Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #117569 in Books
• Published on: 2007-05-04
• Binding: Hardcover
• 256 pages

Waterstone's Books Quarterly
'This is splendid stuff: Scandinavian crime writing that is so rivetingly written it makes most contemporary crime fare...'

Synopsis
Van Veeteren thought back to what his friend Mahler had said the previous evening: Doing something at the right time is more important than what you actually do...An unmissable hospital appointment is looming for Inspector Van Veeteren when a corpse is found rolled in a rotting carpet by a young child playing in a local beauty spot. Missing head and limbs, the torso is too badly decomposed for forensic identification - bar one crucial detail...Circumstantial evidence soon points to a local man, a double murderer who disappeared 9 months before, shortly after being released on parole; a local hero turned monster after being convicted of killing two women over a span of three decades. Recuperating after an operation, Van Veeteren is nevertheless directing investigations from his hospital bed, for he is convinced that only the innocence of this new victim can be the motive for his murder. But the two women have been dead for long enough for any evidence to have died with them...And is he - a little like Inspector Morse can be on occasion - simply on the wrong track completely?

Customer Reviews

Decent Swedish crime novel
I like Håkan Nesser's crime novels, but they aren't the best of the genre. One inevitably compares them to Henning Mankell's police procedurals and in some ways Nesser is superior: his dialogue and characterisation is better and they're a tad more believable. Unfortunately, they're also a bit duller.
The Return is pretty good. There's a gruesome dead body, a strange man in a strange village, and the venerable Inspector Van Veeteren on the case. There's added interest because 'VV' is in hospital having a cancer operation.
So although he ultimately solves the case, we get to see more than usual of his underlings, and Münster in particular.
Although the novel has all the right elements, is quite atmospheric and fairly compelling, I did find my mind wandering at times, and in particular lost track of the many inhabitants of the village where the murdered man lived. I wasn't entirely sure at the end who the murderer was, so any sense of surprise was lost. I just hadn't remembered his bit of the book.
I also didn't really like the way VV dealt with this case and found it a bit unlikely and unnecesary.
Even so, it was an enjoyable read, if not a riveting one.

I have discovered that all human evil comes from this; man's being unable to sit still in a room
It was an early morning in August; Leopold Verhaven walks free after serving twenty four years in prison for double murder. He feels the first rays of warmth from the sun on his face; his aim, to quietly return home. On a rainy day the following April a child on a field trip wanders off into the woods alone, frantically the adults and party of friends search for the young girl they find her safe but disturbingly sitting next to a mutilated corpse half wrapped in carpet.

A new case for Chief Inspector Van Veeteren or was it? His stubborn determination not to let a case go unsolved, even if it was from a hospital bed while recovering from surgery. The decomposing body is soon identified as a local man the murderer Leopold Verhaven or so they believe. Van Veeteren becomes rattled at this news, his quick to reopen the old cases for the killings of Verhaven two lovers. Could it be that Verhaven had been judged by character and not by evidence all those years ago, was it never on anyone lips he may have been innocent? Maybe Verhaven really did commit those crimes and now this lastest killing is someone's act of revenge at long last. The only way to solve this present case was to review old documentation with complicated history of what now could be a few near perfect murders.

This Swedish series is coming to us translated out of order and quiet some years later. The Return I certainly prefered much more to the pervious novel, one small drawback for me, I felt some other police characters part of Inspector Van Veeteren team needed to be a bit more developed, you get the feeling you touch base with them but something is being held back, still we may learn more as the translation series goes on.

One character that really shines through in this book is Van Veeteren, after his serious surgical procedure his in a lighter philosophical mood with more humor and irony surfacing; and with that wonderful no nonsense attitude that I just happen to love, he couldn't go wrong. He also faces the prospect in this one of taking the law into his own hands, as he realizes the flaws in the justice system. Van Veeteren overstepping certain boundaries is very intriguing to read.

Another reason I found The Return more enjoyable would be the jump back and forth in time looking at different angles into a close-knit community with changes taking place and testimony from witnesses being broken down. We as the readers are let lose for a while, staying one step ahead of the police, the author gives to us a little extra piece of information on a certain date and time line, I found that very clever and interesting.

Håkan Nesser the Author worked as a teacher in Uppsala before turning his hand to writing Novels. In Sweden, his detective stories around Inspector Van Veeteren has received numerous honors. After reading this Novel I'm looking forward to future books in translation from this Author.

Recommended.

Andrea Bowhill

Destined to be bigger than Mankell
A superb piece of detective fiction. Hakan Nesser has weaved an intriguing and complex world and draws us into it by establishing a sympathy with Van Veetering, his investigator. The layers of plot are carefully laid one on the other, but with such a lightness of touch that we never lose sight of the central thread. I much prefer Nesser's prose style to that of fellow Swede Mankell, but this may simply be down to poor translation in Mankell's case. Fortunately, Nesser's evocative, engaging style shines through. The Return is a book that will haunt you long after you have finished it.