Aubrey Hamilton Reviews: Stone Coffin by Kjell Eriksson (Minotaur, 2016)

Stone Coffin by Kjell Eriksson (Minotaur, 2016) is the third police procedural mystery featuring Ann Lindell and Ola Haver, detectives in the Violent Crime Division in Uppsala, Sweden. Originally published in Sweden in 2001, this entry in the series was translated by Ebba Segerberg nearly 15 years later.

Josefin Cederen and her daughter Emily are walking along a road near their home when they are struck and killed by a car whose driver speeds away without stopping. Sven-Erik Cederen, Josefin’s husband and Emily’s father, can’t be located. He is not at his company, MedForsk, a burgeoning pharmaceuticals company that he co-founded, and his coworkers do not know where he is. An all-points bulletin for him is released as Inspector Ann Lindell organizes the initial phases of the murder investigation. An examination of the Cederen home reveals Josefin’s diary, which shows she is afraid her marriage is disintegrating. The financial expert in the Uppsala police department reviews the family’s bank accounts and finds that Sven-Erik recently purchased property in the Caribbean using money from MedForsk, not his own, essentially embezzling it. The staff at MedForsk are less than forthcoming and Inspector Lindell and her colleagues can’t quite figure out what they are unwilling to reveal.

In the meantime Ann Lindell’s personal life is up in the air. She re-establishes a relationship she broke off six months earlier and is determined to find a way to remove the geographical distance between her and her lover. This story is as much about this turning point in her personal life as it is the investigation into the Cederen family deaths.

Kjell Eriksson has won multiple awards for the books in this series. His is not one of the most well-known names in Scandinavian fiction here in the U.S., but enjoys wide name recognition in Europe. His prose is thoughtful and precise, although the translator must share the credit to some extent, while his plotting is inventive.

This series was not translated into English and published in the U.S. in the same order it was written and published in Europe. The first two books haven’t been translated or released in this country at all. Since the characters’ personal lives appear to be a big part of each book, this out-of-sequence publishing affected my understanding of events.

Not to be overlooked by fans of Nordic crime fiction and police procedurals. Do be skeptical of references to “fourth in series” and similar statements; all of Amazon’s are based on the U.S. publication date which has no bearing on the original issuance date and are therefore wrong.

·         Hardcover: 304 pages

·         Publisher: Minotaur Books (November 22, 2016)

·         Language: English

·         ISBN-10: 1250025516

·         ISBN-13: 978-1250025517

Aubrey Hamilton © 2018

Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who works on Federal IT projects by day and reads mysteries at night.