Never End

By Åke Edwardson

Book Overview

Detective Erik Winter is back, chasing a copycat murderer in a gritty procedural from one of Europe?s most popular crime writers With twelve Erik Winter novels published in countries as diverse as Italy, Norway, France, Japan, Spain, the United Kingdom, and Germany?where the series has sold more than 700,000 copies?it?s only a matter of time before an American readership discovers what Europe has already declared: ?ke Edwardson is a European master of the stylish and gritty crime novel.In Never End, the second Erik Winter novel to be translated into English, a heat wave is smothering the Swedish coastal city of Gothenburg. School is out, and parks and beaches are teeming with people. But a spate of unsolved rape/murders casts a disturbing shadow on this particular summer. Chief Inspector Erik Winter, now forty-one and a father, assembles the scant but grisly details of the crimes, and begins to see an eerie connection to a five-year-old unsolved rape/murder, a case he, in typically obsessive fashion, has refused to let go cold. Has the same rapist reemerged to taunt the police and flaunt his stolen freedom, or are these copycat crimes? In the absence of any hard leads, and haunted by the case he could not solve, Winter desperately hunts for a link bridging the victims, convinced that each crime holds the key to the others. Someone knows more than they are letting on, and Winter knows they are running out of time. Never Endis a chilling, moody novel replete with Hitchcockian depictions of Gothenburg?s vibrant summer spaces and seamy dark corners, that will appeal to readers of George Pelecanos and Elizabeth George BACKCOVER: [Erik Winter] promises to be a superior procedural series. ?Booklist Mystery fans on this side of the Atlantic can be grateful that the travails of Erik Winter?are now available in English?.This dark police procedural is a topnotch work, suspenseful to the very end, with appealing characters.? ?Library Journal A large ration of suspense, as well as that other reason for enjoying mysteries: an intriguing look at life in a distant part of the world.? ?Chicago Tribune ?ke Edwardson is a three-time winner of the Swedish Academy of Crime Writers? Award and it?s easy to see why. He weaves a rich, psychologically satisfying tale. His writing is nuanced and literary, and his characters are deep and fascinating. ?Readers looking for a gritty, well-paced, thoughtful thriller will appreciate Edwardson?s masterful novel.? ?I Love A Mystery

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0670037664
• ISBN13: 9780670037667
• Release Date: June 2006
• Publisher: Viking Adult
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 1.14 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.2" x 1.2" x 6.2"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Grade 12 and higher

Customer Reviews

I Recommend all in the series! Great books!

I have read all the books by Ake Edwardson that have been translated and enjoyed every one of them. I recommend all of them.

When you read the last sentence, you can breathe again.

Never End begins slowly. The reader struggles to make a coherent story from the details gathered by the detectives, who are also trying to make sense of confusing clues. As the story continues, however, the pace picks up. It left me breathless at the end. I love the Nordic style of Scandinavian authors.

A compelling wrenching novel

This is a beautifully written, compelling book. I had a hard time putting it down. Ake Edwardson is an exciting, skillful writer.

Nice crime investigation procedural

Ake Edwardson in similar fashion to other Swedish crime novelists like the more famous Henning Mankell, chronicles a methodical homicide inquest while focusing in on both the psychological aspects of the suspects, victims and their police pursuers. In a sweltering summer heat wave in the coastal town of Gothenburg, a corpse of a young woman is found in a hollowed out area within a thicket of trees in a local park. Pathology reports have determined that she had been sexually violated and strangled. Chief Inspector Erik Winter, in charge of the investigation, is stunned as the crime is eerily similar to an unsolved rape and murder committed 5 years ago in the exact same location. Winter mobilizes his team to pore over the evidence but soon there is another young victim who was raped but survived. Her fragile psychological state provides few clues for Winter. Winter becomes obsessed with solving both the cold case of five years ago and the current crime wave. He is not without his misgivings as being a new father he's torn between sharing his time with his family and on the job. Edwardson's nicely paced novel chronicles the arduous, dispiriting measures that the police go through while dealing with their own personal conflicts. He rightly devotes a more than adequate effort in character developement which adds reality to his plot