Worth reading if you are looking for an easy read, crime/ police thriller, however I found the dialogue a little stilted and the ending was far fetched and disappointing.

After reading a couple of crime novels by Håkan Nesser, I've tended to avoid them because they are not so much whodunits as wheredunits: his locations don't seem to be able to make up their minds whether they are Dutch or Danish, and that bothers me all the time I am reading them. But this one, though it takes place in a fictional town, is identifiably Swedish, and very definitely a whodunit with a difference. The nameless killer writes letters to a detective, naming his or her victims in advanc...

Gunnar Barbarotti: Hakan Nesser, stop writing about any other character. I cannot get enough of Barbarotti's sense of humor and love. This is my second one and I did not want to read it fast. (I didn't even worry much about the mystery, just Gunnar and Marianne.) I just re-read it. The mystery killings are so frustrating and Barbarotti takes us into his mind all the way through. I like Eva Backman, his colleague, as well as Marianne, his love--to become his wife. I have put the other two books i...

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...

I have long been a fan of Hakan Nesser. He is the first of several Scandinavian mystery writers that I began reading several years ago. I read his works avidly along. He is different, though comparable to Jo Nesbo, Henning Mankell, Arnuldur Indridasson, and Jussi Adler-Olson. This book and his new detective Barbarotti does not disappoint. The mystery is well crafted and the end, as far as I was concerned was a complete shocker.I strongly recommend this book to any fan of mysteries and police pro...

My first book with Hakan Nesser and i love the genre criminal fiction, the book started off brilliantly and held me with the opening storyline.. i followed this through the book and was totally drawn in to the scenario of the young girl and the group that seemed to have been drawn together through holiday acquaintances. What a brilliant writer and storyteller, however the twist is at the end, and a twist it is which i never expected at all. I would have loved the storyline to have continued with...

The Root of Evil is the second book in Hakan Nesser's Inspector Barbarotti series. Our persevering detective must unravel yet another bizarre crime in Kymlinge, which must be the murder capitol of the world, per capita.Some characters from The Darkest Day return, and there are plenty of interesting new characters. Dialog is quirky, witty, and engaging, just as it was in the first book. Barbarotti's personal life is more of a focus this time, and these chapters are some of my favorites.I didn't t...

If only I had learned to read Swedish! As good a writer as Nesser is, fewer than half of his books have been translated into English - and fewer than half of those have been published in the US. The Root of Evil is the second of five books in the Detective Barbarotti series. For fans of the Van Veeteren series, you get the same engaging storytelling, the same superb writing skills, but a very different detective and feel. The atmospherics of the Van Veeteren series are here replaced with a more

I read this book as part of the 2019 Dagger International Prize shortlist, which is awarded by the Mystery Writers Ass. To the best crime novel that has been translated into English. I find that books on this list are often more complex and literary than the home-grown variety!This novel by Swedish author Nesser does a great job with this 600 page work portraying a recent murder(s) that has roots in the path. I love that it was complex enough to keep my interest through almost 600 pages and had

The Root of Evil, Barbarotti #2. Håkan Nesser. iBook pre ordered. November 15, 2018. 5/5 True to the VV series, we have a fantasy town Kymlinge....right from the start. Rather interesting format with the storyline telling of the circumstances before in 2002 during a vacation in France as cause of the crimes taking place in 2007 preceding most chapters then the current private and work musings of Barbarotti and his colleagues as they unravel the strange letters announcing murder and attempt to ge...

Where shall I start.. I suppose by saying that I loved this book. When I finished the last Harry Hole/Jo Nesbo book, I felt sad and then I found Inspector Barbarotti and Hakan Nesser. Firstly this is such a clever murder enquiry. I thought I had guessed it 3/4 through. Nope. Secondly the character of Barbarotti reminds me a lot of Harry Hole, but without Harrys addictive nature. Hakan Nesser is a brilliant author. The characterisation of the people in this book it what makes it special. It actua...

“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

I haven't read novel 1 in the series but I don't think it made a lot of difference - I really enjoyed this crime story. Barbarotti did not seem to do a lot of detection and he wasn't responsible for solving the case - nevertheless he is a interesting character - full of wit and humour....and a lot of self analysis. A bit different to the usual detective fiction and maybe a bit long but definitely addictive and I will read the next one in the series. My one query - not sure I ever understood why

I don't like crime novels. It's just not my thing, they're usually too shallowly focused on solving a half-witted crime and the characters - aw geez, don't get me started on the characters.But this one is different. This one is a crime novel for people like me, the crime is of course ever present - but there's MORE to the novel than just that. And that makes Barbarotti a more whole crime-novel protagonist than I've ever read before. Plus of course I'm having loads of fun with the way Nesser hand...

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...

nice writing, very human, sensitive but...and there are quite a lot of but. a weak ending. all this tension to discover in few pages that the so smart killer killed his wife and her lover in a short vacation just because she betrayed him. well betrayal is a great force when it is rightly described but it seems Nesser was tired and wanted to finish the book. beside too many repetition of the plot between the investigators, and felt like chewing it. a tough editing was needed and shorten the book

Hakan Nesser is such a clever crime writer. Five bundred and ninety five pages and I was totally absorbed for the whole lot ! Inspector Barborotti is a great character, an interesting man with unusual thought processes. The ups and downs of his love life also add a bit of romantic interest allowing Barbarotti an escape from an arduous piece of police work. What really makes Haken Nesser so good is his ability to weave a complicated plot and at the same time detailing all the police procedural wo...

Crime fiction fans around the world became acquainted with Håkan Nesser's work through the fabulous Inspector Van Veeteren series that won the readers' hearts and also was adapted for the television with Sven Wollter in the role of the brooding police investigator. Nevertheless, not many people are aware of the existence of another crime novel series, that of Inspector Gunnar Barbarotti. This is mainly due to the fact that, until now, only the first two books have been translated in English, the...

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this crime thriller. Read it at my own pace, and absolutely enjoyed the humour of the situations mentioned. The characters have been etched pretty realistically, with them not being uni-directional. This stands out for me in this book.The crimes are heinous and the ending took me by surprise. This is a lengthy read though and will need a bit of patience.Recommended for sure.My rating - 3.5/5

”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...