Review: The Cruel Stars of the Night by Kjell Eriksson

Today, in January Magazine’s crime fiction section, contributing editor David Thayer reviews The Cruel Stars of the Night by Kjell Eriksson. Says Thayer:

The Cruel Stars of the Night is the second English-translated work from Kjell Eriksson, author of the much-lauded novel The Princess of Burundi (released in the United States just last year, but winner of the Swedish Crime Academy Award for Best Crime Novel back in 1992). Once more, Eriksson’s large cast of cops is assigned to keep Uppsala (Sweden’s fourth-largest city) safe and secure. I haven’t seen this many Swedish names since the closing credits of an Ingmar Bergman film. Eriksson gives even his minor characters full names, plus a job title, and when the police get together for meetings the entire roster occupies slivers of the spotlight. Readers inclined to put books aside and pick them up later may feel as though their party has been crashed by a phenomenal assortment of Swedes, all of them interesting, if hard to place.

The full review is here.