Hour of the wolf An Inspector Van Veeteren mystery

Håkan Nesser, 1950-

Book - 2016

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MYSTERY/Nesser Hakan
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Subjects
Genres
Mystery fiction
Published
New York : Pantheon Books [2016]
Language
English
Swedish
Main Author
Håkan Nesser, 1950- (-)
Other Authors
Laurie Thompson, 1938- (translator)
Edition
First United States edition
Physical Description
309 pages ; 25 cm
ISBN
9780307906878
Contents unavailable.
Review by Booklist Review

In Maardam, Sweden, the hit-and-run murder of a teenager launches a chain of events that claims four lives before police unravel the cases' barely discernible connections. The driver scours away the evidence of his drunken crime and lays low. But when a blackmailer threatens to reveal the driver's secret, the upper-crust killer plots a violent solution. Meanwhile, Van Veeteren, still revered as the chief inspector even in retirement, is devastated when his son, Erich, is found bludgeoned to death. The Maardam police are stonewalled by lack of evidence but begin making headway after Van Veeteren uses his instincts to discover a perplexing motive. Often curmudgeonly, Van Veeteren displays a softer side as he struggles to deal with Erich's death, and the result makes a magnificent contrast to the killer's dispassionate voice. Like Kate Atkinson, Nesser draws believable lines between crimes in this series' sixth tale, linking them with a trail of psychological crumbs and adding a bit of heart to the series' moody atmosphere and cerebral thrills.--Tran, Christine Copyright 2015 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Library Journal Review

Nesser's latest mystery is all about shifting gears. A drunk driver runs down a teenager, leaving him at the side of the road. He drives away and resumes his life, until he receives a blackmail note. Someone knows what he did, and the driver sets out to stop the blackmailer. Shift gears. The new lead detective of the Maardam police force, Inspector Reinhart is investigating the murder of someone close to the now retired Inspector Van Veeteren. Reenter Van Veeteren, who, with the aid of his old team, makes the necessary connections to pull the two cases together. Verdict The seventh series installment (after Münster's Case), originally published in Swedish in 1999, offers plenty of twists and suspense, switching between the perpetrator's perspective and the investigators' until the well-done denouement. Devotees of Karin Fossum, Arnaldur Indridason, and Henning Mankell will enjoy this series, if they haven't discovered it already. [See Prepub Alert, 7/13/15.]-Frances Thorsen, Chronicles of Crime Bookshop, Victoria, BC © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review

Now that he's retired from the Maardam CID, Chief Inspector Van Veeteren (Mnster's Case, 2012, etc.) gets to try on an unwelcome new role: grieving father. On his way home from an evening with his girlfriend, 16-year-old Wim Felders is killed by a hit-and-run driver. The police don't suspect a thing, but someone else does, someone who saw the accident scene and is willing to blackmail the driver. The unidentified driver, who's just taken up with Vera Miller, a married nurse from the New Rumsford Hospital, has different ideas and promptly murders the man who picks up the bundle of cash he's just dropped off. This time the police are brought to attention by the identification of that second victim as Erich Van Veeteren, the beloved Chief Inspector's ex-con, ex-addict son. Knowing nothing of the blackmail attempt, they grind through a series of interviews, beginning with Marlene Frey, Erich's pregnant fiancee, without knowing what breakthrough they're looking for or how to recognize it when they find it. Things are no better for the murderer, who receives a second blackmail note that reveals, to his consternation, that he's killed the wrong man and that whoever has his number now plans to squeeze him much harder than before. Van Veeteren, who at first seems to have nothing to do but dispense sage observations"A crime is born in the gap between the morality of society and that of the individual"turns out to play a satisfyingly crucial role in breaking the case. No frills, no subplots, no unnecessary moving parts: an autumnal procedural that illustrates what superior results you can get by stripping away the extras. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

The bus zoomed past just as he emerged onto the sidewalk.   He raised his hand automatically, in an attempt to persuade the driver to stop. Then he launched into a long series of curses as he watched the rear lights fade away up the hill toward the university.   Shit! he thought. Why do they have to be dead on time tonight of all nights? Typical. Fucking typical.   But when he checked the time he realized that in fact he was five minutes late--so he had nobody to blame but himself.   Himself and Katrina. Mustn't forget her. Thinking of her made him feel better. He gritted his teeth and heaved up his backpack, opened up his hood and adjusted it, then set off walking.   It would take him forty-five or fifty minutes, but he would be home by shortly after midnight no matter what. No big deal. His mother would be sitting at the kitchen table, waiting for him--he could take that for granted, of course. Sitting there with that reproachful look she had perfected over the years, saying nothing but implying everything. But it was no big deal. Anybody could miss the last bus--it could happen to the best families.   When he came to the Keymer churchyard, he hesitated--wondering whether or not to take the shortcut through it. He decided to skirt around it: it didn't look all that inviting in there among all the graves and the chapels, especially in view of the frosty mist creeping through the streets and alleys from the black canals. Intent on tucking the town into bed in its funeral shroud, it seemed. Once and for all.   He shuddered and started walking more quickly. I could have stayed, he thought out of the blue. Could have phoned Mom and stayed with Katrina. She'd have kicked up a fuss of course, but what could she have done about it? The last bus had already gone. A taxi would have been too expensive, and it was neither the time nor the weather for a young boy to be wandering around on his own.   Nor for his mom to be urging him to do so.   But these were mere thoughts. He pressed on notwithstanding. Through the municipal forest--along the sparsely lit path for cyclists and pedestrians, half-running if truth be told, and emerg­ing onto the main road sooner than expected. He took a deep breath, and slowed down. Not far to go now, he thought. Just the long, boring walk along the main road--nothing to look forward to, to be honest. There wasn't a lot of room for pedestrians and cyclists. Just a narrow strip between the ditch and the road along which to walk the tightrope, and the cars traveled at high speed. There was no speed limit, and no street lighting to speak of.   Twenty minutes' walk along a dark road in November. He'd walked only a few hundred yards before a cold wind blew up and dispersed the mist, and it started pouring down.   Oh, shit! he thought. I could have been in bed with Katrina now. Naked, with Katrina pressed up against me, her warm body and caressing hands, her legs and her breasts that he had very nearly managed to touch . . . This rain must surely be a sign.   But he kept on walking. Kept on walking through the rain and the wind and the darkness, thinking about the girl who would be his first.   Would have been.   ***   He had parked slightly askew, was forced to back out, and just when he thought he had managed it to perfection he bumped into a dark-colored Opel, hitting it with his right rear bumper.   Oh, dammit! he thought. Why didn't I take a taxi? He opened the door carefully and peered back. Realized that it was only a glancing blow and nothing to worry about. A mere scratch. He closed the door. Besides, he told himself, the windows were all fogged up and he could hardly see out of them.   He didn't bother to work out just how relevant that was, but instead drove rapidly out of the square and down to Zwille with no difficulty. There wasn't much traffic about; he reckoned he would be home in a quarter of an hour, twenty minutes at most, and   while he sat waiting for the traffic lights in Alexanderlaan to turn green he started wondering if in fact there was any of that euca­lyptus bath gel left. He was slow to react when the lights changed, and stalled. Restarted in a hurry and raced the engine--this fuck­ing dampness was causing havoc. . . . Then he cut the corner as he turned and hit the traffic island.   Only with the front wheel, of course. Not much damage caused. . . . None at all, to be precise. Keep a straight face and press on, he told himself--but it dawned on him that he was rather more drunk than he'd thought.   Damn and blast! he thought. I'd better make sure I don't drive off the road. It wouldn't be a good idea to . . .   He rolled down the side window a couple of inches and turned the air-conditioning up to maximum to get rid of the mist. Then drove commendably slowly for quite a while as he wormed his way through Bossingen and Deijkstraat, where there had not been a sighting of a traffic cop for the last thirty-five years; and when he emerged onto the main road it became obvious that the dan­ger of icy roads was nonexistent. It had started to pour down: he switched on the windshield wipers, and cursed for the fiftieth time that autumn for having forgotten to change the blades.   Tomorrow, he thought. I'll drive to the service station first thing tomorrow morning. It's madness, sitting here driving without being able to see anything properly.   ***   Looking back, he could never work out if it was what he saw or what he heard that came first. But in any case, what persisted most clearly in his memory was the soft thud and the slight jerk of the steering wheel. And in his dreams. The fact that what flashed past in a fraction of a second on the extreme right of his visual field was linked with the bump and the minimal vibration he felt in his hands was not something that registered on his consciousness.   Not until he slammed on the brakes.   Not until afterward--after the five or six seconds that must have passed before he drew to a halt and started running back along the soaking wet road.   As he ran, he thought about his mother. About an occasion when he was ill--it must have been just after he'd started school--and she'd sat there pressing her cool hand onto his forehead while he threw up over and over and over again: yellowish-green bile into a red plastic bucket. It was so horribly painful, but that hand had been so cool and comforting--and he wondered why on earth he should think about that just now. It was a memory of something that had happened more than thirty years ago, and he couldn't recall ever having remembered it before. His mother had been dead for more than ten years, so it was a mystery why she should crop up just now, and how he . . .   He saw him when he had almost run past, and he knew he was dead even before he'd come to a halt.   A boy in a dark duffel coat. Lying in the ditch. Contorted at impossible angles, with his back pressed up against a concrete cul­vert and his face staring straight at him. As if he were trying to make some kind of contact. As if he wanted to tell him something. The boy's face was partly concealed by the hood, but the right-hand side--the part that seemed to have been smashed against the concrete--was exposed like . . . like an anatomical obscenity.   He stood there, trying hard not to throw up. The same reflexes, the same old reflexes he'd felt thirty years ago, definitely. Two cars passed by, one in each direction, but nobody seemed to have noticed anything amiss. He had started shaking, took two deep breaths, and jumped down into the ditch. Closed his eyes, then opened them again after a few seconds. Bent down and tried to feel a pulse, on the boy's wrist and on his bloodstained neck.   No sign of a heartbeat. Oh hell, he thought, feeling panic creep­ing up on him. Fucking hell--I must . . . I must . . . I must . . .   He couldn't work out what he must do. Cautiously, he slid his arms under the boy's body, bent his knees and lifted him up. He felt a stabbing pain at the bottom of his back: the boy was rather heavier than he'd expected. Perhaps the saturated clothes were adding to the problem. Insofar as he'd expected anything at all. Why should he have? The backpack caused a bit of a problem. The backpack and the boy's head. Both of them insisted on leaning backward in a way that was quite unacceptable. He noted that the blood from the side of the boy's mouth was dripping straight down into his hood, and that he couldn't be more than fifteen or sixteen years old. A boy aged fifteen or sixteen . . . About the same as Greubner's son. You could tell by the sort of half-finished fea­tures of his face, despite the injuries. Quite a handsome boy, it seemed: no doubt he would develop into an attractive man.   Would have.   He stood down there in the ditch with the boy's body in his arms for quite some time, while thoughts whirled around in his head. It was only a yard or so up to the road, but it was steep and the rain had made it slippery and treacherous: he doubted whether he would be able to get a sufficient foothold. No cars passed by while he stood there, but he heard a moped approaching. Or possibly a low-powered motorbike, he thought. When it passed by he could hear that it was in fact a scooter, and he was momentarily blinded by its headlight. Presumably--or so he thought later on with hindsight--presumably it was that very second of blinding light that started him functioning again.   Functioning, and thinking rational thoughts.   He lay the body down again next to the culvert. Wondered if he should wipe the blood from his hands onto the wet grass but decided not to. Scrambled up onto the road, and hurried back to his car.   He noted that he must have automatically switched off the engine but left the headlights on. Noted that the rain was pouring down like some sort of elemental force. Noted that he felt cold.   He slid down behind the wheel and closed the door. Fastened his seat belt and drove off. He could see rather better now through the windows, as if the rain had cleaned the inside of the glass as well.   Nothing has happened, he thought. Nothing at all.   He felt the first signs of a headache coming on, but then he remembered his mother's cool hand again--and suddenly he was convinced that there was a drop left of that eucalyptus bubble bath gel after all. Excerpted from Hour of the Wolf: An Inspector Van Veeteren Mystery by Håkan Nesser All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.