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The Return (Inspector Van Veeteren Series #3)

Name: The Return (Inspector Van Veeteren Series #3)
Author: Hakan Nesser
ISBN: 9781400030330

by Hakan Nesser, Laurie Thompson

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Overview

International Bestseller

Chief Inspector Van Veeteren is forced to unlock the secrets of a nearly perfect murder in this taut psychological thriller.

On a rainy April day, a body—or what is left of it—is found by a young girl. Wrapped in a blanket with no hands, feet, or head, it signals the work of a brutal, methodical killer. The victim, Leopold Verhaven, was a track star before he was convicted for killing two of his ex-lovers. He consistently proclaimed his innocence, however, and was killed on the day of his return to society. This latest murder is more than a little perplexing and Chief Inspector Van Veeteren is determined to discover the truth, even if it means taking the law into his own hands.

Synopsis

International Bestseller

Chief Inspector Van Veeteren is forced to unlock the secrets of a nearly perfect murder in this taut psychological thriller.

Library Journal

In the second U.S. release by the Scandinavian Crime Society's Glass Key Award winner, the Swedish chief inspector unravels a perfect murder when an ex-con is killed 24 years after the crime. Six-city tour. Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

About the Author, Hakan Nesser

Håkan Nesser was born in 1950 in Sweden. In 1993 he was awarded the Swedish Crime Writers’ Academy Prize for new authors for his novel Mind’s Eye, and is the only author to have won the Academy’s best novel award three times: in 1994 for Borkmann’s Point; in 1996 for Woman With Birthmark; and in 2007 for A Rather Different Story. In 1999 he was awarded the Crime Writers of Scandinavia’s Glass Key Award for the best crime novel of the year for Carambole. His novels have been published to wide acclaim in twenty-five countries.

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Editorials

Library Journal

Kirkus Reviews

From his hospital bed, Sweden's Chief Inspector Van Veeteren (Borkmann's Point, 2006) solves a baffling case. In the woods near the little village of Behren, two little girls find a corpse wrapped in a carpet. Identification is complicated by the absence of feet or a head. Brilliant Chief Inspector Van Veeteren is in the hospital for cancer surgery, so the bulk of the investigation falls to his team of six detectives, led by the sardonic duo of Munster and Rooth. After some funny red herrings, the case focuses on an ex-convict named Leopold Verhaven, released a year earlier after two imprisonments for two separate murders dating back to the 1960s. Short flashbacks dated a year before the main narrative counterpoint the probe. These seem to be accounts of Verhaven, just out of prison. At length, police come to believe that he's the corpse. From his post-op bed, Van Veeteren examines evidence from Verhaven's original trial and grows increasingly skeptical of the man's guilt. If he was innocent, who could have wanted Verhaven dead? When he's finally released, Van Veeteren gets to test his theory of the 30-year-old murders. The second of Nesser's many Van Veeteren novels translated into English feels like a novelty episode in the middle of a series. Precise plotting and deadpan irony make it highly entertaining, but the paucity of character development may make readers yearn for the installments that led up to it.