Customer Reviews

Death Angels: A Chief Inspector Erik Winter Novel (Chief Inspector Erik Winter Novels)

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This crime story, which in one sense could be read as a formulaic `thrilla,' shows uncommon insight into the psychology of a confident, thirty-something homicide detective at the terrifying brink of self-awareness. Erik Winter is the hero of a popular series of Swedish crime novels by Åke Edwardson that are not yet very well-known in the U.S.

"Death Angels" is the first book in the Erik Winter series, although two of the subsequent books were previously published in English, but with a different translator. If you want to read the series chronologically, "Death Angels" is the place to start. And if the rest of the books are as compelling as this one, bring `em on.

The plot of "Death Angels" spins around some grotesque murders of teenage boys that are being committed in both Sweden and London. It makes for some intriguing give and take among investigators in both cities who decide to pool their resources. You're into the first murder right away, and I do mean right in the middle of it. Did I mention I couldn't do Winter's job?

One of the things I liked best about the book was Edwardson's depiction of the toll on the living that the homicide grind takes, not just on the families of the victims, but on the men and women who are working the case. The way they talk to each other, the camaraderie, the shorthand, the dark humor and odd bravado, all ring true. You could slap this up on a movie screen just as it is.

I liked Erik Winter right away. This detective is not one of those gnarled characters with a wise-acre attitude and hot temper. He's coolly elegant, keenly able, admired and envied by his colleagues in homicide. But he is exceptionally young to be their boss, and he's a complete enigma to them.

Turns out Winter is also an enigma to himself and to his family, which makes him an excellent character for Edwardson to build a string of crime novels on. How can you not like a guy who says of soccer, "I could have been something, but I wasn't injured often enough." Or, my absolute favorite, when Winter passes by his sister's house, noticing the lights aren't on, and says to himself, "Nobody's home, you can call tonight." For somebody who works that hard to keep his distance from people who want to get inside his head, he turns out to have terrific intuition for drilling right into the brains of criminals.

The supporting characters are great. One bizarre twist involves a young detective, about to become a father, who gets thrust into the world of illicit porn to track down some clues, and you get a real sense of the destabilizing threat that this kind of work involves, and how weird and sometimes touching the coping mechanisms can get to be. I don't want to give away any more of it, but Edwardson does his homework when it comes to character development. The case painfully affects Winter, too, and with good reason.

I got caught up right away in the icy-clear language of the saga. Everything that had to do with Swedish half-darkness and sunlight and the penetration of the cold and the intense awareness of any hint of spring -- all that is wonderfully evocative in tone. I could feel Scandinavia in my bones. And music's really important to the story, both indie rock and jazz. You'll pick up a tip or two.

Being a fan of Henning Mankell, I was excited to read this author's work, especially because he's been compared favorably to Mankell. But this book just didn't hold up for me. I found the character of Erik Winter to be rather stilted and mannered, and I was much more intrigued by Steve Macdonald, the police officer in London. This wasn't a terrible book, but the characters are a little too cardboard cutout for me, the mood is not as atmospheric or as nuanced as I like, and the plot twists were not that numerous and were somewhat predictable. I find the work by the Icelandic author Arnaldur Indridason to be far preferable.

For those of us given peeks into this amazing writer's character of Detective Winter before, here, at long last (I don't read Sewdish, German or other languages!!!)is the opening story and it does not disappoint, not one line, not one character. It's a thrill ride, intelligent, surprising and, with plenty of twists, keeps you on the edge of your seat.
I won't spoil it for you with a precis - just get this and ENJOY!
Mankell watch out, there's someone better (or at least as compelling!).

Although I am not your basic mystery reader, I enjoy a good whodunit on television, and applied that interest to the book, the latest contribution from Sweden. I found the vocabulary absolutely rich, a wealth of words that were unexpected and wondered if they were inspired by the Swedish original, or if the translator's creativity brought words I (also a Swedish to English translator) wouldn't have thought of spontaneously.

And as a fellow Swedish to English translator, I can only say that the translation was excellent. Nowhere could I see the Swedish skeleton; nowhere could I say, oh yeah, I know what *that* author wrote in Swedish. Together, the author and translator brought to life this chiller that took place, in part, on streets and parks and waterways in Gothenburg that I know so well.

Kudos to the author, for a good thriller, and kudos to the translator - for bringing to life, in our English words, a story that doesn't say "foreign" anywhere.

Despite an affinity for Swedish mysteries, I nearly did not get past the first few pages of this one; scenes of brutal physical abuse like the one at the beginning of the book are not to my liking. However, I am glad that I persisted because this is a crime novel worth reading. The author has a wonderful descriptive sense for the atmosphere in both Gothenburg and London, making both venues come alive. Even more interesting are the personal and psychological portraits of Chief Inspector Erik Winter, his British associate Steve Macdonald, and the fascinating set of characters surrounding them. This is what held my attention, above and beyond my desire to learn the perpetrator of the crimes. One further comment: I read a lot of books in translation, some good and some bad. This particular translation is so smooth that I felt as if the original book had been written in English. Well done!

Death Angels is a tight and well constructed police procedural. It's well paced, the more you read, the harder it is to put down.

I read Frozen tracks some time ago and think I would have liked it much more if I had read Death Angels first.

This is a great introduction to the series.

Chief Inspector Erik Winter is the kind of character that I find attracts me to police procedural series.

In this story we also meet a London detective, Steve Macdonald.

Winter and Macdonald partner up to solve similar murders committed in both England and Sweden.

After sizing each other up when they first meet, they hit it off. What's interesting is their immediate connection to each other, one has a thought, the other responds without anything being said.

What the book doesn't have is a strong sense of place, it could be set anywhere. That's not a problem for me since my interest is in books that are psychologically motivated and character driven.

Although this is the latest of Chief Inspector Winter novels to be published in English, it was the first one written in the original Swedish. As such it lacks the polish and appeal of the later books in the series which you may have read previously. I normally like to read a series in order and maybe if this had been available to allow that it might have seemed better. I was very disappointed by it. Yes it was interesting to read how Winter and McDonald met, but somehow this just wasn't Winter. If you haven't yet read any of the series, and you like to read in order, it probably makes sense to start with this one, but be assured it gets better with the others. If you have read the others you may care to skip this one unless you are a completist, like me.

This is the first book in the series (at least of those that have been published in English). It's not as distinctive as later books in the series, but a good read -- and it introduces Winter.

I've also read Sun and Shadow, and Never End. Each book has been better than the last. I like the series story arc of the main character, as he progresses in his personal and professional life. The mysteries themselves, and the details of the police procedural are well done. Winter is portrayed as more humane than many fictional detectives.

The appearance in English of Death Angels, the first in Åke Edwardson's series of Swedish crime novels centering on Inspector Erik Winter, is an event to be highly welcomed. Though a couple of other Winter novels have appeared in English, this is the first one to have been written and published in Sweden, and has long been available in other languages such as German. As is so often the case in the finest Scandinavian crime novels, most famously in Henning Mankell's Wallander series, the first work contains the seeds of an epic novel which eventually develops out of a series of works about the life of a troubled detective.

I don't want to reveal too much about a somewhat complicated plot, which like so many of the Swedish crime novels, may seem to some to contain just a bit too much graphic violence, but I can predict that once you let the story of the forced co-operation of a Swedish and a British inspector to solve a series of gruesome and puzzling crimes, get ahold of you, you won't be putting the book down until you finish. What makes Death Angels especially satisfying for English-speaking readers is that the translation by Ken Schubert reads like an English-language thriller written in an especially authentic-sounding American idiom. You may forget that you are reading a novel set in far-off Sweden (and the UK) , as the language convinces you that you are on home turf. More by this author and this translator will be most welcome.

Erik Winter is Chief Inspector of Gothenburg at the tender age of 37. Although the picture of elegance in Versace and Baldessarini suits, he's tough underneath it all. He never smiles, listens to a lot of jazz and does not commit to girlfriends. His work is his life. His philosophy is to approach each case "like it's never happened before." In this case, that's not difficult.

Young Swedish men are being tortured and murdered in the same gruesome fashion in both Gothenburg and London. And in both cities, markings of a tripod have been found in the dried blood, as if the murder was filmed.

Winter flies to London to collaborate with their inspector, Steve Macdonald, a lethal-looking hulk with a ponytail. These two couldn't be less alike, but they both agree that the murderer is not your everyday sociopath.

Although Winter sometimes feels he's living in a "hell on earth," he still believes in a merciful God. So, it seems, does Macdonald. But they're no saints. Both of them are willing to break the rules and do a little illegal entering in search of a clue.

There's an edgy mood to Edwardson's writing that takes getting used to. And he sometimes keeps back critical information from the reader so he can spring a surprise later on. But all that aside, I finally chose to like the book - and I'll definitely be reading the next one in the series.