The Torso

Starred review from January 30, 2006
In Swedish author Tursten's outstanding second police procedural to feature Irene Huss of the Göteborg Violent Crimes Unit (after 2003's Detective Inspector Huss
), the discovery of a dismembered corpse initiates a frustrating chase for a wily serial killer. The trail leads to Copenhagen, where Huss realizes the same murderer committed a similar horrific crime. After several more deaths, the complex investigation reaches a frightening climax and stunning conclusion. Smart and intuitive, Huss is a fully realized character, whose demanding job often collides with obligations to her chef husband, twin teenage daughters and wandering terrier. While the locales and sensibilities resemble those of such other Scandinavian writers as Henning Mankell and Karin Fossum, the private lives, work habits and personal quirks of Huss's colleagues are as individual as those of the cops in Ed McBain's 87th Precinct. Some readers may be put off by the gruesome crime scene descriptions, but all will relish the vivid writing, strong sense of place, distinctive characters and steady pace.

January 1, 2006
Tursten's second Detective Inspector Irene Huss novel will send your gore barometer well into the red zone with its occasionally stomach--turning tale of necrosadism (that's murder combined with mutilation and dismemberment of the victim's parts and organs, all for the sexual satisfaction of the perpetrator). No, this isn't a gentle read, but it isn't an exploitive splatterfest, either. Tursten's heroine, a 40-year-old, hardworking cop in Goteborg, Sweden, attempts to juggle the horrors of modern life, which she faces on the job, with the challenges of a demanding family, which includes twin teenage daughters, a chef husband, and a persnickety terrier. In juxtaposing dismemberment and domesticity, Tursten brings into high relief the toll police work takes on the psyche and the difficulty of moving between dramatically different worlds on a daily basis. The case itself, jumping between Goteborg and Copenhagen, unfolds in classic procedural style, leading to an oddly unsatisfying ending that, nevertheless, has the uncertain feel of real life. Make sure Tursten is on your short list of Henning Mankell read-alikes.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2006, American Library Association.)

April 1, 2006
When the upper part of a torso, its pectoral muscles carved out, washes up in a trash bag on a Swedish beach, the Violent Crimes Unit of the Gö teborg police is faced with a serial mutilation murderer. For Irene Huss (introduced in "Detective Inspector Huss)", the search becomes personal when the killer not only targets a family friend but signals the detective about it. Similarities between the Gö teborg case and one in Copenhagen have Huss traveling between the two cities, using a source whom she trusts but withholds revealing the identity, thus raising the ire of her supervisor, damaging her relationship with her Danish counterparts, and leading to a just as unsettling conclusion. Tursten evokes not only her native land but Copenhagen, particularly its lurid side, as she graphically details murders gruesome enough to nauseate experienced cops. Despite her pedestrian prose, the writer spins a good story with an attractive protagonist; this is a solid police procedural similar to those by fellow Swedes Å ke Edwardson (Sun and Shadow) and Kjell Eriksson ("The Princess of Burundi") in detailing officers - lives as well as their work. [See Prepub Mystery, "LJ "12/05.]

Copyright 2006 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.