakiego powodu jego syn (syn komisarza policji!) spędził tyle czasu w więzieniu. A ja bym chciał wiedzieć, nie wystarcza mi przedstawienie bohatera jako dość twardego, wielce marudnego, bywającego utrapieniem dla współpracowników plus niestety zaledwie średnio uzdolnionego policjanta.Smutna prawda w przypadku “Kobiety ze znamieniem” wygląda tak, że gdyby to był pisarz mi nieznany, to prawdopodobnie straciłbym zaangażowanie w lekturę. Po ponad połowie uświadomiłem sobie, że książka idzie mi tak wolno właśnie dlatego, że bywa zwyczajnie… nudna. Tylko magia nazwiska powodowała, że brnąłem dalej, doskonale wiedząc, że nawet jeśli treść jest nudnawa to wyjaśnienie z ostatnich stron powieści będzie bardziej niż zadowalające. No i było.
—Pablos

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.
—Mark Stevens

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