Sweden Books

In this the ninth of Henning Mankell's detective mysteries about Police Office Kurt Wallander, his daughter Linda has just finished policy academy when this extremely-well written novel that appeals equally to both the head and heart begins. It has so much going for it: a very complicated plot but one that is very timely, characters you care about deeply, good writing, thoughtful commentary on relationships, mortality, religious cults, and finally-- without giving away the story-- a tribute to the U. S. and the tragedy of September 11, 2001.

Unlike many detective mysteries, this one is solved by police officers instead of, say, hairdressers or journalists or college English professors, making the story much more realistic. How many hairdressers in real life, for example, take time out from dyeing roots to avenge the dead?

There are beautiful passages here on a variety of subjects including death: "You only have so many races in your life. You just have to try to win a many of them as you can." And "Births and death are going on all around us all the time. But the dying seems more pronounced when you reach the front of the line. Now that my father [Kurt Wallander's] is dead there's no one ahead of me anymore."

This fine novel certainly rises about the genre of detective fiction. It is reminiscent of such first-class novels as Janette Turner Hospital's OYSTER and Margaret Atwood's THE HANDMAID'S TALE, just to name two.

Having read about eight of Mankell's previous novels, I was anxious to get my hands on this one. First I'll give a plot summary and then I'll explain my disappointment in this book.

Linda Wallander, daughter of Kurt Wallander, is eager to get her police uniform and begin her new position. Having just completed Police Academy she is sensitive to what goes on around her and when she is unable to contact her friend Anna, who has stood her up, she begins to fear for her friend's safety. Her Dad dismisses all of this as poppycock until a second friend, Zeba also goes missing. An event in Zeba's past offers a possible connection to two murders the police are currently investigating. Though she's not officially a police officer, Linda's Dad allows her to participate in the investigation.

And this is where things begin to go awry. Some of Linda's amateur tactics such as peeping through windows and going off on her own in a time of great danger seemed just plain dumb. I kept wondering why Mankell had chosen a plot in which his new heroine was not yet on the police force, and despite her training at the Academy still a rank amateur. And why at this late date make Kurt Wallander out as a complete jerk (in some ways) unless to invite sympathy for his daughter. Didn't work for me. I miss the old Kurt.

The book is very well written as are all of Mankell's earlier works, but this time I felt that the plot dragged a bit. Still, I look forward to Mankell's next book in this new series, and hope it will be better than this inauspicious start.

Linda, daughter of the infamous Kurt Wallander, star of several Mankell novels, has just graduated from the police academy, and is a few days away from starting her job at the police station her father works at when her friend Anna disappears.

As she tags along with her father on an investigation, it soon becomes obvious that Anna's disappearance and a woman's murder could be linked, but the problem is in figuring out what that link is.

This well written novel is fast-paced and will keep you turning the pages late into the night. It shows us the tensions that exist between father and daughter, as well as the deep love that they have for each other. Also, the reader can see just how similar they really are: stuborn and determined. It is also clear from this book that Linda Wallander is here to stay, and should make an appearance in future Mankell creations.

When Henning Mankell is in form, he is one of the best writers working in the crime novel genre. His book, "One Step Behind" is one of the finest crime novels I have ever read. On the surface, Kurt Wallander is not the most appealing of heroes. He is a middle aged Swedish detective with a gloomy disposition. However, his remarkable intelligence and driving energy make him a pleasure to know.

In this novel, the center of gravity switches from Kurt to his daughter, Linda Wallander. Linda is about to join the Ystad Police Force and becomes involved in her own mystery when a childhood friend dissapears. Linda Wallander has a lot of the negative aspects of Wallander's gloomy personality and none of the charm. For a crime novel to really work, the reader needs to sympathize with the protagonist. In the final analysis, I did not like Linda Wallander or her difficult relationship with her father.

This novel begins with a short opening chapter in which a nameless narrator describes how he escaped from the bloodbath that culminated Jim Jones People's Temple cult in Jamestown, Guyana in 1978. The action then switches to southern Sweden in late August 2001. Inspector Wallander has to investigate an odd report of burning swans on a local lake. Soon afterwards in another strange incident a calf is burnt alive. Meanwhile Wallander's daughter, Linda, is in town, recently having completed her training to be a policewoman and now at something of a loose end until she starts up officially as one of her father's colleagues. Her old schoolfriend Anna surprises her with the news that her father, who had disappeared when she was a very small girl, has reappeared. Then Anna herself vanishes and Linda, unable to convince her father to take the matter very seriously, goes off to investigate by herself.

After eight instalments of Wallander Mankell seemed to get a bit fed up and gave us the engaging `Return of the Dancing Master' in which a new protagonist Stefan Lindman goes chasing fascists around rather more northerly parts of Sweden. Here we come back to the familiar territory of Ystad but the focus shifts somewhat to the next generation. Indeed `Dancing Master's apparent departure from the series is now worked in as here is Lindman newly transferred to Ystad after recovering from his cancer and maybe Linda starting to fancy him a bit...

The story resembles `Dancing Master' again in the way the main protagonist's life is complicated by a lack of clear official status. In `Dancing Master' Lindman was on sick leave, away from his home turf, offering the local cops some outside assistance they weren't particularly keen to receive. Here Linda is a rookie whose first day as a proper cop is imminent but hasn't quite arrived.

As we now expect with Mankell, it's a great read, intriguing and beautifully plotted with believable vivid characters. As again is usual for him the story is perhaps a bit to grandiose in its large global political themes to be altogether credibly foisted on this tiny rural police precinct. As always it's all such terrific fun we forgive him instantly and look forward keenly to the next instalment. (Though I did feel that Mankell's studied timing of his story of murderous religious fanaticism to end neatly on September 11th, 2001 was decidedly contrived and most definitely overdoing it.)

This is one of the best books I have ever read! It is definitively just as good(or better) as Tom Clancys, although they are a bit different. Technologically they are great, but the best part is the psychological part. Read it, and you would know what I mean. :-)

And learn Swedish,Norwegian or Danish, since the rest of the series(10 books + a epilogue) is just as great..

Guillou has done his research. But maybe Count Hamilton is a bit too good! It is well written, fast paced and a good plot. What I do not like is that he spends too many words on describing guns and weapons in the same way that B.E.Ellis describes clothes in American Psycho!

This, one of the better in the 10 book series about the intelligence officer Carl Hamilton, is a good representative of the writing style of Jan Guillo. The 10 book series basically deal with more or less probable scenarios concerning Swedish security policy and military intelligence.

His current series, starting off with the book "Jerusalem", has very high potential. Hopefully it'll become available in English.

You should read the other early books. Of the eight first so called "Coq Rouge" novels five are definitely Five Stars Plus! I guess this one was translated to English because so much of the story centered around Russia and Moscow. Perhaps more of the Story is distributed in Germany, Italia, The Middle East, Scandinavia and the Russian penisula Kola in the other books, and this was a reason for not translating these books to English first. What a shame: They are the best!
To read - or listen - to the first of the books, Coq Rouge, today (spring 2002) can make you drop your jaw: "Was that really written in the 1985? It sounds like it should have been written this winter!"
I wonder if there are other authors of this caliber out there that I've never learnt to know, because their native language isn't English?

Having read all ten and a quarter hamiltons in the original I picked this one up out of curiosity. The satire poked at the swedish socialist state is as merciless as in the original, but unfortunately the translator is doing a sloppy job. Since when does one character get his name translated, and some of the Stockholm place names? Stålhandske does mean steelglove, but it has been a swedish noble family name since the 17th century. Other problems: far as I know, there is no Finnish-Swedish, as little as there is Canadish-French. Finland has a swedish-speaking minority, i.e Stålhandske-Steelglove speaks Finlandswedish dialect. Besides, the swedish navy has no robotcruisers or boats. In swedish, robot means just missile. And last but not least, some MEP in the committee accuses Hamilton of Toy Soldier acts on behalf of foreign governments. The swedish word Legosoldat means, quite simply, mercenary, making the accusation more plausible. Otherwise, classing this and the whole series as thrillers is about equal to calling Gulliver`s travels a travelogue. To me the point is more of satirising the swedish politics and police, in particular the inability of the swedish politicians to separate their socialist theory from the pragmatic reality. Knowing the swedish politics in the 1980s is a definite help in following who does what to whom. A good way to learn about the swedish society, as long as you know swedish. the originals are recommended, but even this translation will be of help to those outside the scandinavian language family.

Ozick creates a wonderful piece of literature here. She writes a work of terrific narration, with extraordinary language as is her specialty, yet it has a very different feel to it than most of her work. It has a spiritual feel, where she does not give us the same level of clarity and conciseness of description. Instead, she rather allows events to unfold almost by chance. The style is reminiscent of that of Philip Roth and in fact, it was interesting to find on the dedication page the simple words, "To Philip Roth."

Ozick's protagonist, Lars, is a book reviewer for a Stockholm newspaper. He has a penchant for old European literature, particularly Czech, Polish and Serbo-Croatian authors. He lives in a spiritual world of existentialism and extremis of the human condition. Yet, the obsession if you will, is much more, because Lars, an orphan, has decided or convinced himself that he is the son of a famous and dead Polish author.

The plot and concepts swirl around the reader as Lars seeks to find a lost manuscript and any other information that he can about the author. Lars is a creature of the night. He does not like the hustle and bustle of the office during daytime hours. He is a completely private person, and keeps his secret very close to his vest, except for his disclosure to the proprietor of a small but esoteric book shop. With her, he tells all. And she is fully drawn into it. At least, that is what it clearly seems to Lars.

But Lars is too personally caught up in his own thing to really detect the deceit. Lars is blinded by a vision of what he believes is his own father's eye, which comes to him in dreams. So he continues to work with the lady at the bookstore to get all that he can about his `father.' Until, one day a person shows up, with the lost manuscript, claiming to be the daughter of the famous Polish author. At some point in that occurrence, Lars realizes, his confidence has been preyed on by others.

Lars' reviews do not carry a lot of stock with the public. The old and gone literature that he tries constantly to "resurrect" is of little interest to the Stockholm public. Yet Lars is fixated on all that is written around and about the time of his father's existence. In the end, Lars finds prominence and success, by giving up his obsession and writing well received reviews of current Swedish and American authors. All of a sudden he has his own cubicle. Then Lars gets a newspaper column on Tuesday as well as Monday. And finally, he has totally conformed to the daytime world of the wild "stewpot" that constitutes the daylight work world. But still, Lars is left with the questions of his past. These are never fully resolved.

The book is recommended to all lovers of great current literature. The writing is phenomenal. And the story is highly interesting and engaging.

While I can appreciate, from a distance, the aspects of this book others could use to cite it as a great piece of writing, I found myself frustrated by the narrative balance that Ozick used to tell its story. I didn't feel like there was any spot where i could truly jump into the text and hold on. The characters outside of the main character were all very apathetic and one-dimensional, and i felt like the actions Lars (the main character) took towards them, and which were supposedly the driving points of the novel, were not satisfying emotionally due to the simple fact that I had no place from which to appreciate them. For a 140 page book, i think it was a task Ozick shouldn't have sought out to take by striving to cram so many esoteric and subjective aspects of text at the expense of character or plot development. A dissapointing and unsatisfying read.

I have read many works of Cynthia Ozick and highly esteem her writing. This work which comes highly touted by both Michiko Kakutani and Harold Bloom in NY Times Reviews I just could not get into. The beginning idea of having the main character a refugee who believes his father is Bruno Schultz never really got me. The character himself Lars Andemining a mediocre book- reviewer twice- married twice divorced father of one small girl makes the obsession with Schultz the center of his life. Somehow the characters he meets including the book- store owner Mrs. Ekland and the woman who claims to be Schultz's daughter, and shows up with an alleged manuscript of Schultz's lost masterpiece " The Messiah" are not fleshed out in a strong way.
Many readers have spoken about the pleasure of reading of Ozick's complex language.
Again I just could not get into the work, feel, sympathize, identity in any way with the characters.
It may just be my fault that I was not such a good reader on this one.

This is the story of Lars Andemening, a Stockholm reviewer of obscure literary works who believes he is the orphaned son of Bruno Schulz, a renowned Jewish writer murdered in Nazi-occupied Poland. Lars believes that his father's missing manuscript, The Messiah, is awaiting his discovery; he has built his solitary and eccentric life around all-things-Schulz with the help of an equally eccentric ally/opponent bookseller, Mrs. Eklund. When a young woman surfaces claiming to be the daughter of Schulz and the holder of The Messiah, Lars carefully constructed reality falls apart.

This is the first work of Cynthia Ozick's that I have ever read, so place my zeal within the context of the newly converted if you like. For true literary lovers -- for whom the point of reading is not to be swept by plot to some dubiously satisfying conclusion, but to be strummed, teased, taunted and caressed by words -- Cynthia Ozick is a blessing. She is a true wordsmith: as confident in her ability to raise even the lives of mice within office walls to a place of poetic beauty as she is to document the affect of violent social change on individuals and communities. Her characterization of Lars as captive in a history that may or may not be truly his painfully encapsulates the orphan-refugee experience. And her depiction of the literary world -- with its authors, publishers, reviewers, and sellers -- is both so charming and biting that you can't help but reexamine your role as a reader within it.

I recommend this work for readers who enjoy being swept along in beautiful prose and who seek out literature that begs to be read again and again and again.

Ozick's sentences are so wonderfully crafted that I feel like I am in the Louvre of writing when I read her. This is just the second book by her that I have read and I am just delighted. It is true, as one reviewer stated, that she maintains a certain distance from her characters, but that allows them to be less predictable, and a greater level of irony can also then by limned. This small novel about an alienated, sad "Monday reviewer" of books in Stockholm, orphaned, who believes he is the son of a murdered Jewish Pole who wrote surrealistic material is a lovely (but sad) story of self definition, inspiration, success/failure, trust. I recommend it strongly to anyone who loves good writing.

It's a good book for english speaking person, because the phrases are written how a Swed would have said it. Now, if a swedish person are reading it, it all looks all messed up, but it looks very logic for en English speaking person.

IT'S GOT ALL THE THINGS YOU NEED TO SAY OR UNDERSTAND ON YOUR TRIP, THE PICTURES AND THE LAYOUT AND THE PAGES ARE VERY NICE, I RECOMMEND IT!

It is a really useful book for people with no time to learn swedish using the long way. Practical words, phrases, idioms, and expresions. If you only want to communicate accurate in many situations without any idea what the swedish is, This is the right book, the cassete is very interactive. Don't forget you Swedish dicctionary Berlitz also, is really good despite its size. Both, are easy to carry on with you all time.

I have used the very fine Pimsleur course for another language (Hebrew) but, in looking for a course that costs a fraction of the Pimsleur price, I struck gold with the Berlitz Basic Spanish. There are 24 lessons, each about 7 minutes long. The lessons are divided into scenes on three audio tapes. The lessons are taught entirely in Spanish. It is amazing how well this works by putting the conversation in context and by using a guidebook. By going through each lesson several times and doing the exercises in the book, you learn Spanish in an easy and enjoyable manner, Having used Pimsleur, I believe that dollar for dollar, the Berlitz method compares well. You can't go wrong with either {Pimsleur or Berlitz) but, for less than 30 bucks, your money is very well spent with the Berlitz basic Spanish. The big difference between these two fine methods (Berlitz & Pimsleur) is the following: (1) Pimsleur has a series of 32 longer lessons in which the language is taught using both English and the language you are learning on the tape. The Pimsleur lessons are about an hour long. (2) The series of Berlitz lessons are about 8 or so minutes long and no English is spoken. The accompanying book provides English translation in marginal notes for new words that are introduced into the vocabulary. Both, programs are effective but Berlitz is a great bargain.

Swedish is a very difficult language for Americans to pronounce. It's a double tone language. In other words, you often stress more than one syllable in the same word. This sounds kinda silly to English speakers. You simply cannot look at this book (or any book) and try to speak Swedish. What is good about this book is the pronuniation guide that appears beside each word. This makes it possible that you won't sound silly every time you try to speak Swedish. Once you have been in Sweden and listened to the way they speak, you can use this book's pronunication guides and try to immitate the Swedes.

But, this book is really only for travelers, and travelers don't need to speak Swedish. Most Swedes speak English very well.

I wanted to read Beowulf before seeing the movie, so I decided to listen to this audio edition of it, and I really liked it. It has all the elements of a great fantasy story such as great heroes and kings and horrible monsters. The performance by Robertson Dean was excellent. His voice matched the story perfectly. I had a little trouble with all the names, though. But that didn't make it impossible to follow the story.

The cover of the book, Beowulf, was most satisfactory for the story and charge for the book. Thank you.

This is a good vs evil story, in one sense. You have a dwelling full of people having a good time, but a monster decides to cause a bit of carnage.

This causes much cowering and wailing, until the intrepid hero Beowulf decides to see if he can go and inflict some steel based damage upon the unfortunate monster, Grendel.

I once made the joke that Grendel was the first beo-degradable monster in history...

GROAN!

When I gave this joke to an English professor, he used it in class, and promptly returned it to me.

Okay. I'll accept that. But, Beowulf deserves the kind of serious attention that would prompt people to want to make bad jokes about it (unimportant things are ignored; only important things are held up in jest).

Beowulf is an old poem--often considered the first in English. This is technically not true, for linguistic and other reasons (where the demarcations of English beginnings fall are debatable; also there is the fact that there are older poems, just not epic poems). An epic is a long, narrative poem, a literary form undervalued today, but which was probably the equivalent of a Cecil B. DeMille production in more ancient times. The Illiad, the Odyssey, the Aeneid, Gilgamesh--all these are epic poems. Generally, they recount heroic deeds, and most often were composed and intended as oral history. Beowulf consists of 3182 existing lines.

Scholars also disagree on the 'British heritage' of the poem, many believing it more likely to be an import from Anglo-Saxon European homelands than a composition original to the Britain. The tale does portray two leaders, Hrothgar, leader of the Danes, and Beowulf, leader of the Geats, a Swedish tribe. These are interconnected through generations of family intermarriages, and Beowulf because of this loyalty takes his men to help defend Hrothgar's home against the monster Grendel.

The tale of Beowulf involves heroism, sacrifice, loyalty, warfare, conflict and resolution--all the elements that go into a good action feature. It also has moral overtones (so it was meant to educate and inspire as well as entertain). It carries the strong message that a fighting man's allegiance to the overlord and to God should be absolute (something that is often instilled in soldiers of today). It is almost decidedly Klingon in the glorification of battle (in fact, I've often wondered if the Star Trek universe took a leaf out of this epic to create the Klingon idea)--Beowulf fights three battles (a holy trinity of battles, almost), dying gloriously in the final battle with a great dragon, after having lived an honourable and courageous life.

This story contains elements of both early Christianity and late paganism, however in some cases the Christian aspects may be later additions by monks who transcribed the manuscripts (monks were noted for doing that in many circumstances, including Biblical texts). The oldest existing manuscript dates from about the tenth century and is preserved in the British Museum.

This particular translation is by Robert Kay Gordon, and was originally published as part of a collection on Anglo-Saxon poetry in 1926. This is more of an academic translation, with a great deal of attention paid to translating the fullness of each word (modern English is far more wordy than its Old English forerunner). This translation is done much more in the style of a prose-poem, which is entirely appropriate if one thinks about it - prose was virtually unknown to Old English literature, so anything that we might in our modern times think of as being appropriate to prose would still have had a poetic treatment at the time.

A great poem, and good translation in prose form, bridging the past and the present together in a good way. I will agree with another reviewer that Heaney's more recent translation is a better translation for today, but this affordable text is a useful one also for those who want to get yet more out of the tale of Beowulf.

So we all had to plow throught this poem wit its unpronounceable names, and far-off places that one on has ever heard of.

So why bother? I think that Joseph Cambell has made the point over and over again that there is more to these stories than mere entertainement. These legends were not only history, but they were also CULTURE, intended to CULTIVATE a civilization. We learn of order, honor, and duty as were read a rough legend as Beowulf. These legends held socitey togeather. We studied them in our English classes, but we should be reading them in our history, philosophy, and relgious classes too. Ther is more to these stories than a good time.

There are two main drawback to this translation. The first is that it is in prose form, rather than the poetic form, so we loose some of the majesty of the tale. The early classics were alays poems, not only toaid in memeory, but to set it apart from normal conversation. This was to be sacred words describing sacred events.

The second problem, is that the translation is very rough and wordy. The essence of poetry is is brevity--quick thoughts quickly spoken. The wordiness almosrt makes this poem a transliteration rather than a translation. It is not converational English, but sounds like it was done by a musty scholar to appease other musty scholars.

I reccomed Seamus Heaney's recent translation. The pome has been given a second birth by this smmmother and even poetric translation. His version is converational, firendly, and has the spark of genius that you woyuld expect from a Nobel lauriate.

Birth in Four Cultures : A Crosscultural Investigation of Childbirth in Yucatan, Holland, Sweden, and the United States
This is a good book, but not and easy one to read. I expected more about birth in the cultures that the book mentions. About rites and beliefs and I did not found that in this book.

I am not sure what I was expecting...but this wasn't it. I don't know. Too clinical maybe, I just didn't really enjoy it. I am sure it will speak to many people.

Heather mama of 5

This was an excellent book to read in medical anthropology class. It gave a view of birthing systems in only some cultures, but that was enough to show some of the drastic changes between cultures one sees in the woman giving birth and the hospital personnel. Amazing how even with technology some of the fundamental needs of the patient are not being met.

I first read this ethnography as an undergraduate major in anthropology, and now that I've started to teach college level courses as a graduate student in anthropology, I have assigned it in my classes for the last 2 years. Students are always fascinated with the information found in the book -- (largely because this may be the first time in their entire lives that anyone has given them frank information about birth in the US, let alone in other cultural contexts) -- and fruitful and interesting discussions have taken place in my classes after students have read this ethnography. I would highly recommend it for undergraduate and graduate courses in general anthropology, medical anthropology, ethnography, and a myriad of other anthropology, social science, and medical/biology courses.

One thing that I have noticed about those who want to argue about Jordan's findings is that they overemphasize the quoting of statistics from third world nations and that they have a need to justify how Jordan's statistical info about the United States is not as bad as statistical info from other nations -- as if the deaths of a few thousand babies per year here is better than the deaths of many thousands of babies per year elsewhere. This information is often coupled with a need to bring in still other types of birth statistics that are meant to nullify or throw into question the validity of birth statistics that show how the US consistently lags behind other industrialized nations in infant mortality rates -- today as well as in Jordan's "ethnographic present" time in the late 1970's.

But these kinds of arguments just show how much people can and do miss the point of reading this ethnography.

The most pressing, and central, point to Jordan's work is that everywhere people are convinced that their birthing system is superior to the birthing systems of other peoples in other places and that this superiority is always defined according to what the people within a culture believe to be the "natural" definition of birth. In the Yucatan, birth is hard work that women need to accomplish in their homes with their husbands at their sides, so it is inferior to give birth in a strange room in a hospital with few family members in attendance and with strangers violating their bodies with vaginal exams while they labor. In the United States, in contrast, birth is seen as a medical event out of necessity because Americans focus on birth pathology and they want medical professionals in attendance to save them "just in case" anything goes wrong. So, it is inferior to many Americans to labor at home, with non-AMA medical professionals in attendance, and with the awful possibility of something going wrong looming over their labor. This kind of chauvinism is cross-cultural and, unfortunately, it is very much in evidence whenever I see any negative American response (i.e. to quote statistical data on birth pathology, of course!) to Jordan's work.

Birth in Four Cultures is not a statistical treatise on birth nor is it meant to teach people about how to do birth "right." It is an anthropological study of the cultural logic people use to discuss, understand and perform birth. It is a descriptive account of how human cultural variation extends to biological matters. If you're reading it in the hopes of proving how American birth is the best type of birth system on the Earth, then you're reading it for the wrong reasons and you're not learning anything new. If you're reading the book in the hopes of proving how American birth is inferior to other birth systems on the planet, then you likewise are not reading it for the right reasons and you're not learning anything new. As Jordan points out, there are "good" and "bad" points to all of the birth systems she describes.

But, if you're reading Jordan's work to learn about human variation and cross-cultural information on birth, then you're going to be delighted with the ethnography. There is a great deal of ethnographic detail that brings the reader into the different worlds -- Mayan, American, Swedish, Dutch -- where women labor. There are moments of great humor and moments of great poignancy. It is an affective and effective work on many levels -- emotionally, scientifically, academically, socially.

If, after reading all of this, you find that it causes you to question some of the logic behind the birth protocol within your own culture, then accept this. If you're old enought to read the book, then you're old enough to understand that no cultural practice or group of people is without fault and flaw. Instead of trying to fight with, and deny the importance of, what you've learned that you don't like, become a person who individually paves the way for positive birth change according to the definitions within your own culture and using the new information you've gained about cultures not your own.

As Jordan says, all birth systems eventually change. How they will change is a mystery, but that they will change is certain. Be proactive in the kind of birth change that happens in your own culture, in your own life, and in how you demand to be treated -- or loved ones to be treated -- during labor. Most of all, though, become instrumental in making birth change be for the benefit of women and babies. This, and not ammunition for cultural chauvinism, is a message everyone should be able to grasp from Jordan's work.

I loved this book. It brought a whole new perspective on giving birth and the beauty of it. I gave birth at a big HMO Hospital and I felt that I was treated as a number basically. This book has taught me a lot and probably I will make different choices for my next baby.

I read 'Spilt Blood' simply because the author is Swedish and the book takes place northern Sweden. Having spent 3 years in Sweden many years ago, I lapped it up (no pun intended). The description of the Swedish woods, and Rebecca's feelings about the woods so mirrored my own discoveries, feelings and delights in the gentle Swedish nature, (compared to many American woods which are difficult to safely meander through except on paths) that I became enthralled with Larsson's so beautifully expressed writing. One caveat, I would certainly recommend that one read her first book 'Sun Storm' first as the reader will have a tendency to get lost, not in the woods, but in the prose.

The recorded version of this book is even better than the print version. Like some others I found the sections returning to the wolf's story something to fast forward through. On the whole it provided an interesting set of characters (with a few subplots) and some real suspense about the culprit. It made feel as if I were back in Sweden listening to Swedes speaking English.

The reviews aren't really doing this book justice--although as an ex-lawyer my connection to the main character's mixed feelings about her job and colleagues might have swayed me a bit. Larsson deserves enthusiastic praise for the naturalness of the writing, plenty of detail about the characters' thoughts and dilemmas, and the well-described settings. She also is very skilled at making almost every character appealing in some way, despite major flaws, bad judgment, or mental disorder--all that, and still nothing seemed overdone, sentimentalized, or "romancey". The limited amount of police procedure and forensic chops is really not a problem--the book is still engrossing and entertaining. Can't wait for the next...where is it?

Oh, and the wolf Yellow Legs--hope she appears again, too! A neat element of the story brought to life.

and I am so looking forward to Number 3 in this series, which I believe is due to arrive shortly.

Readers of truly good murder mysteries, where you can relate in some way with the main character, will enjoy the writing of Asa Larsson.

The other reviewers, including the unsinkable Harriet Klausner, paint an inaccurate picture of the disjointed story that is The Blood Spilt.

The novel takes place in a small Swedish town. A local priest, Mildred, has been murdered in a particularly gruesome fashion; and although many of the town's citizens had reason to dislike her, several had formed strong private bonds with her. Therefore, suspects abound. Murder for hate? love? money? blackmail? All are possibilities.

The novel is noteworthy for an interesting portrayal of a small Swedish village with its typical characters and a true interest in human nature. Literature regarding religious belief in the world shows, however, that Sweden is a largely secular country--and this belies a major element of the story. A strange woman who offends everyone, and a priest to boot, could hardly be noteworthy other than as a gnat that needs swatting. That Swedes in this small village would care either way, especially enough to polarize in the manner suggested by the author, strains credibility.

The book is quite disjointed for a few important reasons. First, Ms. Larsson spends a lot of time with a bunch of local characters and their private dealings with the female priest. This bogs down the story, and we don't have much of a police investigation at all. The detectives don't make any breakthroughs--they just run to every emergency until the finale has played itself out.

The character of Rebeckah (sp?) Martinsson is quite silly. She is obviously a very disturbed and mentally ill person, and Ms. Larsson expects us to like her and follow her exploits through this second novel and on to a third?!

Lastly, there is a strange, bothersome, and even disturbing focus on animals. A somewhat boring, but sustainable police procedural, is regularly interrupted by Yellow Feet (or Yellow Paws, or whatever) stories. Mildred, the frustrating (and murdered) priest, wants to spend church money on protecting a she-wolf (Yellow Feet). No one can reasonably be expected to give a darn about such a silly waste of money, and yet there is a separate short story about a she-wolf finding independence!

The whole idea of female clergy is ridiculous. If a church really uses the Bible as its text, then its members should realize there's no respect for women in christianity or any Nordic version thereof. I can't think why any woman would be interested in a vocation with such an institution, especially when Mildred clearly does not follow several major tenets of the religion.

This is a scatterbrained novel of sorts. It has its moments, but I was so relieved to be finished with it! I won't read another Larsson police procedural.

Petrus Blomgren had written a suicide note, but he was murdered before he could kill himself. The Uppsala Violent Crimes detectives begin looking for the killer. Soon there are two more similar murders of elderly men. Laura Hindersten reports her father missing. There appears to be nothing to link the victims together, there's little the police can do except to check and recheck every clue and every person they can find who knew the victims. The reader, as well as the various detectives, is left to try to fit the puzzle pieces together.

In some ways, this novel is frustrating with so many clues, so many detectives, so many victims, relatives, and interrelationships. But quickly, you become absorbed in the lives of the people involved. Laura Hindersten's father was a tyrant and now without him she's tasting freedom but years of repressed anger snaps out as we watch her spiral into insanity -- or so it seems. Stig Franklin, attracted to Laura, weighs the dangers of an affair against his bland relationship with Jessica. Ann Lindell accepts a date with another officer and begins to think perhaps the time has come to look beyond herself and her son. Each character is fully developed and while we may not get a chapter viewpoint into their life when they appear on the page it's obvious that they have a life off screen and this is just the intersection with the reader.

The tempo is slow and methodical throughout the investigation. The various threads circle and touch until they begin to weave through each other creating or adding to other threads that finally lead us to the solution. If you want pulse pounding action you get it in the last couple of chapters but otherwise it's a slow steady accumulation of people, snippets of lives affected by the death of a neighbor, a friend, or a family member. It's a book you can lose yourself in. The conclusion is satisfying -- the police identify the culprit but we don't tie up every end neatly and you're left wondering what happens to these people after you close the book and put it on the shelf.

It's a very good analysis of a full progression to what we call madness, and a nice description of police officers and their procedures. For the reader it's quite easy to tell who is the serial killer, but also is possible to understand that the police has not all the clues. I enjoyed the book.

The previous book 'The Princess of Burundi' is brilliant, this one not even a shadow of that. Merely contrived, a re-working of 'The Princess ...', a pastiche, what else can I say, too soon, too similar, not a patch on 'The Princess...'. No series in this author judging by this effort. If you pine for Scandinavian crime, go for the 10-book series featuring Martin Beck by Maj Sowall and Per Wahloo - as stunning as this is flat.

There is a new light on the horizon!
Those who love an intelligent read and don't feel the need for a bookcover to hide behind will be glad for the entrance of Kjell Erikson to their bookshelves.
His characters are humanly drawn and his plots are careful. These are people we can live with in our own lives---even the bad guys!
I recommend "The Princess of Burundi" as well.
First rate!

Laura Hindersten's professor father has gone missing and, while he may have just took off without telling her (though tyrannical, he is exceptionally eccentric), she is convinced something horrible has happened to him.

The members of the Uppsala Violent Crime Division are certain the professor - an expert on the Renaissance poet Petrarch - will turn up. But they are much more concerned with the murders of several elderly men in the region and how that may affect the upcoming visit by Queen Silvia, scheduled to arrive in a few days to open the new Academic Hospital.

Police Inspector Ann Lindell suspects there may be links between the murders and the missing professor, a hunch born out by evidence presented by the professor's colleague. As the body count and public anxiety increases, there's pressure on Inspector Lindell and the rest of the team to determine if the deaths are the work of a serial killer.

The Cruel Stars of the Night, the sequel to Kjell Eriksson's critically acclaimed debut, The Princess of Burundi, once again features the Uppsala Violent Crime Division and Police Inspector Ann Lindell.

Police procedurals are standard mystery fare, yet Eriksson takes this well-worn formula and crafts something extraordinary. His character-driven mysteries feature an ensemble "cast" and the personality and motivation of each member of the Uppsala Violent Crime Division is fleshed out in tandem with the details of the case. Eriksson's police men and women are very human, each with their own way of balancing work and home. Lindell, a single parent raising a young son, wonders if she is a "good" parent, while coping with loss and loneliness.

This is not an action-filled thriller. Eriksson lets the tension build slowly, playing out the psychological clues like an expert angler - ensuring his audience is hooked before ratcheting up the tension. Readers may be able to takes breaks from Eriksson's work in the early chapters; however, once the pieces begin to fall together, The Cruel Stars of the Night becomes impossible to put down.

Armchair Interviews agrees completely.

A man is being treated in a hospital. An intruder enters and stabs him with a bayonet. The victim was Chief Inspector Nyman. Detective Rönn estimated the death occurred 30 minutes before he arrived based on the coagulation and body warmth (Chapter 6). Chapter 7 tells of destruction of districts and their rebuilding to exploit valuable land in the 1960s. Apartments were replaced with office buildings. [What did that do to traffic patterns?] There has never been an unsolved murder of a policeman in Sweden (Chapter 10). Nationalization of the police forces had negative consequences. Nyman's best friend doesn't know who could have killed him (Chapter 13). Chapter 14 lists the civilian complaints against Nyman. (Is there a clue here?) One clue is who knew the room number for Nyman.

Then a shot hits on uniformed policeman by the Eastman Institute (Chapter 23). Detective Larsson called for help and to block off the area (Chapter 24). The Child Welfare people took away the daughter of a former policeman (Chapter 25). Did this create a crisis? [Is there such oppression in Sweden?] This sniper on the tallest building was seemingly unstoppable (Chapter 27). But new tactics are used to end this problem, with suspense until the last page. [There is no last chapter to tie up loose ends.]

The authors seem to have copied the 1966 case of the sniper at the University of Texas for this story about the effects of oppressive tactics.

Another spellbinding Martin Beck mystery that invites the reader into the world of the Swedish police in the 70's. The characters are memorable, the plot is very believable, it's an excellent piece of mystery fiction.

"The Abomidable Man" is one of the better entries in the ten "Martin Beck" mysteries by the husband-and-wife team of Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo. It features the unforgettable characters of Martin Beck, Leonard Kollberg, and their colleagues at the newly nationalized Swedish Police Force as a particularly brutal murder of a police officer in a hospital is investigated. With few clues, Beck and his colleagues eventually solve the case, but are overtaken by events in the sort of bleak existential denouement that characterizes this unmatched series of crime stories. The authors use the police procedural as a prism through which to look at society, and their liberal outlook seems innocent and quaint given the passage of time. Search your local used bookstores and garage sales for any entries in this series (not too uncommon in paperback) and let's hope that Black Lizard rereleases the whole series. NOTE: This book was made into an outstanding Swedis! ! h film called "The Man on the Roof", available on video at certain outlets.

After reading all ten of the Martin Beck series, I'll contest the other reviews: This is one of the two lame-ducks of the lot. ("Murder at the Savoy" is the other.) The socialist commentary is ladled on like chocolate syrup at an unsupervised birthday party for four-year-olds. The action is limited to one day (unlike the careful development of time in other Beck books) and places an emphasis on the stupidity and brutatlity of Swedish police, and it's far over-the-top when compared to other works in the series, such as "Cop Killer" and "The Laughing Policeman."

Whatever you do, DON'T start with this one. "Roseanna" and "The Laughing Policeman" are better bets to ease into the Beck series.

Ironically, the book ended up as an excellent Swedish movie -- "The Man on the Roof" -- that's subtitled in English and available used in VHS. The movie stripped out the socialism and other extraneous commentary to focus on action and plot development.

The sixth Martin Beck novel. The crime this time around is the brutal murder of a decorated police officer in his hospital bed. Beck (now divorced from his shrewish wife) and his partner Kollberg, are on the case again.

This is the best novel in the series, masterfully interweaving the virtues of Beck's patient, methodical style of detection with a damning indictment of the pointless brutality and general incompetence of modern law enforcement. The point of the book, made in a variety of ways, is that law enforcement needs better cops, not bigger guns. Excellent as both a crime thriller and social commentary.

And don't miss the cliffhanger ending.

Unfortunately, it's out of print, and hard to find. Beg, borrow, or steal a copy, and read it.

Kudos to David King for bringing us the fascinating, bizarre tale of Olof Rudbeck, who took Swedish patriotism to dizzying extremes. I must say, Rudbeck's theories, his reasoning and conclusions are strangely convincing, and King does a terrific job of laying them out for us. I couldn't help but think, however, that what would have been a few interesting chapters of a broader study on the many off-the-wall theories on Atlantis had been padded unnecessarily into a full-length book. It's a short book, certainly, but not one without its dry patches. The lengthy digressions into Swedish politics (as well as those at Rudbeck's university) can get a trifle boring. But when King sticks to Rudbeck's obsession with proving that Sweden was, among other things, what the ancient Greeks referred to as Atlantis and Hades (!), this is a mesmerizing study of a quirky, delightfully eccentric individual.

I just finished this book and found it very worthwhile. I have always been interested in the legend of Atlantis and oddly enough, had never heard of Olof Rudbeck. Therefore this book was quite intriguing (and has neat information about the history of Sweden and mythology as well). A few of the chapters in this book could be a bit boring, hence the not-perfect rating, but the rest of the book is quite fascinating. I highly recommend it!

Much like the Holy Grail, the search for Atlantis is a topic that demands curiousity. Here, Peter King writes with mangificent prose the account of Olof Rudbeck and his quest to prove that his Sweden was indeed the location of the lost, advanced civilization.

Before getting there, however, King illustrates Rudbeck's upbringing and education, which is fascinating in itself. For instance, he tells us that Rudbeck made the first major medical discovery of any Swede when he discovered the lymphatic system after performing a dissection on a cow carcass in an open market. After this discovery, Rudbeck experienced a meteoric rise in both the educational and royal graces, and was eventually asked for help researching the whereabouts of an ancient Norse tale from folklore...

As a result of that research, Rudbeck began to see connections from Classical Civilization to the folklore of Sweden, both in geography and in their legendary rulers. The majority of the book is devoted to Rudbeck's obsessive mission, which eventually became proving that Sweden was the home of Plato's Atlantis. Rudbeck's methodologies were ground-breaking and impressive. King casts Rudbeck as an intelligent eccentric, both ridiculous enough to constantly ruffle the feathers of his peers and charming enough to get himself out of most jams.

The background history of Sweden and Europe make it a worthwhile read, but the story of Rudbeck's mission make it an excellent one.

I am sure Mr King could write a fine scholarly work on Olof Rudbeck, but he or his publisher decided to aim for a wider market and the book strives to be 'popular'. Maybe this is a good idea, but it will annoy some readers. I confess I was disappointed. Talk of 'Apollo's dad' seems inappropriate to me, and I did not want events such as Columbus' discovery of the Americas explained so carefully. There is interesting material here, but you have to decide whether the packaging suits you before you read this book.

In 1679 one Olof Rudbeck succeeded in tracing a range of disparate legends to an ancient lost civilization which once thrived north of his native Sweden: he'd spend the last thirty years of his life seeking evidence of his theory. Finding Atlantis: A True Story Of Genius, Madness, And An Extraordinary Quest For A Lost World charts his extraordinary ability to chase down the most diverse clues in his search for the truth. Chapters probe the adventures he had tracing lends of the lost Atlantis, the publication of his 2,500-page history, and his research in uncertain times. Reading at times with the drama of a novel, Finding Atlantis is charged with action and even intrigue - as well as historical accuracy, and remains the only biography of Olof to probe his theories in detail.