Sun and Shadow: An Erik Winter Novel [Paperback]

Ake Edwardson (Author), Laurie Thompson (Translator)

Book Description

Release date: April 25, 2006

Like his fellow countryman Henning Mankell, Åke Edwardson is a successful figure on the international mystery scene and a brilliant discovery for lovers of intricate, psychologically charged, and stylish crime novels. With Sun and Shadow, Edwardson introduces readers to detective Erik Winter, the youngest chief inspector in Sweden, who wears sharp suits, cooks gourmet meals, has a penchant for jazz, and is about to become a father. He's also moody and intuitive, his mind inhabiting the crimes he's trying to solve. In this atmospheric, heart-stopping tale, Winter's troubles abound—and a bloody double murder on his doorstep is just the beginning.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Cars from Sweden are known for being dependable and safe, but like this American debut from a celebrated Scandinavian crime writer, their stolid lines don't necessarily spark excitement. Erik Winter, a jazz-loving, gourmet-cooking detective, is a blaze of color amid the drab postwar apartment blocks of Gothenburg, a city reeling from a macabre double murder. Winter, whose normally secure battlements are assaulted by family tragedy and the impending birth of his first child, sets out to follow the dark drops of gore blooming in the snow. The path leads in any number of interesting directions—through thickets of death metal enthusiasts and swingers, through winds of psychosexual trauma—but these subjects never pierce the book's colorless atmosphere. Excessive exposition slows down an already unhurried plot, which Americans fond of glib investigators on CSI and Hannibal Lecter's piercing irony will find insufficiently suspenseful. The villain is comparatively bland, and the translation often awkward: Winters takes a "softly softly approach" so that his witness doesn't get "chary." Add in an insistence on mundane details, such as the particulars of a simple bank transaction, and the results smother any flame of personality. All the blocks that built this gothic ice cathedral are cut straight, but assembled without the design of a compelling thriller.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Eric Winter, at 40, is Sweden's youngest chief inspector, but his brow is already starting to furrow in the manner of Henning Mankell's Kurt Wallander. In this American debut of what promises to be a superior procedural series, a plethora of seemingly insoluble problems contribute to Winter's sense of growing discontent: his father is dying in Spain; his pregnant girlfriend is moving into his apartment; and a bloody double murder suggests a serial killer. As in the Wallander series, the focus here lands not only on the hero but also on his entire team, as Edwardson details the slow grind of the investigative process. The action, beginning in fall 1999 and extending into spring 2000, effectively uses the Y2K panic to heighten the sense of troubled waters approaching that grips Winter and those around him. The comparison to Mankell is obvious, but in many ways, this series harkens further back, to Sjowall and Wahloo's early Martin Beck novels, in which another youngish Swedish inspector was beginning to realize that sometimes a crime's solution solves nothing. Bill Ott
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 400 pages
• Publisher: Penguin Books; Reprint edition (April 25, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0143037188
• ISBN-13: 978-0143037187
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.1 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #362,980 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

39 of 43 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Not trying to be Henning Mankell November 6, 2006

By Jim Coughenour

Format:Paperback

I'm rating this book 5 stars just to bring up the abysmal rating given by the only other reviewer so far; it deserves better. I'm an aficionado of Scandinavian detectives (see my manic list elsewhere). Edwardson's books are as enjoyable as any. "Never End" - the sequel to this book - is maybe richer, but "Sun and Shadow" serves as an excellent introduction to the icy world of Winter & company. The plot evolves in several dimensions and casts its own bleak spell. Connoisseurs of crime fiction won't want to miss it.

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars I read it in one night! January 28, 2008

By Angela

Format:Paperback

I am a very big fan of Scandinavian crime novels, being from Norway I guess that is a no-brainer.
While I have thoroughly enjoyed Mankells series, I was looking for something a bit more contemporary and edgier. I found it with Erik Winter. I think he breaths of fresh air into the genre. He's not an aging detective but a rising star in the force. He is smart and very complex, but also has a softer side when it comes to his family/personal life. Don't expect a Henning Mankell type novel. Both 'Erik Winter' books are very much worth reading and I recommend reading them in sequential order. I'm anxiously waiting for the third to come so I can pour me a glass of wine and have an evening with Mr. Winter.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Turmoil at the onset of the new millenium April 6, 2007

By Cory D. Slipman

Format:Hardcover

Ake Edwardson's "Sun and Shadow" is a worthy addition to the rapidly growing genre of Scandinavian crime dramas being translated for consumption for the English speaking market. Edwardson, however uses a slightly different formula. He devotes nearly one third of his novel developing both his characters, particularly protagonist, Detective Chief Inspector Erik Winter and his setting, Gothenberg, Sweden. He gives us brief glimpses at the heinous crime that will become Winter's focus.

Gothenberg is at the onset of both Christmas and the celebration of the new millenium when a brutal double murder with obvious sexual overtones is uncovered. Inspector Winter whose life is in flux owing to the anticipation of fatherhood, had recently been jetting back and forth to the Costa del Sol in Spain. His father lying on his deathbed had succumbed to his illnesses. With personal issues cluttering his mind, he now must focus on coordinating the investigation of this killing.

We soon learn through the ongoing inquest that the murder seems in some way related to couples who fulfill their sexual fantasies by wife swapping. Eyewitnesses around the crime scene report that a man in uniform was seen around the time of the murders. Could Winter possibly be searching for one of his own?

Edwardson leads us through his plot at a leisurely pace not revealing too much but concluding is a frenetic fashion as time is of the essence, as the murderer is poised to strike again.