Helene Tursten Books In Order

Detective Inspector Huss

‘Add the voice of Helen Tursten to the list of mystery writers who know how to craft a truly satisfying police procedural.’ Philadelphia Inquirer

‘An absorbing, intelligent mystery that holds its own alongside the best feminine hardboiled novels currently being written by Englishwomen Val McDermid and Liza Cody, and our own Sara Paretsky.’ Maureen Corrigan, NPR, ‘Fresh Air,’ Washington Post Book World

‘The picture Tursten provides of Sweden’s growing anti immigrant resentment embodied in Huss’ skinhead daughter imbues this novel with a cold chill of dread that can’t be attributed only to the subfreezing temperatures of G teborg in winter.’ Chicago Sun Times

Inspector Irene Huss, stationed in G teborg, is called through the rain drenched wintry streets to the scene of an apparent suicide. The dead man landed on the sidewalk in front of his luxurious duplex apartment. He was a wealthy financier connected, through an old boys’ network, with the first families of Sweden. But the ‘Society Suicide’ turns out to have been a carefully plotted murder. As more murders ensue, she tangles with street gang members, skinheads, immigrants and neo Na*zis a cross section of Sweden’s disaffected in order to catch the killer.

Helene Tursten has been compared to P.D. James in her native Sweden. Her three subsequent Irene Huss mysteries have been highly praised. She was born in G teborg in 1954 where she now lives.

The Torso

The scenes in which Huss tracks her killer through the underbelly of Copenhagen are as good as Louise Welsh’s similarly creepy tour of Glasgow in The Cutting Room. Entertainment Weekly Tursten is a master at setting the scene, detailing a foreign milieu until it feels familiar. She juggles a large cast of characters with aplomb. Time Out Chicago One of the better examples of the Swedish crime fiction invasion. Baltimore Sun Outstanding. Publishers Weekly starred review Spins a good story…
this is a solid police procedural. Library Journal Part of a human torso washes up on a beach near G teborg, Sweden. It is so mutilated that gender is only established by DNA testing. A similar crime, now several years old, remains unsolved in Denmark. Detective Inspector Irene Huss is dispatched to Copenhagen to liaise with police. Then a third corpse is discovered. This time it s identified. It is a girl Detective Huss knew; she had been asked by the girl s mother to locate her missing daughter. A fourth victim, the son of a woman heading the Copenhagen crime squad, is also known to Huss. She fears the killer is tracking her, killing people with whom she is connected. There is even a chilling suggestion that he or she is one of her colleagues. Helene Tursten has been compared to P.D. James in her native Sweden. Her Irene Huss mysteries have been highly praised. She lives in G teborg, where she was born in 1954.

The Glass Devil

‘Know’s how to craft a truly satisfying police procedural.’ The Philadelphia Inquirer

The principal of a high school telephones his friend, Inspector Andersson of the G teborg Crime Police; one of his teachers failed to show up for work. To Inspector Irene Huss’ surprise, on the basis of this vague complaint her boss drives out with her to a remote cottage in snowbound southern Sweden to investigate. There they find a body, its head blasted by a rifle. Teacher Jacob Schyttelius has been murdered. When they go to break the news to his elderly parents, Pastor Sten Schyttelius and his wife, they find the couple dead in their beds, each shot between the eyes. Upside down pentagrams have been drawn in blood on their computer screens. The only surviving member of the family is a daughter, now residing in London, but she is too distressed to be interviewed. Is the killer a member of a satanic cult? Is it the parish treasurer, rumored to have been embezzling church funds? Or one of the assistant pastors, tired of waiting for a promotion? Perhaps the attractive blonde who sings in church and practices witchcraft? Irene Huss has a hunch that the answer lies in England, and she travels there twice to discover the reason for this triple homicide.

Helene Tursten is the author of Detective Inspector Huss and The Torso. The latter is now a German film, and her series is being filmed for Swedish television. She lives with her husband in G teborg.