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The Demon of Dakar: A Mystery (Ann Lindell Mysteries) [Hardcover]

Kjell Eriksson (Author), Ebba Segerberg (Translator)
3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)


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Book Description

Ann Lindell Mysteries April 29, 2008
Already a huge star in Europe and the Nordic countries, Kjell Eriksson has American critics also raving, with almost every review studded with words like "stunning," "chilling," "suspenseful," "haunting," and "brilliant."
 
In The Demon of Dakar, Ann Lindell and her motley crew of colleagues are faced with a most baffling murder case in which all clues lead straight back to a popular local restaurant named Dakar. The owner, Slobodan Andersson, has some shady connections in his past, and his partner's reputation is equally murky.
 
The kitchen crew is not above suspicion, either. The meat chef is an oddball, to say the least, while unbeknownst to the rest, the newest hire's personal life is a tangled web of lies. Even Eva Willman, the seemingly blameless older woman returning to the workforce as a waitress, has skeletons in her closet.
 
And then the tension rachets up a number of notches as it becomes apparent that one murder has not satisfied the killer in the least. If Ann is to prevent a bloodbath at Restaurant Dakar, she must match wits with a killer whose motives are seemingly completely obscure.
 
But the reader knows the killer well. His crimes are justified from his point of view. Not only that, he's a very likable fellow who is only looking for justice. As in all of Kjell Eriksson's compelling spellbinders, though, justice entails a frantic race to the finish, a race without rules and fraught with danger.


Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Swedish author Eriksson's masterful ensemble procedural, the third available in the U.S. after The Cruel Stars of the Night (2007), immerses the reader in the ordinary and extraordinary lives of detective Ann Lindell and her colleagues of the Uppsala police force. The odd assemblage of characters who engage the interest of the police include a Mexican peasant, Manuel Alavez, who has traveled to Sweden to see his imprisoned brother; a restaurant owner, Slobodan Andersson, whose successful restaurants, Dakar and Alhambra, owe much to shady funds and his unusual partner, Armas; and a single mother, Eva Willman, for whom a waitressing job opens new vistas. After Armas is found dead of a knife wound, others get caught up in the turmoil caused by the crimes of a few. There are plenty of shades of gray in this tale told with wry humor, compassion and a fine understanding that in life often things cannot be resolved either neatly or completely. (May)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

Unanimous Praise for Kjell Eriksson
 
"Kjell Eriksson's crime novels are among the very best."
- Henning Mankell
 
"Riveting...resembles the books of Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo, not to mention those of the modern master Henning Mankell."
- The Wall Street Journal on The Princess of Burundi
 
"Moving...Eriksson understands the pathology of suffering humanity and explores it with the utmost tenderness."
- The New York Times Book Review on The Cruel Stars of the Night
 
"Ingenious...a chillingly well-drawn psychotic...very satisfying."
- Los Angeles Times on The Princess of Burundi
 
"Terrific...subtly brilliant...compellingly suspenseful."
- San Francisco Chronicle on The Princess of Burundi
 
"Eriksson is a major talent, and his feel for ensemble narrative will have McBain devotees enthralled."
- Booklist on The Cruel Stars of the Night

Product Details

  • Hardcover: 368 pages
  • Publisher: Minotaur Books (April 29, 2008)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0312366698
  • ISBN-13: 978-0312366698
  • Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.6 x 1.5 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
  • Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #810,835 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

9 Reviews
5 star:
 (3)
4 star:
 (1)
3 star:
 (2)
2 star:
 (3)
1 star:    (0)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
3.4 out of 5 stars (9 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars another swedish procedural mystery with strengths and weaknesses, October 21, 2008
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This review is from: The Demon of Dakar: A Mystery (Ann Lindell Mysteries) (Hardcover)
Yet another police mystery from Sweden (what is it with these Swedes? They have one of the lowest murder rates in the world and one of the highest proportions of murder mysteries).
This one is set in the cathedral town of Uppsala. Its strength is the way the author reveals the workings of an entire police department. We get to know several of the detectives, not only at work but in their personal lives as well. The panorama of the book then is quite wide. We also get an interesting cross-section of the seamier side of Uppsala society -- the single mother trying to raise two teenage boys and hold down a job, the disaffected immigrant community and we also see a little bit of Uppsala's underworld focusing on the burgeoning problem of drugs in a place which had been largely immune to such problems.
The book runs into difficulties when the author also tries to get inside the head of his villain (I'm not giving anything away here -- it is revealed early in the book). This is a Mexican who has come to avenge the death of his brother killed in a drugs deal gone bad. Here, the book goes completely wacky. How can this poor former illegal immigrant to the United States buy a ticket to Sweden, rent a car, murder someone and then hang out in open sight for weeks on end? The motive for the killing -- a tattoo -- is also unrealistic.
The end of the book comes as a severe anti-climax. So yes, there is a lot that is good here but I would view it as a flawed effort.
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9 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars superb Swedish police procedural, June 3, 2008
This review is from: The Demon of Dakar: A Mystery (Ann Lindell Mysteries) (Hardcover)
Uppsala, Sweden Police Detective Ann Lindell works a difficult homicide case as she struggles to identify the victim found floating in a river. The corpse is eventually identified as Armas, a co-owner of the upscale restaurant Dakar. Ann visits the other partner, Slobodan Andersson who also owns Alhambra and has questionable financing connections and plenty of enemies.

However the suspect list remains long besides Slobodan and his adversaries. Ann considers recently hired waitress Eva Willman and her two teen boys, chef Johnny Kvarnheden, homeless Konrad Rosenberg and Mexican peasant Manuel Alavez seeking to free his incarcerated brother.

The fascination with this superior third Swedish police procedural (see THE CRUEL STARS OF THE NIGHT and THE PRINCESS OF BURUNDI) is the cast as perspective is told from various participants so that the same incident is seen differently and their political viewpoints especially anti Bush runs strong. The investigation led by Ann is wonderful to follow as she, like the readers, meet the restaurant's players who all have motive to kill the victim. A slight adjustment is needed to Swedish nomenclature as delineating the names of people and places require full concentration, but THE DEMON OF DAKAR is worth the time.

Harriet Klausner

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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars Erickson is Trying to Do Too Much, November 8, 2008
This review is from: The Demon of Dakar: A Mystery (Ann Lindell Mysteries) (Hardcover)
The book jacket proclaims unanimous praise for Kjell Erickson, but I cannot join the chorus. 'The Demon of Dakar' is part-police procedural, part-psychological analysis, part social commentary and nearly always confusing and unconvincing.

A close friend and business associate of a restaurant owner turns up done to death. The reader knows who did it and thus can see the police try to connect the pieces. That the police struggle to do so and then look down seemingly logical, but wrong paths is one of the book's more interesting threads. Erickson introduces a veritable army of characters from within the police department, restaurants, the drug world, a prison escape, flight for the border, and so on and on.

Erickson's book contains enough characters, ideas for story lines, and themes to fill three books, but he tries to squeeze them all into one book. The result is unsatisfying confusion and half-told stories. And as another reviewer has pointed out, some of the stories are simply implausible. Moreover, the book suffers from a poor translation from Swedish to English. The translation uses clearly incorrect words in some places, stilted wording in others.

Smarter people than me have recommended Erickson's works, so you may want to take a look for yourself, but with all the excellent European crime writers (e.g. Andrea Camilleri, Leonard Sciascia, Sjowall and Wahloo, and Ian Rankin) out there I cannot recommend 'The Demon of Dakar'.

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Inside This Book (learn more)
Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
Sören Sköld, thousand kronor, dishwashing area
Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
The Demon of Dakar, Slobodan Andersson, Sammy Nilsson, Barbro Liljendahl, Kjell Eriksson, Konrad Rosenberg, Ann Lindell, Lorenzo Wader, Ola Haver, Manuel Alavez, Patricio Alavez, Eva Willman, United States, Olaf González, José Franco, Oskar Hammer, Kristian Andersson, Agne Salme, Mexico City, Allan Fredriksson, Axel Lindman, Charles Morgansson, Kjell Erikssan, Simone Motander-Banks, Valdemar Husman
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