An Event in Autumn by Henning Mankell

An Event in Autumn by Henning Mankell – 169 p.

Inspector Kurt Wallander is getting restless, living with his daughter in their small town home, and he's been imagining moving to a bigger place where he can have a dog and a garden. His colleague offers a charming fixer-upper that appears to be the answer to Kurt's dreams. However, the dream is dashed when Kurt inspects the grounds, and practically trips over a human hand coming up through the soil. This brief novel was a great introduction to Mankell's series, and even though I have watched the (excellent) TV series, I think it will be worth reading some more of these.

The Department of Sensitive Crimes by Alexander McCall Smith

The Department of Sensitive Crimes: A Detective Varg Novel by Alexander McCall Smith --- 229 pages

Fans of Alexander McCall Smith will rejoice in the advent of a new series from this prolific author of gently humorous stories about the complicated lives of ordinary people trying hard to do the right thing.

On top of this, McCall Smith has added a layer of wry satire poking a little fun of the current fascination with Nordic Noir --- those dark and brooding Scandinavian crime novels that combine the stark landscapes of the far North with equally stark and brooding stories of horrific crime. McCall Smith's alternative has been dubbed "Scandi Blanc" by one waggish reviewer.

The tone is set from the start, with the inside jacket blurb sonorously announcing: "In the Swedish Criminal Justice System, certain cases are considered especially strange and difficult. In Malmö, the dedicated detectives who investigate these crimes are members of an elite squad known as the Sensitive Crimes Division. These are their stories."

 Detective Ulf Varg is the lead investigator in Malmö's Department of Sensitive Crimes. Like all Scandinavian detectives in fiction, he is divorced, guilt-ridden, and secretly pining for a married colleague, Anna, who is also unhappily married and secretly pining for Ulf. He is also burdened with a zealous street cop, Blomquist, who's determined to get promoted to Sensitive Crimes.  And if that's not enough,  Ulf is worried about the mental health of his hearing-impaired, lip-reading dog, Martin.

Ulf, along with his colleagues, is called upon to investigate several "sensitive crimes" in the course of this book. First, there's a bizarre attack on a market trader; then the abrupt disappearance of a young man who doesn't exist; then sorting out the accusations and counter-accusations of  three young women whose friendship hides deep-seated rivalries. And lastly, a seaside hotel is losing business due to an alleged werewolf haunting the grounds.

Click HERE to read the review from Publishers Weekly.

Click HERE to read the review from Kirkus Reviews.

Click HERE to read the review from Criminal Element.com.

Click HERE to read the review fro the New York Journal of Books.