This is a police proceedural crime novel. The story is about a special team that is assembled to find out who is killing prominent businessmen in Sweden. I enjoyed the beginning & ending of the story, but found the middle just too dry. The crime team spent quite a bit of time examining each of victims' connections to each other through their corporations, subsidiaries & holding companies, along with the boards they sat on, and on their potential connections to the Russian &Estonian mafia.The num...

I've just finished this, and I have to admit I'm quite breathless: the momentum in the last quarter is genuinely exhilarating!I daresay this will make an excellent TV series (on BBC4, from Spring 2013), primarily due to its references to fashionable concerns like the banking crisis, thrilling action sequences, the absence of overly repulsive violence, the presence of (more or less) tasteful sex etc. Also, the extremely sketchily drawn characters (or should I say symbolic ciphers?) can perhaps be...

Detective Paul Hjelm finds himself in a hostage situation, and for the first time in his life, shoots someone, after feigning being unarmed. Hailed as a hero by the press, his tactics are under review by the police department; however, he is asked to join a task force of misfits to capture someone who is methodically killing high-profile business leaders in Sweden: breaking into their homes at night, listening to Thelonious Monk’s jazz classic Misterioso, and firing two bullets into their heads,...

Please Note: I read and reviewed this book in May, 2011 from a copy I received from the Amazon Vine program in exchange for an honest review. Just adding formatting and that disclosure. All opinions are my own.About the Book: Misterioso is the first in the A-Group series from Arne Dahl, a published author in his native Sweden. You can tell he is an experienced writer by how smoothly this story runs, and by how it sucks you in and keeps you in. Originally published in 1999 in Sweden, it has now b...

This almost escaped my Scandinavian crime radar but I’m jolly glad it didn’t as I thoroughly enjoyed this taut and well-written thriller. This is the first of Dahl’s Intercrime series to hit British shelves (previously published as ‘Misterioso’ in reference to the killer’s particular use of background music) with the follow-up ‘Bad Blood’ due for release next year. Billed as Henning Mankell meets ‘The Wire’, an elite group of detectives strive to uncover the identity of a killer unceremoniously

Too many characters and a plot with too many convolutions. Jazz fans may have an interest in reading this because Thelonious Monk's 1958 Five Spot recording of "Misterioso" (with a bootlegged addition) plays a part in the book. I have the feeling that Arne Dahl is a jazz fan who used his musical interests as a part of the novel, though I could be way off base about that. It did seem a bit far fetched to me that two police officers would have the same interest, but perhaps I just don't know enoug...

I enjoy Scandinavian fiction in all its wordweary bleakness. Though I haven’t ready any in some time, I did read a very good book tracking the author’s obsession with the genre and this book had the distinction of being both her recommendations’ list and available digitally at the library. So, of course, I read it. Set in Sweden in the 1990s, the date mentioned weirdly surreptitiously mid chapter one, in the aftermath of a financial crisis eerily reminiscent of USA’s own 2008 nightmare, the plot...

Between a 3.5 and a 3.75, rounded up.Misterioso is very different from normal Scandinavian crime fare, but still good. I liked it, with a couple of reservations (see below).Misterioso is another fine example of Scandinavian crime fiction, this time more of a police procedural with a few twists and turns along the way. There is definitely no measure of cutesiness to be found in this book -- it's police work through and through, and some of the scenes are a bit violent. At the end of the book, the...

I found this book to be quite long and complicated (much like a real serial killer investigation I would imagine) so it was easy to lose the thread when I put the book down, although I found it interesting. I thought the plot was clever and intricate with realistic meanderings after false clues and down blind alleys, but, as I've said, it could get confusing. I also liked the idea behind the A-Team - bring in top outsiders, unemcumbered by current HQ politics and with no allegiances to maintain

Someone is knocking off Sweden’s most rich and powerful men, one by one. Who is doing it and what is the connection among these men? Whoever it is leaves no clues behind and even removes the bullets. The only thing we know is that the person listens to a tape of Theloneous Monk’s jazz piece of the book’s title. As the case gets solved we follow several detectives and learn a bit about their personal lives. A good read.

Misterioso. by Arne Dahl is the first in a Swedish series called "The A-Team." Despite this (to me) somewhat unfortunate name, the book is interesting and suspenseful. I found, however, the first part of the book which follows the hero, Peter Hjelm, who rockets to hero when resolving a hostage drama to villain (the hostage-taker was an immigrant which leads to charges of prejudice on the part of Hjelm) back to hero as he is hand-picked to be a part of a team formed to track down a serial killer

3.5 stars. Been to long since I've read swedish crime novels, I am from Sweden after all. This was a decent example of a good crime novel. Found the plot moved with a good pace and was interesting enough to stay motivated to read. Was not the greatest but will definitely read more in this series, was compelling enough

A gripping and occasionally hilarious thriller about a disparate group of dedicated but eccentric police officers and their attempts to catch a bizarre serial killer. Nordic Noir with a distinct twist of black humour.

A great thriller that manages to interweave Thelonious Monk!

I realised after I began reading this that I had seen the TV adaptation and I’m sorry to say that was a darn sight better than the book. There were so many characters that my head was spinning I was so confused. There was a lot going on in the story too that I lost my way with that too. Murder aplenty, Russian mob, rape, finance and jazz. Yes jazz. I don’t like jazz probably because I don’t understand it and I skim read those bits as I had no interest. In fact, quite honestly I skim read most of...

Another Nordic crime author given a go to impress me, but another disappointment. Some of this was due to the author's/translator's (and my) inability to delineate various names of characters and places, with the consequence that I lost track of who was Hjelde, who was Hedeberg, who was Hanssen, and whether they had spoken to Henriksson or Holmgren in Halmstad, Helsingborg or Huskvana? A larger part was due to this rendering a complicated storyline (businessmen are being shot by a jazz-loving mu...

No...I'm not turning into a Scandinavian groupie but it's sure looking like it. I read "Bad Blood" which was excellent giving it five stars and this one was great as well. However, as seen by the four stars, didn't blow me out of the water like "Bad Blood." If you haven't put your toe into this genre of writing, it might be time.

Misterioso by Arne Dahl is a unique and wonderful book. It is part mystery, part police procedural, part existential philosophy and part comedy. There is something so distinctive about this book that it resists categorization. On the surface, it is a mystery but so much of the novel lies below the surface, getting into the characters' minds and thoughts as they live their lives and work at trying to catch a serial killer.The title of the book comes from a piece of music composed by Thelonius Mon...

An exciting mystery pitting a serial murderer against a special police division called the A Unit. The murderer is killing high-profile business leaders, while listening to a recording of Thelonious Monk's jazz classic "Misterioso". The only problem I had was keeping the names straight, especially since they were Swedish names. Still a gripping book.

Continuing my dive into Nordic Noir authors that are new to me, I jumped into Arne Dahl's Misterioso, which is a workmanlike policier with a few interesting wrinkles. The protagonist is Paul Hjelm, a detective in a suburban Stockholm district who seems to be about to lose his job after a controversial intervention into a hostage situation with an angry immigrant. Along with a rogue's gallery of other police misfits, Hjelm joins an elite unite formed in reaction to the assassination-style deaths