The order in which this series is translated in English is quite bizarre but don’t let this concern you this is a decent police procedural, intricately constructed and stuffed with details of crime investigations (way too much in my books). Most of all, this mystery stands on its own, no worries if you start here.
In a prose that is bleak, Mr. Edwardson takes as its backdrop the Biker War in Sweden in the mid-1990 however he only mentions this in the opening pages. As the tradition imposes the story opens with the discovery of a woman’s body and the following pages are taken up with Winter and his colleagues investigation into her identity and solving the murder. Their efforts are slow, excruciating slow, minutia details, pages after pages of boring discussions, interrogations, etc.…. As the story plods along there are talks about illegal immigrants, relations between Swedes and Danes and some personal anecdotes. We need persistence to be rewarded. Mr. Edwardson does come through in his own time but far too late for my enjoyment. With its stilted dialogue, choppy narrative, plot twists that are hard to follow and a story without charismatic characters, I would describe “The Shadow Woman” as a lackluster installment to this series and by far not my preferred.
Having said this, I will nevertheless see what “Sail of Stone” has in store for me….one day…
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