Borkmann's Point is actually the second in the Van Veeteren series, but the first to be released in the US. I felt dismayed when I learned that I started with the second installment, and immediately purchased Mind's Eye, the first in the series, so that I'd have the whole picture. I'm glad I did. Borkmann's alone, without my book buying/reading series in order obsessions, might not have led me to read any other Nesser novels. The book follows Van Veeteren as he searches for the Axman, the uncreatively named serial killer who terrorizes a small coastal town. Van Veeteren is out of his element in a provincial police department, and makes no secret of it, scoffing at most of his temporary colleagues and the terrified townspeople.

But VV's attitude isn't the biggest problem with Point. Nesser switches point of view frequently, often delving into the mind of the killer. That's the funny thing about a murder mystery. A reader wants to know the identity, desperately, and even the motivation, but that's all crunched into the last chapters after the big reveal. Seeing the killer in action from his or her perspective turns out boring every time. It didn't work for Henning Mankell in The White Lion, and it doesn't work here. Every page spent on the killer's point of view takes away from the satisfaction of the ending - that spine-tingling sensation of the pieces fitting together in a perfect solution that lurked below the surface all along. Point doesn't have the same impact that a good mystery should, and I can't recommend it, especially not as an introduction to Nesser.

See the rest of my review, which picks up after I discover that the first VV novel is far better than the second: http://www.whatbookshouldireadtoday.c...