Hakan Nesser - Borkmann’s Point

reviewed live on bookshow by Brian Lowen Nov 2013 

This is a detective story set in Scandinavia featuring Chief Inspector Van Veeteren.

When two men are brutally murdered in the quiet coastal town of Kaalbringen, CI Van Veeteren, who happens to be on holiday close by is summoned to go to the aid of the local Police force.

There appears to be no link between the two killings, despite extensive investigations. Then a third murder occurs and the murder weapon, a very sharp butcher’s axe is left in the corpse, hopefully signalling that this is the last killing. The local police chief, just days away from retirement, is determined to wrap things up before he goes.

Then a brilliant young female detective goes missing, just before she comes to a meeting to reveal what she thinks is a link between the three murders.

Borkmann’s point is a comment made by a senior detective, now retired, who maintained that in every investigation there comes a point beyond which further investigation is unnecessary because enough information has been accumulated for the case to be solved by reasoned thinking. The young female detective had appeared to have reached this point.

I found I was not able to fully gel with the characters and started to speed read just to get to a point where something was happening. It may just be an unfortunate coincidence, but I have found that most of the detective novels set in Scandinavia that I have read seem to be very slow moving, with little action and this was the case with this book. I also found the ending disappointing, so will not be looking out for any more books by this author.