The Demon of Dakar: A Mystery

by Kjell Eriksson

Book Overview

Already a huge star in Europe and the Nordic countries, Kjell Eriksson has American critics also raving, with almost every review studded with words like "stunning," "chilling," "suspenseful," "haunting," and "brilliant." In "The Demon of Dakar," Ann Lindell and her motley crew of colleagues are faced with a most baffling murder case in which all clues lead straight back to a popular local restaurant named Dakar. The owner, Slobodan Andersson, has...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312366698
• ISBN13: 9780312366698
• Release Date: April 2008
• Publisher: Minotaur Books
• Length: 368 Pages
• Weight: 1.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 5.6" x 8.6"

Customer Reviews

A Demon with a difference.

This is my favorite of Kjell Eriksson's wonderful scandinavian noir mysteries. His strength is in the slow narrative which has his detective, Ann Lindell, unraveling very puzzling murders and tying all the ends up into a very coherent whole with a wonderful twist at the end!

A Murder in Uppsala

Ann Lindell, a homicide detective in Uppsala, methodically investigates the apparent murder of a naked man near the city. No one has been reported missing and there are few clues, except for the postmortem removal of a strange tattoo. From such little information she patiently peels back layer upon layer of the conundrum wrapped within the mystery. Who is this man? Why was he killed here? Why has no one reported him missing? What was removed from him? The answers lead to an international drug conspiracy stretching across Europe to a Mexican village, which three brothers left for different reasons. Racing against time, the police uncover the source of the sea of cocaine lapping the streets of the city, but will they catch the killer who slips quietly in and out of Uppsala like a ghost? For the answers to these questions you must first read, with great enjoyment, this superb Swedish police procedural.

Good Food and Bad Drugs

Slobodan Andersson and his partner, an Armenian named Armas are doing well in the restaurant business, especially with their restaurant in Uppsala, Sweden called Dakar. But doing well in the restaurant biz just isn't completely foating their boat moneywise, so they decided to dip into the drug trade and Armas gets himself killed. Policewoman and single mother Ann Lindell get the case and she's not exactly overjoyed about it, because theirs a lot going on in her life right now. And her investigation isn't going to be smooth and easy, of course, they never are, but this one is complicated by the fact that almost none of the restaurant's employees speaks Swedish and they all seem to be having their own little forays into crime of one kind or another. This is Ericksson's third Ann Lindell novel and it can very easily read as a standalone. That's the way I read it, but I'm going to go out and get the first two now. Mr. Ericksson, unlike a lot of other mystery writers, doesn't tie up all the lose ends, so his book is more like real life, because in life lose ends rarely get tied up, usually they're left dangling in the wind. Also, you'll get a good insight into Sweden and Swedish society with this book, but it's not thrown in your face, it just kind of seeps in. This is a nice mystery, a good book.

superb Swedish police procedural

Uppsala, Sweden Police Detective Ann Lindell works a difficult homicide case as she struggles to identify the victim found floating in a river. The corpse is eventually identified as Armas, a co-owner of the upscale restaurant Dakar. Ann visits the other partner, Slobodan Andersson who also owns Alhambra and has questionable financing connections and plenty of enemies. However the suspect list remains long besides Slobodan and his adversaries. Ann considers recently hired waitress Eva Willman and her two teen boys, chef Johnny Kvarnheden, homeless Konrad Rosenberg and Mexican peasant Manuel Alavez seeking to free his incarcerated brother. The fascination with this superior third Swedish police procedural (see THE CRUEL STARS OF THE NIGHT and THE PRINCESS OF BURUNDI) is the cast as perspective is told from various participants so that the same incident is seen differently and their political viewpoints especially anti Bush runs strong. The investigation led by Ann is wonderful to follow as she, like the readers, meet the restaurant's players who all have motive to kill the victim. A slight adjustment is needed to Swedish nomenclature as delineating the names of people and places require full concentration, but THE DEMON OF DAKAR is worth the time. Harriet Klausner