Tangled Web UK Review August 2006
Borkmann's Point by
Hakan Nesser
pbk out May 07
(Pan)
at £6.99
In the space of a few years, the trickle of Eurocrime into the British bookshops has
become a flood. The latest Swedish writer to be published here is Nesser, who is
already much acclaimed elsewhere. This is the first English publication of a book
which originally appeared in 1994, although the time lag does not in any way detract
from the interest of the story. Chief Inspector Van Veeteren is called to a rather eerie
coastal town to assist with inquiries into a couple of axe murders. A third killing
follows and eventually a member of the detective team vanishes. The pace is by no
means as breathless as in the usual serial killer novel, and there are plenty of
digressions as the chess-playing cop muses on the possible link between the crimes.
The quirky characters are well-presented although few of the various potential
suspects are explored in depth, a feature which reduces the surprise value of the
ultimate solution. Borkmann's point, we learn eventually, is simply 'that beyond
which we really don't need any more information'. All the clues to the solution, in
other words, are already in the detective's possession; he just needs to do some
'decent thinking'. This is in effect a modern spin on the Golden Age idea of the
'challenge to the reader' to work out the solution to a complicated whodunit before it
is revealed. An intriguing idea and an intriguing, offbeat book.
(
Martin Edwards
- author of the highly acclaimed Harry Devlin Mysteries)
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