Customer Reviews

The Princess of Burundi

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

In Libro, Sweden, everyone is stunned when the mutilated corpse body of husband and father John Harald Jonsson, out on a job, is found in the snow. Based on the disfigurement, whoever killed the renowned cichlids tropical fish expert, passionately hated John. Death had to be a relief for the obvious evidence like three cut off fingers that shows he suffered while alive. Thus, homicide detectives Ola Haver and Ann Lindell, who comes off maternity leave to work the case, hone in on a forty-two year old troubled person, his family, and especially an acrimonious nutcase who apparently had a run in with John.

However, proof proves difficult to come by making the two sleuths wonder if they are going down a wrong path. Reassessing what they know and suspect, Ola and Anna continue to search for the motive by someone who obviously detested the victim, but could it have to with his personal life or his work at the aquarium that led to this vicious homicide.

This tranlastion of an award winning Swedish police procedural reads in many ways more like a deep insightful psychological thriller though the detectives diligently work the homicide. The characterization is top rate as the audicne undertsnads what motivates several key players while the support cast enhances that perception. Fans will enjoy the excitng tale and look forward to hopefully more translations of the works of Kjell Eriksson, perhaps THE ILLUMINATED PATH.

Harriet Klausner

Well written and toward the end, the suspense really does begin to build. But I found the first two thirds of the novel to be arduous to navigate. There did not seem to be any suspense at all for much of the novel, rather a delving into the dark side of this Swedish University town. It was well written, in a spare and elegant style. It's just that I was expecting something a little more entertaining and suspenseful. Perhaps that is my own fault and I am not willing to give too low a rating for this novel. But it is no page turner if that is what you are looking for, which I was.

I too was disappointed in the novel. I like Scandinavian mysteries: the darkness of the sky and of the soul. I like Ed McBain, too. This ain't them. This novel is like a bland version of your favorite Chinese entree. The murder is interesting, the intro is promising, then it goes "off" for about 100 pages. The shift of view from one member of the force to another is badly paced. The lack of evidence bores rather than involves us in the police's frustration. The female police officer is a yawn. True, the book picks up in the last few chapters, but that almost feels like punishment: you have to keep reading.

An award-winning Swedish writer, Kjell Eriksson makes his US debut with this snowbound, atmospheric novel featuring the Uppsala police squad, a team that doesn't see many murders.

The murder of John Jonsson is particularly disturbing since the man had been tortured - slashes, severed fingers, burn marks - before being dumped in the snow. Jonsson is known to some members of the squad - he had been in trouble as a youth, but then settled down with a wife and son and a steady job.

But then he'd lost the job and his wife, Berit, fears he'd fallen sway to the pernicious influence of his hard-drinking petty criminal brother Lennart. His brother, though, is as bewildered as anyone and determined to hunt the murderer himself. It's John's teenage son, Justus, who's the keeper of his father's secrets. Justus guards his father's legacy, caring for his aquarium (the title comes from the name of a fish) and biding his time.

Meanwhile a psychopath taking revenge on all those who slighted him in high school discovers the pleasures - and risks - of violence, and detective Ann Lindell, a single mother on maternity leave, finds the lure of the job - and one colleague in particular - irresistible.

Point of view shifts among myriad characters, including the murdered man's family and friends and each member of the police team. Troubled marriages, cultural and class frictions, the changing face of Sweden, all merge seamlessly into the procedural action as the characters bring their personal preoccupations and biases into the hunt for a killer.

The backdrop for all this - winter a few days before Christmas - is as strong a presence as any of the characters. Beautiful, breathtaking (literally and figuratively), and unforgiving, winter is inescapable.

Eriksson empathizes with his characters, but maintains enough distance to reserve judgment. A portrait of the place emerges through the people and the plot arises from their characters. Suspense defers to atmosphere and insight. There are flaws - the characters can sometimes be too enigmatic and the ending, while appropriate, feels tacked on, but readers of psychological fiction will hope to see more of Eriksson soon.

--Portsmouth Herald

Former small-time crook John Jonsson is found brutally murdered with clear evidence of torture in a small town in Uppsala, Sweden. With Ann Lindell on maternity leave, it is up to her partner, Ola Haver, to find the killer.

First of all, I'd like to pick a bone with publishers in general. According to Stop, You're Killing Me!, this is the fourth book in this series that Eriksson has written, but it's the first to be translated into English. The Princess of Burundi won the Swedish Crime Academy Award for Best Crime Novel, and the publisher obviously thought it stood the best chance of selling well here. Although the book stands on its own merits fairly well, I often felt as though I walked in halfway through the movie as far as the series characters went. Please publish series books in order!

In this book, Eriksson delineates each of his characters very carefully except for those who have already appeared in previous books. Ola Haver is a police officer whose marriage is ossifying, and I never did feel as though he was any great shakes as an investigator. He was mired in his worries about his home life. Ann Lindell is on maternity leave in this book, and there were too many references made to a relationship she'd had in a previous book. She didn't have all that much to do with solving this case, and what small glimpses of her that I was allowed made me want to know more:

"I'm certainly not sophisticated," she said quietly to herself. "Not like detectives on TV, the ones who listen to opera, know Greek mythology, and know if a wine is right for fish or a white meat. I just am. A normal gal who happened to become a police officer, the way other people become chefs, gardeners, or bus drivers. I want there to be justice, and I want it so much I forget to live my life."


It was page 126 before I learned what "Princess of Burundi" had to do with anything. (The victim raised tropical fish and Princess of Burundi is the popular name of one of the species.) I found the plot to be a bit too circuitous, and it seemed that the bad guys just kept right on going until they did something so blatantly stupid that the police couldn't help but catch them.

All this makes it sound as though I found the book to be a waste of time. I didn't. There was just enough of main character Ann Lindell there for me to know that she's someone special that I would like to get to know better. (I would suggest that, if she has any more children, her maternity leave occurs between books and not right in the middle of one!)

I also found Eriksson's descriptions of Sweden and Swedish society to be very good. As I was reading, I felt as though I were there crunching through the endless snow and becoming better acquainted with the people. I will be keeping an eye out for books by this author. If earlier books in the series are published, I will definitely read them.

The Princess of Burundi was a rather dull and plodding police procedural.
None of the characters were particularly compelling or well drawn. The detectives seemed pale imitations of other Swedish police characters and all possessed a "sameness" that made it hard to distinguish one from the other. As for the plot, plodding: no real mystery at all.

The Princess of Burundi is not only unique in it's title but also in its emotional content. Uppsala police detectives are involved in solving the murder of John Jonsson, an expert in tropical fish and fish aquariums and former thug. The story unfolds with the secrets father and son kept from John's wife and it is also a few days before Christmas which adds to the longing and loneliness of the holidays. Princess is an excelent 87th-Precinct-like novel. The cultural differences are fascinating. Highly recommended.

Eriksson does a very nice job of painting a grim picture of northern Sweden (Uppsala) in winter. A man is tortured and murdered in the snow; all who know him are shocked that someone could have formed such an anger against him that would prompt this vicious murder. The victim's teenage son knows enough of his father's secrets that he could put the police on the trail of his father's murderer, but he chooses to confide in no one.

Our police team assigned to this case is concerned and human, and they work their way toward the solution of this crime--all the while being distracted by a psychotic man murdering Uppsala citizens at seeming random. We are introduced to Ann, the now common figure in many police procedurals, the single detective-mother. Eriksson pulls no punches as he lets us know that Ann would love to have an hour a day or so with her son, but no more. She loves her work and her interaction with colleagues too much to really love her son. Ann shows little consideration for others, including her parents and infant son, and this makes it difficult for us to sympathize or even like her. We are to understand that it is either the job (homicide detective) or the people this job attracts that makes a stable relationship untenable.

This is an uneven book with boring sections interspersed with meaninful dialogue and insights into human nature. By the time the villain is revealed, means and motives are quite anticlimactic. The crime that led someone to murder the victim is pretty unimaginative and lackluster. Eriksson has ability, and perhaps I've just caught him after a ho-hum effort. I would definitely consider tyring his work again.

My wife and I read this after becoming hooked on the Scandinavian crime scene, mainly through Larsson and Mankell. The Princess of Burundi shares the bleak landscape and social themes of the Wallander series and the Salander books, but little else. The plot is uninteresting and so are the characters, who mostly walk around complaining about their boring lives. The detectives do very little investigating, or much else for that matter. This might be what you get when a mediocre writer attempts a Bergmanesque thriller and fails miserably.

Just prior to the Christmas holidays, the peace and quiet of the town of Libro in the Swedish region of Uppsala is shattered by the discovery of a corpse murdered and tossed into a snow drift in a remote county storage facility. The victim a one time petty hoodlum "Little John" Jonsson had straightened out his life, had a loving family, worked as an accomplished welder and was an expert in aquariums and African tropical fish. His body showed evidence of mutilation and torture and local police were baffled.

Police detectives Ola Haver and his partner Ann Lindell, a single parent out on maternity leave spearheaded the investigation, aided by other colleagues. They focused attention on Little John's older brother Lennart, a well known hard core criminal and sot, suspected as being a motivating factor in his brother's death. Lennart himself, devastated by his brother's demise, was conducting his own investigation with murderous intent.

Concurrently the entire police force was also alerted to a local sociopath named Vincent Hahn, coincidently a former classmate of Little John, who is seeking retribution for the torment exacted upon him by his old schoolmates. Several violent confrontations make him a prime suspect in Little John's murder. As the police and Lennart continue to investigate they discover than Little John had come into a large sum of money, a result of winnings in a high stakes poker match. His windfall was a secret from his wife Berit but his young teenaged son Justus was aware of his father's plan to rise above their blue collar existence, using his gambling proceeds.

Author Eriksson, as many of his translated predecessors of Swedish crime drama paints a sometimes bleak portrait of the sociologic landscape of his native country and it's inhabitants. He provides a snowy, bucolic setting studded with a myriad of clues as to the solution to Little John's mysterious death and a slew of characters that must overcome their shortcomings and inhibitions to enable them to crack this case.

The title, "The Princess of Burundi" is the name given to a type of African tropical fish, the cichlids, about which Jonsson was an expert. It also metaphorically represented the dreams and aspirations of Little John and his family for a brighter future.