Borkmann's Point

International bestseller Nesser makes his U.S. debut with this classy and rewarding whodunit, which won the Swedish Crime Writers' Academy Prize for Best Novel in 1994. Chief Inspector Van Veeteren, a veteran of 30 years of police work who appreciates fine food and drink, reluctantly cuts short his vacation to help the police chief of the remote town of Kaalbringen and his small crew investigate two ax murders. When the killer claims a third victim and the town's best police investigator disappears without a trace, Van Veeteren, who has left only one case unsolved in his long career, intensifies his hunt.

The Return

Nesser’s latest contemporary police procedural, set in his Swedish homeland, is an excellent puzzler that will remind many of the Inspector Morse series. Nesser’s sleuth, Detective Chief Inspector Van Veeteren, is on the eve of major surgery when a baffling murder case is dumped on his team; a mutilated corpse has been found in a ditch, and is eventually identified as that of Leopold Verhaven, a recently released double murderer. … Van Veeteren and his squad deftly delve through decades of faded eyewitness recollections before reaching a satisfying solution, albeit one that requires the inspector to cross a line to achieve justice.