The Root of Evil (Inspector Barbarotti #2) in The Darkest Day buddy read

Dec 21, 2021 Nataliya rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2021-reads

“The sense of it in actual fact being this self-willed, cold-blooded perpetrator who was choreographing the whole investigation began to seem inescapable.”

Ahhh, a Swedish crime novel… Scandi noir.

In Swedish, this book is titled “A Completely Different Story”, and it’s a perfect title for many reasons (but alas, the translation went with the more sinister-sounding “The Root of Evil” which really doesn’t hit the right note). It *is* a different story, with its own quirks and peculiarities tha

“The sense of it in actual fact being this self-willed, cold-blooded perpetrator who was choreographing the whole investigation began to seem inescapable.”

Ahhh, a Swedish crime novel… Scandi noir.

In Swedish, this book is titled “A Completely Different Story”, and it’s a perfect title for many reasons (but alas, the translation went with the more sinister-sounding “The Root of Evil” which really doesn’t hit the right note). It *is* a different story, with its own quirks and peculiarities that lend it its slightly awkward yet clever charm.

You see the puppet strings directing the events throughout the book, but who’s the puppeteer? That’s the question, and the one that’s not so easy to answer. And what does a holiday in France a few years ago have to do with a string of murders in Sweden? And can the detectives in Kymlinge, Sweden EVER have an uninterrupted vacation?

“Well, the way I see it, even if ten cops slave away for a hundred days and interview a thousand people, it doesn’t always help.”

(From thomaskinkade.com - “The Beach at Nice”)

Let me spoil one thing for you here — our protagonist Gunnar Barbarotti does not actually solve the crime. Oh, it gets solved, but Barbarotti is just one of the cogs in the machine, made special not by his talents or wits or anything else besides being our eyes into this story — and a person full of seemingly banal and yet interesting oddities. (Yes, he’s still awarding God points to allow God to prove his existence*). And Gunnar’s personal struggles to me were no less interesting than the murder investigation itself.

* “He had a so-called deal with Our Lord, in which Our Lord had to show his existence by heeding at least a reasonable proportion of the prayers his humble servant, Detective Inspector Barbarotti, sent up to him. Then points were awarded: plus points for Our Lord if Barbarotti’s prayers were answered, minus if they were not.”

Life is not always kind to Gunnar Barbarotti, and he really needs a break. Let’s just say, he’s struggling juuuust a bit, and loneliness plays a part in it all.

“So if I can just summarize for a moment,’ she said, stretching a little in her seat, ‘a variety of things have exercised a negative influence on your life in recent months. Your daughter’s left home. You feel lonely and aren’t happy with your job. You’ve found a new woman, but you’re not sure whether she really wants to live with you. You’re receiving strange letters from a murderer. You’ve been reported to the police for hitting a reporter and you’ve been suspended from work. Have I got that more or less right?”

It’s a slow-paced book, full of detours and police not knowing how to make head or tails of the murder investigations, and persistent feeling by all that the murderer is pulling all the strings, and a lot of figurative bumbling around in the dark. Honestly, that’s probably much closer to how real investigations go rather than the string of brilliant insights by the infallible geniuses. And Barbarotti is lucky to be surrounded by good friends and colleagues - his friendship with Eva Backman is a pleasure to witness.

“Why? Why the hell write a letter giving the name of your intended victim?
And why send it to him? Detective Inspector Gunnar Barbarotti? At his home address?
Was it just to tease them? Did it have any real significance at all? Did this person actually know Barbarotti?
And – last but not least – did Barbarotti know the murderer?”

Well, the answers are not immediately obvious, and red herrings abound, and sometimes it ends up, well, “a completely different story”.

(Oh, and have I mentioned that this book is translated by Sarah Death? What a fitting name for a murder mystery novel translator.)

4 stars.

————
Thanks to my buddy readers - William, Mark, Nat K and Neale. ...more

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Dec 23, 2021 Neale rated it really liked it

Gunnar Barbarotti locks his door grabs his suitcase and is heading off for his holiday in Gotland with Marianne when he is interrupted by the postman. In his haste he just collects the three letters and is on his way. Later when he is at Marianne’s house, he notices the letters that he stuffed in the outside pocket of his suitcase. Two of them are just bills, but one of them has his name and address scrawled on the front of the envelope and is handwritten. He opens the letter to find a disturbin Gunnar Barbarotti locks his door grabs his suitcase and is heading off for his holiday in Gotland with Marianne when he is interrupted by the postman. In his haste he just collects the three letters and is on his way. Later when he is at Marianne’s house, he notices the letters that he stuffed in the outside pocket of his suitcase. Two of them are just bills, but one of them has his name and address scrawled on the front of the envelope and is handwritten. He opens the letter to find a disturbing message,

GOING TO KILL ERIK BERGMAN LET’S SEE IF YOU CAN STOP ME.

Barbarotti is baffled, he cannot seem to remember an Erik Bergman. Perhaps the letter is just a hoax or fake, it would not be the first. Marianne insists that Barbarotti takes the letter seriously, and if he is honest, just wanting to enjoy his holiday, he wishes he had never opened it.
He calls the station and notifies them about the letter and thinks that that will be the last of it.

However, the next day, Eva Backman, his partner, returns his call notifying him that an Erick Bergman has indeed been murdered. And just like that Barbarotti knows his holiday is over.
Upon returning to his house, another letter awaits him. Same handwriting. The letter addresses him again, but the victim will now be Anna Eriksson.

This letter is followed by a third and fourth. It seems the police have a serial killer on their hands yet there is absolutely no connection between the victims to be found. The killer continues dispatching the people who are on the letters, taunting the baffled inspectors, particularly Barbarotti. Why are the letters being addressed to him, and to his home address?

The novel is broken into seven parts and parts one to six start with the killer writing his thoughts and musings, similar to diary entries. This structure works extremely well, revealing the killers motive but not his identity, and leaves the reader knowing much more than the police.

This is the second Barbarotti novel, and just as with the first we are treated to the “earthy”, realistic side of police investigating. The reader is privy to just how difficult an investigation of this sort must be with the inspectors struggling to find the killer before he gets to the next person on the letter.

Also, with this second novel, Barbarotti wants to settle down and leave the force to marry Marianne. This should lead to interesting dynamics in the third book.

And again, the reader is treated to Nesser’s wonderful dry, subtle humor. And again, Barbarrotti continues his eccentric point system to prove God’s existence.

Nesser is a highly skilled crime writer, and I am willing to bet that he will have you guessing the identity of the killer right until the end.

This novel was again translated by Sarah Death, and again she has done a superb job.

Thanks to my fellow buddy readers who I read this with and their wonderful insightful comments. ...more

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Dec 20, 2021 Mark Porton rated it really liked it

Shelves: modern-fiction, mystery, suspense, thriller, crime-fiction, hakan-nesser

One of my favourite things about #2 in the Inspector Barbarotti series, The Root of Evil by Hakan Nesser is, we didn’t have to wait until the last third of the book to see our hero. He enters in Chapter 1 – Happy Days!! He’s still the same odd, special, clever, and funny, Gunnar Barbarotti. He is still searching for meaning by slavishly following his self-imposed algorithm of awarding points to God if a prayer of his is answered and debiting God points if his cry for help is wilfully ignored. Th ...more

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Nov 26, 2021 Nat K rated it really liked it

Shelves: buddy-reads, contemporary, translated-to-english, 2021-books, nordic-scandi-lit-or-noir, mystery-thriller-or-suspense

”I am not like other people. And I do not want to be.”

Chapter 1, page 1. Enter one Inspector Gunnar Barbarotti. Could it be??? Admittedly he is off on hols with his lady love Marianne. But it was such a pleasant surprise to see him so early in the piece, as in the first book of this series (The Darkest Day) he didn’t turn up til Chapter 16. Not that there’s anything wrong with that…

The moral of this story is: sun, sand, strangers and booze do not mix.

”…moral guilt…” Make that collective guilt…

A ...more

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