Inspector Van Veeteren Books In Order

Publication Order of Inspector Van Veeteren Books

Chronological Order of Inspector Van Veeteren Books

Håkan Nesser is one of the most renowned authors in the world. He was born on February 21st, 1950. Nesser is one of the most celebrated and successful authors in Sweden. He has written a significant number of successful novels, primarily based on crime fiction. He has won several awards in Sweden, including the Best Swedish Crime Novel Award (three times), and one of his novels, Carambole, won the Glass Key Award in 2000. Due to his determination to reach as many people as possible worldwide, his books have been translated from Swedish into nine other languages.

Nesser was born and raised in Kumla and has spent most of his adult life in Uppsala. His first novel was published in 1988, but he continued working as a teacher until 1998, when he decided to fully dedicate his life to writing. He was motivated to become a full-time author after finding great success as a crime writer with his famous Van Veeteren series. In August 2006, Nesser and his wife Elke relocated to Greenwich Village in New York. However, they did not stay in New York for long before moving to London.

Throughout his career, Nesser has published about twenty books in Swedish, four of which have been translated into English. These translated books include Borkmann’s Point (2006), The Return (2007), The Mind’s Eye (2008), and Woman with Birthmark (2009). All of these are part of his popular Van Veeteren series, which comprises around ten books in Swedish.

The Van Veeteren series is set in Maardam, a fictional city in an unspecified northern European country. The series revolves around murder cases investigated by Chief Inspector Van Veeteren, a philosophical detective with a unique ability to solve complex crimes. Van Veeteren is portrayed as confident in his ability to uncover the truth and bring criminals to justice. He is often described as enigmatic, temperamental, eccentric, and difficult to deal with at times. Despite his quirks, Van Veeteren is also warm, funny, and outgoing. His character has become one of the most famous fictional detectives, rivaling the popularity of characters like Kurt Wallander and Martin Beck.

The Mind’s Eye

This is the first book in the Van Veeteren series by Håkan Nesser. The storyline centers around a crime. The murder in The Mind’s Eye seems straightforward at first. Janek Mitter wakes up one day with a severe hangover and cannot remember anything from the previous night—not even his own name. To his horror, he discovers his wife, Eva Ringmar, dead in the bathtub. But who could have killed Eva? This is the mystery Chief Inspector Van Veeteren is determined to solve.

Though Van Veeteren isn’t entirely convinced by the evidence, Mitter is found guilty of a drunken crime of passion and is sent to a mental institution. However, Van Veeteren’s suspicions are confirmed when Mitter becomes a murder victim himself. This prompts the inspector to launch a full investigation into both murders, focusing particularly on Eva Ringmar’s hidden secrets. A letter that Mitter wrote before his death becomes a crucial piece of the puzzle. Who killed Mitter and his wife? Why were they murdered? What was in the letter? To find out, you’ll need to read the book.

The Return

In The Return, Chief Inspector Van Veeteren and his team of detectives from the Maardam police department investigate a beheaded corpse found wrapped in a carpet by a nursery school child during a class outing in a wooded area. The investigation centers around two mysteries: the identity of the victim and who might have killed them.

The detectives soon discover that the victim is Leopold Verhaven, a once world-class sprinter who had been imprisoned for twelve years in two separate cases for the murders of two young women he had been romantically involved with. As Van Veeteren revisits past cases, he begins to suspect that Verhaven may have been innocent all along. The story is gripping, and as you read, you’ll be eager to find out what happens next.

In conclusion, Håkan Nesser’s crime novels are fascinating. For instance, The Return is an outstanding psychological crime novel with a great plot, interesting action, and outlandish, compelling characters.