Reflections

Swedish Detective Investigator Irene Huss of Night Rounds is not a super-sleuth and she’s not much like Lisbeth Salander, her Scandinavian counterpart with a Dragon Tattoo, and that’s the charm and strength of this book. As the mother of twin teenage girls, wife of a talented, temperamental chef, dutiful daughter of a chatty widow with a new boyfriend, and best friend of her male police partner, Huss’s skill in crime solving is grounded in her numerous relationships and observant connections with the world. She’s a third dan black belt in Ju-Jitsu, but she uses smart soft skills like strategic silence, tactical flattery and sincere consideration more often than force in her investigations. In Night Rounds, one nurse is murdered and another is missing from a small, private hospital in the chilly seaside city of Göteborg, and the only witnesses are blaming a ghost. Bit by bit, with repeated inspections, and multiple interrogations and re-interrogations, Huss and her colleagues begin to put together the puzzle of who did what and why they did it. Meanwhile, Huss is living her life. One daughter has become a militant vegan and her chef husband, who Huss feels should really lose a little weight to stay healthy, is furious. The dog needs walking, her hair needs coloring, and her mother needs visiting. It all seems realistic, making Night Rounds with its intelligent heroine an irresistible and absorbing mystery—hardboiled without being gratuitously grisly.