A review by michaelnlibrarian
The Cruel Stars of the Night by Kjell Eriksson

2.0

There is even less mystery than usual in this one - the narrative splits between the police, particularly the detective Ann Lindel (who is the central character) and her colleagues, and the murderer. The description of the murderer and her thinking I found terribly unappealing and I almost gave up on this one, but eventually got used to her. (I guess - anyway, I finished.)

A clever aspect that I liked is that at one point a failed track of the investigation suggests a conspiracy to assassinate the queen of Sweden - which creates a fair amount of fuss.

I spent some time trying to understand why I found the murderer so unpleasant to read about in this novel. Certainly many such police procedurals feature an insane perpetrator, so it can't be that alone. I think that the character as portrayed was so openly crazy that it seemed too improbable that she was not locked up already. The reaction of some central characters to her seemed all wrong - why didn't they see how crazy she was given how she was described?? And like that.

The description of the police makes up somewhat for the faults with the murderer and I look forward to reading the next book in the series.