Glass Devil [Hardcover]

Helene Tursten (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1, 2007

“Know[s] how to craft a truly satisfying police procedural.”—The Philadelphia Inquirer

The principal of a high school telephones his friend, Inspector Andersson of the Göteborg Crime Police; one of his teachers failed to show up for work. To Inspector Irene Huss’ surprise, on the basis of this vague complaint her boss drives out with her to a remote cottage in snowbound southern Sweden to investigate. There they find a body, its head blasted by a rifle. Teacher Jacob Schyttelius has been murdered. When they go to break the news to his elderly parents, Pastor Sten Schyttelius and his wife, they find the couple dead in their beds, each shot between the eyes. Upside-down pentagrams have been drawn in blood on their computer screens. The only surviving member of the family is a daughter, now residing in London, but she is too distressed to be interviewed. Is the killer a member of a satanic cult? Is it the parish treasurer, rumored to have been embezzling church funds? Or one of the assistant pastors, tired of waiting for a promotion? Perhaps the attractive blonde who sings in church and practices witchcraft? Irene Huss has a hunch that the answer lies in England, and she travels there twice to discover the reason for this triple homicide.

Helene Tursten is the author of Detective Inspector Huss and The Torso. The latter is now a German film, and her series is being filmed for Swedish television. She lives with her husband in Göteborg.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Swedish author Tursten's taut third contemporary police procedural (after 2006's The Torso) opens with a compelling setup: after Det. Insp. Irene Huss and her team find Jacob Schyttelius, a divorced teacher, shot to death in his isolated cottage, his computer monitor marked with a bloody Satanic symbol, they visit his parents, Sten and Elsa, only to find them dead as well and with the same markings on their computer. The data on both machines was erased professionally, and the only viable lead, Jacob's London-based sister, Rebecka, is too devastated by the dual tragedy to offer much assistance. Huss focuses her inquiry on Sten, a minister who had been investigating a local Satanist movement, in the belief that he may have been killed in revenge. The solution is both logical and depressing. Tursten does her usual solid job of populating the novel with credible, flawed characters and bringing to life modern Swedish society. (Apr.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

The third Irene Huss mystery to appear in the U.S. is considerably less gritty than either detective Inspector Huss(2003) or The Torso(2006), but it continues Tursten's sensitive exploration of how a female detective manages to balance family life with police work: not only the time pressures but also the jarring psychological disconnects that occur when jumping between dramatically different worlds. This time Huss' case--the execution-style murders of a minister, his wife, and their schoolteacher son--takes the Swedish detective from the scene of the crime, a village outside Goteborg, to London, where the traumatized daughter of the minister lives. Road-trip mysteries inevitably sacrifice the signature landscape that is often key to the series' appeal, but in this case, the fact that Huss is on her own in London gives Tursten the opportunity to probe deeper into her heroine's character. The plot itself is less compelling than the previous two entries in the series--the shocking climax will be guessed early on--but Huss is quickly becoming one of the most satisfying lead characters in the thriving world of Swedish crime fiction. Bill Ott
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Soho Crime; First Edition edition (April 1, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1569474524
• ISBN-13: 978-1569474525
• Product Dimensions: 5.3 x 1.2 x 7.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #622,419 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Scandanavia's Second Biggest Problem, October 21, 2008

By 

Grey Wolffe "Zeb Kantrowitz" (North Waltham, MA United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Glass Devil (Inspector Irene Huss Investigation) (Paperback)

In this the third novel of the "Huss Series" to be published in English, Tursten concentrates on a growing problem. Because there a few ways to trace anonymous people on the internet, it has become a 'home' for pornographers and pedophiles. In permissive Sweden it's the pedophiles who have taken to the net in droves, using it to contact other pedophiles and spread their poison all over the world.

Into a triple murder of a pastor, his wife and son, steps Huss who will need hip-boots before this is all over. There is less procedure and more character development in this book and she is becoming more like
'Pepe Calvalho' each episode by describing the cooking of her husband and chef Krister. Though very subtle, there seems to be a polemic about the Swedish Church but I'm not sure what her point is supposed to be. We are also treated to a more in depth study of her colleagues especially Superintendent Anderssen. Though he should be retired (sixty is mandatory retirement for Swedish cops) she is keeping him on for at least one more novel. Is she setting Hush up as his replacement?

We are also treated to a visit with English DI Thompson, who is half brazilian, his mother, sister, wife and twins. It seems that Tursten has a 'thing' for twins, she has one set and two cousins are also described as 'looking like twins'. Tursten's descriptions of Huss' shopping trips in London look like a way of turning her own trips (if she does shop there) into 'research'. It's interesting to see the growth of her daughters and the changes to her fellow cops.

She never misses a chance to hit out at the number one problem in Sweden, alcohol abuse. Her fellow cop who is always drinking on the job and calling in sick (on the 'morning after') is admitted to the hospital for 'stomach' problems, which Huss says to herself must be his liver, is very telling as to a major problem among Swedes.

There are eight novels in the series that have been published so far but this is only the third that has been translated. I'm looking forward to following Huss et al for many years to come.

Zeb Kantrowitz

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Improved Author, Worth Reading, February 14, 2008

By 

J. Clark "Nancy Clark" (Bergenfield, NJ, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Glass Devil (Hardcover)

This is Tursten's third mystery in the Irene Huss series. It is a great improvement over her first (Detective Inspector Huss) and at least as good as her second (The Torso). DI Huss was too long---one of the very few mysteries I would describe that way--but Tursten now writes more compact narratives. The crimes she describes are EXTREMELY "noir," which may upset some readers; but the descriptions of DI Huss's home life provide a contrasting "normalcy." It's hard to say what separates Tursten from the top Scandinavian mystery writers (Sjoewall, Mankell, Fossum, Indridason), but her stories are well worth reading and, if she keeps improving, may be more than that.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Another solid mystery by Tursten, August 17, 2007

By 

Des Marais (Colorado) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Glass Devil (Hardcover)

While it isn't quite as gripping as The Torso, this is yet another fine work by Helene Tursten featuring Detective Inspector Huss. Tursten once again creates a believable, intelligent, and interesting character, as well as her fellow detectives and family, resulting in an engaging and intriguing mystery.