Mind's Eye: An Inspector Van Vetteren Mystery (1)

The first installment in the famed "Van Veeteren" homicide investigation series by Swedish master Hakan Nesser, this is a winner. Commissioner Van Veeteren comes along well after the tale has started to gain momentum, but by then the reader is inextricably hooked. Van Veeteren's typically blunt manner and his matter-of-fact decision to tackle the case only make the caper more delicious. Really great!

A very good read. Looking forward to more Inspector Van Veeteren to be translated.

This book is truly a page-turner. Hakan Nesser manages to convey the story while using a very spare style of writing. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and would definitely be willing to read another Inspector Van Veeteren Mystery.

I love the way the book is written, i wish american mystery writers would take a hint from the european writers.. the foreign writers always leave you feeling like just one more turn and that will be the end, but its 250 pages or so before you really get to the end, which is always a thriller

In Hakan Nesser's "Mind's Eye," a high school teacher named Janek Mitter finds his wife of three months, Eva Maria Ringmar, drowned in their bathtub. When Mitter is accused of murdering her, he has no alibi. He claims that, on the night in question, he was asleep in the next room after drinking too much and awoke the next morning suffering from a massive hangover. His defense lawyer candidly tells Mitter that his story is unconvincing. However, Detective Chief Inspector Van Veeteren is not completely sold on the husband's guilt. When a second shocking crime follows on the heels of the first one, Van Veeteren and his team face the daunting task of finding a killer whose boundless rage impels him to commit unspeakable acts. "Mind's Eye" is not a typical murder mystery. Nesser's biting wit and black humor serve as a sharp counterpoint to an exasperating inquiry that turns out to have many unexpected twists and turns. (In one hilarious scene, a witness that he is interrogating gives Van Veeteren a massage to ease his aching back.) VV, as he is known, is successful at his job because he is an intelligent and forceful leader (although he can be sarcastic, cranky, and patronizing at times), and also because he is curious and capable of making imaginative mental leaps. He doggedly pursues every lead, no matter how tangential. Far from being falsely modest, Van Veeteren prides himself on "being the best interrogating officer in the district, possibly in the country." He wastes no effort on political correctness or deferring to his superiors; VV is very much his own man. All of the characters are a bit off-beat. Mitter cracks jokes and refuses to act deferential, even during his trial. Chief Inspector Van Veeteren has a rather unsettled personal life and an obsession with beating his long-suffering colleague, Inspector Munster, at badminton. The introspective Van Veeteren has grown cynical over the years and longs for a life of ease after retirement when he will be able to rid himself of the "feeling of disgust and impotence" that goes with the job. Munster dreads the grueling task of tracking down a suspect. They were "hemmed in by questions and answers and guesses in a slow but inexorable search for the right track." If they were to make one wrong turn, not only would they be wasting valuable time, but the murderer might conceivably strike again. Nesser is a fluid writer and Laurie Thompson translates expertly from the Swedish. The dialogue is lively and often amusing, and the plot provides enough clues for the armchair detective to take a shot at figuring out whodunit. This police procedural, like so many others, demonstrates why so many homicide investigators become emotionally hardened, are incapable of staying happily married, and develop stomach ulcers. Pursuing murderers is, indeed, "a nasty business," but Nesser also makes it an entertaining one.