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Overview
“Know[s] how to craft a truly satisfying police procedural.”—The Philadelphia Inquirer
The principal of a high school telephones his friend, Inspector Andersson of the Göteborg Crime Police; one of his teachers failed to show up for work. To Inspector Irene Huss’ surprise, on the basis of this vague complaint her boss drives out with her to a remote cottage in snowbound southern Sweden to investigate. There they find a body, its head blasted by a rifle. Teacher Jacob Schyttelius has been murdered. When they go to break the news to his elderly parents, Pastor Sten Schyttelius and his wife, they find the couple dead in their beds, each shot between the eyes. Upside-down pentagrams have been drawn in blood on their computer screens. The only surviving member of the family is a daughter, now residing in London, but she is too distressed to be interviewed. Is the killer a member of a satanic cult? Is it the parish treasurer, rumored to have been embezzling church funds? Or one of the assistant pastors, tired of waiting for a promotion? Perhaps the attractive blonde who sings in church and practices witchcraft? Irene Huss has a hunch that the answer lies in England, and she travels there twice to discover the reason for this triple homicide.
Helene Tursten is the author of Detective Inspector Huss and The Torso. The latter is now a German film, and her series is being filmed for Swedish television. She lives with her husband in Göteborg.
Synopsis
A Swedish pastor, his wife, and his son are executed gangland style.
Publishers Weekly
Swedish author Tursten's taut third contemporary police procedural (after 2006's The Torso) opens with a compelling setup: after Det. Insp. Irene Huss and her team find Jacob Schyttelius, a divorced teacher, shot to death in his isolated cottage, his computer monitor marked with a bloody Satanic symbol, they visit his parents, Sten and Elsa, only to find them dead as well and with the same markings on their computer. The data on both machines was erased professionally, and the only viable lead, Jacob's London-based sister, Rebecka, is too devastated by the dual tragedy to offer much assistance. Huss focuses her inquiry on Sten, a minister who had been investigating a local Satanist movement, in the belief that he may have been killed in revenge. The solution is both logical and depressing. Tursten does her usual solid job of populating the novel with credible, flawed characters and bringing to life modern Swedish society. (Apr.) Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information.