The Nature of Things

The Cruel Stars of the Night by Kjell Eriksson My rating: 2 of 5 stars I'm always hesitant to criticize the translation of a book from another language into English. After all, English is not an easy language, and I think it must be very difficult to convey the meaning of another language into English in a smooth, easy-flowing manner. That being the case, I still must say that I found this particular translation by Ebba Segerberg of Kjell Eriksson's The Cruel Stars of the the Night from Swedish into English to be especially clunky and stilted. It is likely that it contributed to my overall somewhat negative opinion of the book. Having recently read and been entertained by Eriksson's first book to be translated into English, The Princess of Burundi , I decided to push ahead with reading this second book in translation (actually the sixth in the series). I found it much less enjoyable. The plot here was rather confusing. I was well over halfway through the book before I rea...

The Princess of Burundi by Kjell Eriksson My rating: 3 of 5 stars When I picked this book to read, I was under the impression that it was the first in a series featuring female police inspector Ann Lindell of Uppsala, Sweden. It soon became apparent that it was not the first. Evidently, it is actually the fourth in the series but was the first to be translated into English. Never mind. The author actually does a good job of providing the backstories of his main characters, so I did not feel as lost as I might have. This is a police procedural, much in the vein of Ed McBain or Sjowall and Wahloo. It features a unit of the Uppsala police that is led by Inspector Lindell, but, in fact, in this particular book, Lindell is on maternity leave and she is only tangentially involved in the investigation of the crimes detailed. This is where it would have been useful to have read the previous book in order to get the full story of how she came to be where she is in her life. She has a nine-mont...