Customer Reviews

Woman with a Birthmark

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Lately, I've been on a Scandinavian mysteries book binge - Karin Fossum ["The Indian Bride", "Don't Look Back"] is my favorite author, but I've also enjoyed the works of Arnaldur Indridason ["The Draining Lake"], Henning Mankell etc.

Hakan Nesser does not disappoint in his latest Insp Van Veeteren mystery, "Woman With Birthmark". The storyline itself is intriguing - a young woman is so affected by her mother's dying words that she undertakes a vendetta against those she deems wrongdoers. She undergoes a major transformation, changes her appearance, and `returns' as a sort of grim reaper, dispatching said wrongdoers with aplomb. Prior to each murder, there is a phone call, with identical music [in each case] being heard in the background.

Enter Insp Van Veeteren, a veteran who has had his share of disturbing cases [the Insp Van Veeteren Series]. As the body count rises, Van Veeteren finds himself on the heels of a remarkably able and clever nemesis. The characters in this novel are well-delineated and complex, and the pacing of the plot is just right, drawing readers in and engaging our attention for the duration. Highly recommended for fans of psychological thrillers and suspense novels, and especially for those who have developed a literary taste for Scandinavian thrillers.

The Scandinavian mysteries by writers like Karin Fossum and Jo Nesbo have especially tragic themes. While most of this novel centers on the police investigation, those sequences told from the murderer's or the targetted victims' perspective heighten that tragic aspect. This is no whodunit. You know the murderess from the start and can pretty well figure her motivation for revenge. Nor iis there much in the way of true suspense. However, the author holds us in a hypnotic spell as if on is witnessing a train wreck....horrified by the events but unable to avert one's eyes. If you haven't yet encountered any Scandinavian crime novels, this is a good plce to start. And if you're already familiar with the crime literature from those countries, Hakan Nesser is one more author to add to your reading list.

A mother's deathbed request. An obsessed young woman. A sudden spate of identical murders where the victims are seemingly unrelated. These ingredients are familiar to mystery fans, but Hakan Nesser finds a fascinating new way to tell the story. His melancholy Scandinavian cop, Inspector Van Veeteren ("VV" to his loyal assistants), takes on the case the way he always does, slowly and carefully. As the police begin to close in on the shadowy perpetrator, VV can't help but feel a grudging admiration for his opponent. And the killing isn't over....

This is the 4th of Nesser's award-winning series to arrive in the U.S., and it's a good one. The moody Van Veeteren and his colorful team are always entertaining, and they work well together to solve even the toughest cases. And this case, with its back-and-forth shifts between the good guys and the mysterious woman, is constantly lively. If you're a fan of police procedurals in interesting places, you'll definitely want to add Nesser to your list of "must-reads." Recommended.

Håkan Nesser's "Woman with Birthmark," an Inspector Van Veeteren mystery, opens on a windy day in a driving rainstorm. In a bleak and depressing scene, an unnamed twenty-nine year old woman attends her mother's funeral, "a ceremony just as...undignified as the rest of the dead woman's life had been." Before the forty-seven year old mother passes away, she urges her daughter, "Do something, my girl! ... Do something magnificent that I can applaud up there in heaven!" The daughter takes her mother's words very much to heart. She embarks on a meticulously planned mission of revenge, musing, "I'm crazy.... completely and utterly mad." However, she adds, "It was a daring and irresistible madness."

This self-appointed nemesis disguises herself, assumes an alias, and plans how she will bring down her prey. When dead bodies start cropping up, Detective Chief Inspector Van Veeteren (VV) and his subordinates are at a complete loss. What is the connection between the victims? Who is the killer and what is his motive? In the past, VV has been short-tempered, sarcastic, and irreverent to his superiors. However, with age, he has mellowed somewhat and, although he is still prickly, VV is now more world-weary than tempestuous. Since he split with his wife, Renate, he spends most of his evenings alone drinking beer, listening to music, or going to the cinema, and the job doesn't bring the same satisfaction that it once did.

This is not a particularly suspenseful mystery, since most readers will discern what is going on long before all is revealed. However, it is worth reading for Nesser's grim yet compelling study of an angry woman who feels free to do as she pleases, since she has nothing left to lose. Most people avoid committing crimes because of their religious beliefs, their sense of morality, or a fear of reprisal. The protagonist in this case has no such compunctions. VV and his team, Münster, Reinhart, Moreno, Heinemann, and others, soon realize that they are battling an adversary who is careful, clever, remorseless, and generally two steps ahead of them. Can they stop the cunning perpetrator from continuing her systematic killing spree? VV's experienced and tenacious detectives soon learn that an amateur criminal can sometimes outthink even the most skilled law enforcement officers.

Laurie Thompson's translation from the Swedish is as smooth and fluid as ever, perfectly conveying the author's terse writing style and touches of black humor. Håkan Nesser delves into VV's psyche: After many years on the job, the chief inspector can barely stomach seeing the worst that humanity has to offer, "the maggot-ridden roots of [a] warped society." In spite of himself, however, he has a grudging respect for his wily opponent. "The feeling that she had full control over what she was doing was incontestable." "Woman with Birthmark" is an unsettling look at the far-reaching ramifications of an evil deed. Both the deed and this book are as chilling as an endless Scandinavian winter.

The Swedes have become known as excellent crime novelists. Among the best is Hakan Nesser. This book is not one of his most intriguing since it is easy to surmise why the victims are being murdered. Like so many other murder mysteries the answer lies in the distant past.

Severl seemingly normal middle aged men are murdered. All are shot twice in the heart and twice in the testicles.It is easy to surmise that the killer is a woman who has a grudge to solve against the victims. The answer to the crime is only solved when the Swedish police delve deeply in the past of each of the murdered men. The book is a police procedural which moves at a rapid pace. The team have to answer the queries, "What was the killer's motive? The end is mildly thrilling. The social issue of rape and abuse of women is a major theme of the novel.

The novel is a short read of 326 pages. Nesser is adept at dialogue and character analysis. Those of us who enjoy the cold atmospheric descriptions of Sweden will not be disappointed by this book dealing with grisley murder.

There is nothing great in these pages but it provides a good page turner until the mystery is solved.

The plot of this novel was interesting. I was surprised when it was made known who the killer was. One thing I would like to add is that the characters could have been developed more, especially the team of detectives. After a while they each just seemed to blend into one another as most of them did not have well-developed personalities.

Borkmann's Point was the first procedural I read by this author, and I was amazed. I've since read all of his others, and they are all great, but not QUITE up to the first one. Woman with Birthmark was outstanding, though, and has one of the most apropos double-meaning titles ever. I loved this story, I love the author, and rather than elaborate further I'll just say, kudos to Mr. Nesser for his fine use of social commentary; his books are more than just murders, they're a keen look at how and why people become monsters. Read this one!

Your post: April 20, 2009 10:37 AM PDT

E. Crowley says:

WOMAN WITH A BIRTHMARK is the fourth of Harkan Nesser's books to be translated into English. It opens at a cemetery a few days before Christmas. A woman, the lone mourner, stands at the side of a grave as her mother is being buried. In the last days before her death, her mother had urged, "Don't cry....don't stand there bawling at my funeral....No, do something, my girl! Take action!. Do something magnificent that I can applaud up there in heaven!" (p6).

Ryszard Malik has been receiving strange phone calls. Someone has been calling and playing an old song from the sixties; the caller never says a word. One night, in the middle of January, his wife returns to find his body sprawled in the entry. He had been shot four times, twice in the heart and twice below the belt. There are no clues, no supects, and no indication of a motive.

Van Veeteren and his team go through the motions but there is nothing in Malik's background to suggest that someone would want him dead. It seems a clear "no solve" until another man is murdered. Rickard Maasleitner was found shot to death, two bullets in the chest and two bullets below the belt. He, too, had received phone calls in which there was played a song that he vaguely remembered from the 1960's.

The story opens fully when the team discover the connection between the men and a detective's partner suggests something about the killer that Van Veeteren may well have missed.

This is a tightly written story, the best, I think, of Nesser's books. Van Veeteren is more upbeat and less self-involved than he seemed to be in the previous books. It is a book that begs to be read at one go.

From the back cover:

A young woman shivers in the December cold as her mother's body is laid to rest in a cemetery. A middle aged man is killed at his home, shot twice in the chest and twice below the belt. He had recently received a series of bizarre phone calls in which an old song is played down the line, evoking an eerie sense of both familiarity and unease. Before the police can find the culprit, a second man is killed in the same way. Chief Inspector Van Veeteren and his team must dig far back into each man's past - but with few clues at each crime scene, can they find the killer before anyone else dies? And as Van Veeteren muses on the complexity of the emerging puzzle, it falls to someone else to provide the first key insight....

Review:

I had heard this was a great read, but I wasn't that impressed. It grew on me over time - when I first finished reading I was going to give it 2 Stars - but in the end decided on 3 Stars. I had three major problems with this book. The first problem I had I suspect is a byproduct of issues with translation. There were lots of idioms used that seemed to me to be outdated or just slightly off - it really stuck me over and over again and pulled me out of the rhythm of reading which really annoyed me. The second problem I had was actually a personal dislike of the characters. I don't always have to like characters in the book I'm reading, being likable isn't a prerequisite for being readable, but the police force in this book irritated me almost to the point of throwing the book across the room. They just seemed to be so inept and lazy and drunken it was painful to read about them. The third problem I had was that this book just seemed so dated to me. About halfway through the book I realised that this was first published in 1996 (the year I graduated high school) when mobile phones and the Internet were not the vital tools they are today, and I actually felt like I was reading a book that was much, much older than its 14 years. I'm surprised that my enjoyment of the story was so effected by this lack of technology - I suppose my mind has become too used to modern crime shows/stories!

Overall I felt like I read a story about lazy, inept policemen blindly following a clever woman killing a bunch of people who, quite frankly, deserved what they got, all the way to the conclusion of the tale. And yet over time something sticks with me that makes me like it better than when I first finished it. I don't quite know what that is, I suppose if I ignore the fact that the wording is odd, the characters are annoying and it's a bit too old school, there is a good story in there. Once again this is a book I've read that I didn't like so much as a book but would probably enjoy as a TV series or a movie.

This is not the most suspenseful novel in the genre. After all, the murderer is known, and her motive is told largely from the start. The strength of the story is the fresh approach to a serial murder case: the victims are not innocent, nor likeable. I found myself rooting for the woman with birthmark. Nesser puts flesh on Chief Inspector Van Veeteran and his colleagues by giving them lives outside their work that keeps being interrupted by another murder with the same grisly M.O. And, these police demonstrate a universal approach to realistic, dogged crime investigation as they pursue an elusive, intrepid killer. Nesser draws an especially effective characterization of one of the victims. The man knows why he is being targeted; yet, unlike at least one of the other men, he shows not a bit of guilt or remorse. The translator, Laurie Thompson deserves kudos alongside Nesser. She captures English idiomatic speech while retaining the Swedish atmosphere. Her occasional use of archaic words or expressions ("clobber" probably hasn't been used in the USA since 1950) is noticeable but not distracting. The unnamed woman gives a complete explanation for her acts of revenge at the end. The ending is more horrific and sad than I expected, but it was worth every page it takes to get there.