Paul Hjelm is a cop who achieves notoriety by gunning down a hostage-taker. Internal Affairs are less than impressed with his actions, but public approval saves him. Still, he gets transferred to join a new team in Stockholm called the A Unit.

The A Unit has been asked to investigate the strange murders of some of Sweden's leading industrialists, all despatched with two shots to the head. The method of their killing, along with other evidence, suggests some kind of organised crime connection, and Hjelm and his new colleagues pursue that line vigorously, some employing the carte blanche they have been given to get a result.

Like all good Scandinavian cops, Hjelm is a brooding type with personal problems; in his case his wife is leaving him due to his workaholism. I felt this was a little cliched and a little too unchallenging to put him up there with great brooders like Erlendur, Varg Veum and Wallander.

While Dahl signals early on who the villain is, that does not detract much from the plot. There are plenty of twists and some moments of shock before the denouement, and some of the means by which the A Unit solves the crime are quite original. As the first book in a series, I certainly think Misterioso shows enough promise to give the next book a whirl. ( )

El inspector Paul Hjelm se enfrenta a un proceso de disciplina interno, con acusaciones de racismo incluidas, por disparar a un extranjero durante un secuestro con rehenes. Su impulsiva actuación no ha sido entendida y, a pesar de que le ha convertido en un héroe mediático, ha desbaratado su carrera. De pronto, una singular propuesta del superintendente Jan-Olov Hultin le sacará de la pesadilla: en lugar del cese de sus funciones, Hultin propone unirse a un grupo de investigadores de élite a los que denomina Grupo A. La invitación no podía llegar en un mejor momento para Paul, que se integra en el grupo y comienza a investigar el asesinato de dos empresarios de las altas esferas, muertos de la misma forma, con dos balas en la cabeza y sin rastro de casquillos. Pese a que algunas pistas apuntan a la implicación de la mafia estonia, las investigaciones de repente se centran en el hallazgo de una cinta con una curiosa grabación del Misterioso de Thelonius Monk hallada en el lugar del crimen… ¿Qué relación tiene con los asesinatos y de qué forma podría conducirles al asesino?

Detective Paul Hjelm finds himself in a hostage situation, and for the first time in his life, shoots someone, after feigning being unarmed. Hailed as a hero by the press, his tactics are under review by the police department; however, he is asked to join a task force of misfits to capture someone who is methodically killing high-profile business leaders in Sweden: breaking into their homes at night, listening to Thelonious Monk’s jazz classic Misterioso, and firing two bullets into their heads, even taking the bullets with him. A bit meandering, with a substantial focus on the detectives personal lives and their quirks. ( )

Dahl är alltid en härlig läsning med bra intriger kombinerat med en skön humor. ( )

I've just finished this, and I have to admit I'm quite breathless: the momentum in the last quarter is genuinely exhilarating!

I daresay this will make an excellent TV series (on BBC4, from Spring 2013), primarily due to its references to fashionable concerns like the banking crisis, thrilling action sequences, the absence of overly repulsive violence, the presence of (more or less) tasteful sex etc. Also, the extremely sketchily drawn characters (or should I say symbolic ciphers?) can perhaps be more clearly delineated on TV.

Presumably in the interests of realism, the characters are forced for long periods to follow what to the reader are obviously false leads. This can get pretty tedious. And, despite its pretensions, I found the novel shallow: references to existential angst and so on are just that, references, failing to convince and seeming simply to have been bolted on almost at random.

Although the text reads fluently, much mention of what, to this reader, is apparently inane laughter perhaps suggests a sense of humour which has been lost in translation.

A fellow reviewer here is aghast that this been compared to Henning Mankell's Wallander novels, but I think the two series share much in common, namely that in spite of the thrills and spills effectively delivered, both ultimately add up to less than the sum of their parts: I've never understood what all the Wallander fuss was about, and this leaves me with the same sense that maybe I'm missing something? ( )