Frozen Tracks - Softcover

AKE EDWARDSON was born in 1953. He has worked as a journalist and as a press officer for the UN, and has written books on journalism and creative writing. He was also a lecturer at Gothenburg University. Now a best-selling author of detective fiction, he has on three occasions been awarded the Swedish Crime Writers' Award for best crime novel.

Christmas is fast approaching, but life is anything but festive for Detective Chief Inspector Erik Winter. Days of dwindling daylight find the Swedish detective haunted by two puzzling—and seemingly unconnected—sets of crimes. Several university students have been viciously attacked at various points around the city. At the same time, children are being abducted from metropolitan nurseries, a situation that hits much too close to home for Winter, who dotes on the young daughter he shares with longtime live-in lover Angela. Leads followed by Winter and his colleagues take them to the parched prairies of rural Sweden, whose inhabitants are every bit as bleak and desperate as the landscape. Something sinister has happened out here, Winter tells his partner. He can feel it in his bones. Though his police procedurals lack the suspense of fellow Swede Asa Larsson's, Edwardson (Sun and Shadow, 2005) creates endlessly interesting characters, in particular Winter, who tackles crime after crime with a shrewd mind and a heavy heart. Recommend this one to readers of Henning Mankell. Block, Allison