by Robert on February 9, 2010
The Erik Winter series by Ake Edwardsn now has a new series translator, Ken Schubert, who seems to more fully capture Edwardson’s signature atmospheric style.
The most recently translated book by Edwardson, Death Angels, is America’s introduction to Sweden’s youngest Chief Inspector as he teams up 
with Scotland Yard to solve mysterious parallel killings of young British and Swedish tourists. Ake Edwardson’s writing is richly evocative of mid-nineties South London and Gothenburg, Sweden, and Death Angels is a good opening to a mesmerizing series that has become a phenomenon in international crime fiction.
Death Angels is the fourth novel in the Chief Inspector Erik Winter series published in English, but it is actually the first book in the series (and Åke Edwardson’s third novel) in Swedish. So if you are trying to come to grips with Erik Winter – trying to understand this interesting Swedish detective – this book is a good place to start.
In Death Angels readers familiar with the series meet a younger and unmarried Erik Winter. However, he is even now a Chief Inspector. Winter was the youngest detective ever to be promoted to such an elevated position in Sweden. And he is pretty much the Erik Winter we have come to know in the later books: A bit remote and contemplative, a loner, quite a bit of a snob, likes expensive brands and jazz, slightly philosophically oriented, and with a sometimes quite surprising way of thinking – as when he sees that the lights are out in his sister’s house, concludes that nobody is home, and tells himself that “Now would be a good time to call her”.
In this book the youngish Chief Inspector teams up with Scotland Yard to solve a mysterious case of parallel killings of young British and Swedish tourists. It involves young men murdered in extremely horrible ways, with blood on walls. Strangely Englishmen are killed in Sweden, and Swedes in London. The killer, dubbed Hitchcock, appears to have filmed the butchery, as evidenced by traces of a tripod stand in the victims’ blood. Possibly the plan is to distribute the recordings as snuff films.
A female stripper named “Angel”, whom one of Winter’s detectives investigating strip clubs gets in touch with, seems to be a person that knows more than she tells. And a thief who breaks into a house finds a sack full of clothes that have lots of blood on them.
Death Angels is well constructed police procedural. The story is a little slow in taking off. It is not quite as good as Edwardson’s later novels in the series, but we have to remember that it is the debut book in the series. And as such Death Angels is very good opening to a series that has improved over time. The novel is also smoothly translated. And the ending is very interesting, with some very neat twists in the tale.
by Robert on December 29, 2009
Sun and Shadow is the first book that was translated into English in 
Ake Edwardson’s crime fiction series about Chief Inspector Erik Winter. It is yet another of those suspenseful, crafty and excellent Swedish crime fiction novels!
The main character of the series, Erik Winter, is a very interesting character. He is a bit of a snob who loves Italian clothes and excellent food, a jazz fan and fond of cooking. He comes across as quite arrogant, especially to people who do not know him. But he is also considerate and philosophical, and the youngest policeman ever to have achieved his elevated rank in Sweden.
In Sun and Shadow we are introduced to swingers in the city of Gothenburg in Sweden. A couple entertain a stranger in their Gothenburg flat, a man who plays death metal music and doesn’t behave quite as expected. Instead of having steamy sex with the couple, he kills them and leaves their apartment with the death metal music still playing.
The dead couple is found by a young newspaper delivery boy. For more than a week he has watched his deliveries piling up behind the front door. Also, the loud music playing inside the flat seems odd and the boy contacts the police.
What greets Chief Inspector Erik Winter and his team when they arrive at the scene of the murder, appears as a grotesque stage setting. There are some clues, but they are hard to follow. Erik Winter feels that the murderer is providing them with a riddle of nightmares, of good versus evil, of sun and shadow.
Then the murderer hits again. Another couple is killed. The murder has taken place very close to Erik Winter’s home, and his pregnant girlfriend is nervous. And she is also scared by mysterious phone calls. As the investigation proceeds, it unearths a possible link between the murderer and the police force. So now even friendly faces are not to be trusted and, when the killer strikes again, Winter is in a race against time.
Sun and Shadow is excellently written and a great crime fiction novel. The translation by Laurie Thompson seems a little stilted at times. In my opinion it is a little too slow in the beginning, but many readers will probably appreciate the time and space devoted to character development and descriptions of the setting of the book. And Ake Edwardson is very good at getting into the psyche of his characters. The plot is rich and full of interesting twists. Edwardson leaves a number of clues to his readers, but even so the solution is somewhat surprising. Overall, Sun and Shadow is a well-rounded, compelling and very entertaining crime-novel.
by Robert on December 20, 2009
This is the second book in the Erik Winter series by Ake Edwardson published in English. The summer is unusually warm in Gothenburg. People are out in the long summer evenings, 
partying and having fun. Then a young woman is raped in a deserted public park. Shortly after another young woman is raped and strangled to death.
Chief Inspector Erik Winter, a young but very talented and intelligent investigator, is in charge of the case. There are some similarities between the crimes. Winter also has a feeling the two cases may somehow be connected to an earlier, still unresolved, case of rape in the same park many years earlier.
This is a beautifully written, compelling book. Never End begins slowly. The reader struggles to make a coherent story from the details gathered by the detectives, who are also trying to make sense of confusing clues. But as the story continues the pace picks up. Ake Edwardson is an exciting, skillful writer.
Ake Edwardson, in a fashion similar to other Swedish crime novelists like for instance Henning Mankell, chronicles a methodical homicide investigation extremely well. He is very good at making visible the psychological aspects of the suspects, the victims and the police officers working on the case.
When a third woman is killed, Winter and his team find a possible link between the victims. This takes them on a journey deep into the city’s nightlife. And Winter suddenly finds that the case is endangering both himself and his family as well.
The prose in Never End is sparse but finely detailed. It is an excellent police procedural with good, deep characterizations. Erik Winter is a very interesting character, a Scandinavian detective who is a snob rather than a slob. And the book is very suspenseful with a fabulous ending.
“Edwardson’s series is as much about character interaction as it is about story, but he is no slouch at building suspense, and his ability to make the sweltering heat a kind of secondary character – as in Hitchcock’s Rear Window–only adds to the tension.”
—Booklist
“This series is a tough, smart police procedural. . . . Edwardson is a masterful storyteller. . . . This is crime writing at its most exciting, with great atmosphere and superb characters.”
—The Globe & Mail, Toronto
“A novel with the most exhilarating final 50 pages in recent crime fiction.”
—Toronto Star –This text refers to the Paperback edition.
by Robert on December 5, 2009
Frozen Tracks is another 
wonderful psychological police procedural from Ake Edwardson. Here Detective Chief Inspector Erik Winter and his team is engaged in a tough case where four college-aged men are brutally attacked from behind, leaving them with severe head trauma. The victims seem totally unconnected in their day-to-day lives and acquaintances, but the attacks continue in spite of a careful investigation into the incidents. The men are only linked by the distinctive mark left by the attacker’s mysterious weapon.
At the same time, nursery school children report being lured to the car of a strange “mister”, who gives them candy. However, the children appear unharmed, and the police brush off these incidents until one boy is found badly beaten in the woods. Winter in particular is alarmed by the danger as his daughter Elsa attends one of the hopelessly understaffed schools hit by this predator. And soon Erik Winter is thrown into a race to save a kidnapped boy from the clutches of a monster.
Thus the approaching Christmas is not very festive for Detective Chief Inspector Erik Winter. Instead of preparing for Christmas in Frozen Tracks – he had a plan for a holiday in the Costa del Sol with his partner Angela and daughter – he is haunted by two very puzzling and seemingly unrelated sets of crimes.
Leads followed by Winter and his colleagues and interviews with a farm raised victim, lead Winter and his team to the bleak and desolate prairies of rural Sweden when a branding iron is considered as being the assault weapon. Something sinister has happened out there, Winter can feel it in his bones.
Erik Winter is an interesting addition to the famous policemen we know and love – Martin Beck, Kurt Wallander, Inspector Konrad Sejer, Adam Dalgliesh, Inspector Morse, and others. He is very smart, makes decisions well grounded in intelligence and common sense, and he is a little bit of snob with a well developed taste for fine suits and expensive brands. Also, he is socially conscious without being depressed or borderline depressed. And the author, Ake Edwardson writes very well. Especially he is strong in characterization, so his characters are well developed and real.
Frozen Tracks is a good, enjoyable, exciting and very readable book!
by Robert on December 3, 2009
Åke Edwardson (born 1953 in Eksjö in Småland) is a professor at Journalisthögskolan in Göteborg, and one of Scandinavia’s most successful crime writers. Edwardson has had many jobs, including a journalist and press officer for the United Nations.
Ake Edwardson has won several awards for his writing, including the Swedish Academy of Crime Writers’ Award three times:
- 1995 Till allt som varit dött (won the prize for best Debut novel)
- 1997 Dans med en angel (introduced Erik Winter)
- 2001 Himlen är en plats på jorden
His first novel to be translated into English, in 2005, was Sun and Shadow. The second, Never End, followed in 2006. See also the bibliography.
Several of his books have been made in to television movies in Sweden.
by Robert on December 2, 2009
- Till allt som varit dött (1995)
- Gå ut min själ (1996)
- Dans med en ängel (1997) English: Death Angels
- Rop från långt avstånd (1998)
- Genomresa (1999)
- Sol och skugga (1999) Sun and Shadow
- Låt det aldrig ta slut (2000) Never End
- Himlen är en plats på jorden (2001) Frozen Tracks
- Segel av sten (2002)
- Jukebox (2003)
- Winterland (2004)
- Samurajsommar (2005) (young adult fiction)
- Rum nummer 10 (2005)
- Drakmånad (2006) (young adult fiction)
- Vänaste land (2006)
- Nästan död man (2007)
- Den sista vintern (2008)
The four books that have been translated into English are all Erik Winter novels. With the publicaton of Den sista vintern, ten books have so far been published in Sweden in the Erik Winter series. According to the author, he is not going to write any more Erik Winter novels!
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