Midwinter Blood

This is the sort of book that we at MRB wait for. The Swedish author, Mons Kallentoft, only 43 years old, published his first novel in 2000, but he did not venture into the crime genre until 2007. This book was only released in the U.S. in June 2012. All of his books have been very well received in Sweden. This is his first book that was translated into English, and it’s hard to believe that it was not written in English. His style of prose is hard-hitting, staccato-like at times, very effective in building the drama of the story. The protagonist is Malin Fors, a police detective, a single mom who has a difficult relationship with the father of her child, a 13 yo precocious daughter, Tove. Kallentoft built a wonderful supporting cast in the police department, just as he built a most interesting group of characters who could have committed the gruesome, ritualistic murder of Bengt Andersson, who was widely derided for being a strange boy, known to his community as Ball-Bengt. The dialogue deserves special mention, and Kallentoft tells much of the story in the first person, changing the narration from one character to another as he marches through the chapters. He even wrote a believable monologue from the deceased Ball-Bengt, which really could have been just the musings of the talented Malin who has a sixth sense for figuring out crimes, victims and perpetrators. The main trouble in the investigation of Ball-Bengt’s murder came by way of the Murvail brothers and their very disturbed mother. I’ve purposely written little about the plot. I don’t want to spoil it. This book is a winner and gets my highest recommendation. Thanks to Julie Sugarman for recommending it. Now, I can’t wait for the next Kallentoft crime novel – I hope it is another one about detective Malin Fors.