The Shadow Woman by Ake Edwardson (1998).
Another
Swedish Master of crime.
As
dark and gloomy as Wallander.
Any
Swedish writers who get their works translate into English are good and Ake
Edwardson is no exception.
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layers. – Eric Winter. A chief inspector in homicide. He’s made
inspector at the age of 35 (A record in Sweden).
He tends to get obsessed with his
case and that of course demolishes his relationship with his family and his
girl friend.
He is tall and handsome guy with
blond pony-tail.
It is not mentioned in this book
how he owns everything he has, but Winter is quite rich with good clothes and
Mercedes.
Bertil Rigman. Homicide’s third inspector
and the head of Surveillance.
A very patient man and a good friend
of Winter.
Sture Birgersson. Very typical department
commander who is neither too smart nor too ambitious. Great with media and
great at saying nothing but pretends otherwise to media. A good boss who
supports his troops.
Fredrik Halders. Just divorced, very violent
cop.
Goran Beier. Second detective inspector.
Head of Forensics.
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lace. – Winter is based on the city called Gothenburg, Sweden.
This case takes him around quite
a few cities in Sweden and a
police HQ in Denmark
which apparently can be reached with just a simple ferry ride.
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lot. –Like all great European ( Swedish ) mysteries,
it takes quite a while to develop the story. In this case, it takes about half
the book to finally get something going.
At first, because this is my
first Ake Edwardson book, I thought maybe, I got busted this time. But, man, am
I wrong!
Once
it starts rolling, it rolls like THUNDERBIRD!!
With
intelligence!
You see, because he spends half
the book, very patiently builds up the background and all the characters, even
if the pace becomes really fast from the middle part of the book, you never
lose touch of where you are and what you are reading. The work of very
meticulous master.
From about half way of the book,
flurry of evidence starts throwing unto the story, and slowly but steady all
the pieces finds its places.
By now, you already know all the
players so well, thanks to meticulous development of each and every character,
you can easily associate yourself with
good guys, especially Winter.
You can feel the same kind of
excitement/desperation Winter feels and that is the requirement of “GREAT
MYSTERY”, and Edwarson pulls it out very masterfully. You gotta give it to him.
And ending? Oh, what an ending.
No, you won’t find any
spectacular chase scene or final face off between good and evil. The one the
author provides you here is very calm down but a little creepy one, Just
perfect for this book.
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erdict. – This book starts slowly, but
once it gets going, it sure knows how to accelerate and reaches the finish line
with everything it has.
A very skillfully constructed
mystery which will satisfy you with interesting characters and deep imagination
and little bit of spice (creepy stuff ) at the end. Another beautiful book.
