The Golden Calf

December 24, 2012
The murder of Kjell B:son Ceder, the so-called restaurant king of Göteborg, kicks off Tursten’s complex and compelling fifth Det. Insp. Irene Huss investigation to be published in the U.S. (after 2012’s Night Rounds). Someone shot Ceder in the head twice at point-blank range. Suspicion initially focuses on his much younger wife, Sanna, who stands to inherit Ceder’s fortune, but subsequent events force Huss and her colleagues to reconsider. Two other men are found murdered in the exact same way shortly after the first killing, and all three deaths may have a connection with a three-year-old financial scandal. The press had dubbed one of the other victims, Philip Bergman, as “the Golden Calf” for his facility in attracting business investors. Once again, the doggedly effective Huss proves herself a capable and sympathetic lead in the service of yet another clever plot that effortlessly meshes police procedural and whodunit. Agent: Anneli Høier, Leonhardt & Høier Literary Agency.

January 15, 2013
A fourth round of multiple homicides-cum-lesser felonies for DI Irene Huss and her colleagues and friends in Goteborg's Violent Crime Division (Night Rounds, 2012, etc.). Even Irene's husband, chef Krister Huss, knows who Kjell B: son [sic] Ceder is--the restaurant king of Goteborg--or was, until two well-placed bullets ended his life, leaving behind a widow who is alternately dry-eyed and hysterical and an unholy mess of domestic and financial double-dealing. Both Kjell and his much younger wife, Sanna Kaegler-Ceder, had carried on so many affairs that one mystery is why they ever got married. A second is whether Kjell's first wife, a shipping heiress killed in a sailing accident, was really a victim of foul play. The meatiest mystery of all concerns Sanna's Internet startup, ph.com, a brash high-end apparel retailer that had gone belly up in the dot-com crash of 2003. A closer look shows that ph.com was doomed from the first by both a highly unrealistic business model and the likelihood that at least one of its partners was emptying the till. Sanna's friend, financial consultant Joachim Rothstaahl, is soon shot as dead as her husband. So is her ex-partner Philip Bergman. Is it possible that Thomas Bonetti, the third founding partner, who's been missing since 2000, is behind the rash of embezzlement and murder? Has he been dead all along, the first casualty in a brutal housecleaning? And which member of this interlocking directorate is the father of Sanna's infant son? Interrogating the diminishing pool of suspects and focusing on the enigmatic Sanna provokes many revelations. But only a visit from an Amazonian FBI agent will dispel the last shadows. Monstrous Sanna is well worth Irene's trouble, but the kitchen-sink financial intrigue and deus ex machina windup may tax fans' patience.

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February 15, 2013
A grisly turn of events galvanizes the Gteborg, Sweden, police force in this fifth entry in Tursten's crackerjack series featuring Detective Inspector Irene Huss. As the novel opens, a wealthy restaurateur is found shot in the head in his opulent home. His wife, Senna, who discovered the body, arouses suspicion from the start. Detective Huss is certain she's lying, but why? Soon after, Huss is called to the scene of the double homicide of two gentlemen in exactly the same way that the restauranteur was killed. Turns out, Senna and the victims were principals in an Internet start-up that went boom and then bust. The mystery deepens when the body of a fourth partner, who's been missing for several years, is found in a nearby lake. Detective Huss has many questions for Senna, who is growing shiftier by the day. Among them: Who is really the father of her infant son? Compelling characters and steady suspense make this a fine Nordic crime novel in the spirit of Henning Mankell and Karin Fossum.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)