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    Mind's Eye: An Inspector Van Veeteren Mystery
    Mind's Eye: An Inspector Van Veeteren Mystery
    Mind's Eye: An Inspector Van Veeteren Mystery
    Audiobook6 hours

    Mind's Eye: An Inspector Van Veeteren Mystery

    Written by Håkan Nesser

    Narrated by Simon Vance

    3.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    Chief Inspector Van Veeteren knew that murder cases were never as open-and-shut as this one: Janek Mitter woke one morning with a brutal hangover and discovered his wife of three months lying facedown in the bathtub, dead. With only the flimsiest excuse as his defense, he is found guilty of a drunken crime of passion and imprisoned in a mental institution.But Van Veeteren's suspicions about the identity of the killer are borne out when Mitter also becomes a murder victim. Now the chief inspector launches a full-scale investigation of the two slayings. But it may only be the unspoken secrets of the dead-revealed in a mysterious letter that Mitter wrote shortly before his death-that will finally allow Van Veeteren to unmask the killer and expose the shocking root of this sordid violence.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHighbridge Company
    Release dateJun 14, 2011
    ISBN9781611742763
    Mind's Eye: An Inspector Van Veeteren Mystery
    Author

    Håkan Nesser

    Håkan Nesser is one of Sweden’s most popular crime writers, receiving numerous awards for his novels featuring Inspector Van Veeteren, including the European Crime Fiction Star Award (Ripper Award) 2010/11, the Swedish Crime Writers’ Academy Prize (three times) and Scandinavia's Glass Key Award. The Van Veeteren series is published in over twenty-five countries and has sold over ten million copies worldwide. Håkan Nesser lives in Gotland with his wife and spends part of each year in the UK. In addition to the popular Van Veeteren series, his other books include the psychological thriller The Living and the Dead in Winsford and The Barbarotti series.

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    Reviews for Mind's Eye

    3.5/5

    361 ratings23 reviews

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    • 4/5
      This is the first of the Van Veteren series of Swedish police procedurals. Published in 1993, it fits with the other police procedurals that have come out of Sweden in its characters, its emphasis on gritty police work, and, unfortunately, its inclusion of sex crimes against women. Aside from that, I had some trouble with the character of Van Veteren as a rude and irascible inspector, at least to his subordinates, and the repeated statement that he could 'sense' the villain in almost all cases. Nesser also allows Van Veteren to withhold information from his own staff, seemingly because he wants to mull it over himself, or perhaps because he needs to be the one to solve the case.For all that, it was a good read. I'm not sure if I've read other titles in the series, but I will look for them from time to time.
    • 3/5
      The Mind’s Eye by Hakan Nesser is the first in this author’s series about Swedish Chief Inspector Van Veeteren and his team and unfortunately I was rather disappointed with this book. I have been assured that the next book is much better which is a relief as I have it on my shelves. As this book won the 1993 Swedish Crime Writers Academy Prize, I am wondering whether my disconnect was because of the writer’s style or if the translation was the problem but the book felt very segmented, uneven and remote.One thing I do take away from this book is that I believe I am going to like getting to know Inspector Van Veeteren. He is grumpy, rather depressed and works intuitively much to the chagrin of his team. Personally, I would have liked to have had a little more access to his thought process as this would have connected me to the story. The actual plot felt a little familiar, but the real star of the book was Inspector Van Veeteren, and I look forward to more of his brusque manner and insensitivity.Although this is the first book in the series, it was not the first book to be translated which leads me to believe it is not considered the strongest of his books. Hopefully that is still in my future.
    • 2/5
      Detective. Audible. Scandanavian. Not a straightforward path. A bit of back and forth before the path to the killer begins to emerge. Liked it. Pleasant.
    • 3/5
      This is the first in the Van Vleeteren series. If I had started here I am not sure that I would be continuing with the series. The set up for this book is very good and I was hooked quickly; but once Van Vleeteren enters (in chapter four) things begin to go a bit downhill. It is difficult to follow what is essentially a police procedural when the lead investigator spends so much time thinking and not telling either his colleagues or us as readers either what he is thinking or what he is talking about. So we get a denouement without really understanding how he/we got there. I have two more books in the series to hand; whether I continue beyond them remains to be seen.
    • 4/5
      Excellent Nordic mystery. I thought that it being set in an unnamed country would drive me crazy-not so. I'm going to read the rest in the series...
    • 2/5
      This Swedish mystery starts well. The victim is dead in a locked bathroom as her husband wakes up with a hangover and no memory of the previous evening. He is the obvious suspect. But the body of the book was too police procedural for my taste. Also, I didn't feel a very strong sense of place. I'll try another by this author since he is highly praised by others before I give up.
    • 4/5
      I really enjoyed this book. Great style and even though I had figured out who did it pretty early on - I couldn't figure out how it all went together or if my guess was right because the author kept throwing curveballs out to throw me off the scent. Quite enjoyable - will definately try another in the series.
    • 4/5
      Good, although not stellar, mystery novel. I've only read one other book by this popular author (a stand-alone, something set in China) and I wasn't blown away by that one either. That said, this first in the Van Veeteren series is good enough to merit continuing on with the series. Of course, I listened to the audio version narrated by Simon Vance and that probably bumped this from 3 stars up to 4 right there. ;)
    • 4/5
      In the first of the Van veeteren series, our inspector hunts a killer, who murdered a woman and after the husband has been convicted for it, he kills him too... The trails leads the inspector to the past filled with secrets.....
    • 4/5
      Schoolteacher Janek Mitter wakes up with a hell of a hangover one morning and discovers the body of his wife in the bathtub. While it’s clear she has been murdered the question that neither police nor Mitter can answer is whether or not he was the one who killed her. Despite this, or perhaps because of it, Mitter is tried, convicted and confined to an asylum for the mentally ill but the case is not yet finished and events cause the police to investigate further.

      By reputation Scandinavians are cold and dour but, if their crime fiction is anything to go by, this is as untrue a stereotype as any other because this book really is very funny. Most of the humour comes with the dialogue between Inspector Van Veeteren and his police colleagues though Nesser even finds the funny in Mitter’s dreadful situation. Translator Laurie Thompson has once again done a great job of creating a very readable book which relies quite heavily on verbal jousting for its lighter moments.

      Van Veeteren is a terrifically well-rounded character who gets depressed by the weather, plays badminton grudgingly and is, nineteen times out of twenty, very sure of his own ability to judge a person’s guilt or innocence by little more than the tilt of their head. His droll observations and quirks provide much of the humour in the book but he’s also intelligent and caring in a ‘blokey’ kind of way and I look forward to reading more of his adventures.

      The book felt a little awkward at the outset with its court scenes at the beginning followed by a police investigation but turning the procedural upside down in this way worked well in the end. The uncovering of Mitter’s wife’s past is really done quite cleverly and offered a good deal of credible tension towards the climax of the book. I shall definitely be looking for book two in this series sooner rather than later.
    • 5/5
      I enjoy the audio versions of these Scandanavian crime stories as the names and locations come to life without my struggling to imagine the pronunciations. I liked this sardonic chief inspector and will read more of the series.
    • 5/5
      The author's website is worth consulting for an overview of the series, of which THE MIND'S EYE is the first. The series, most often referred to as the Van Veeteren series, takes place in Maardam, a fictitious city in a made-up country that could be anywhere in northern Europe. It follows the murder cases investigated by Chief Inspector Van Veeteren – eventually the retired Chief Inspector – and his two crime squad protégés, Münster and Moreno. moreThe author goes on to describe Inspector Van Veteeren as a "a philosophical detective with a unique ability to draw lines between dots that are far apart and nearly invisible."Certainly in THE MIND'S EYE there are some fascinating descriptions of the Inspector listening to classical music and finding that the elements of the case click into place. Van Veeteren's offsider Munster reflects The murderer was somewhere out there. One of this town's 300,000 inhabitants had taken it upon himself to kill one of his fellow human beings, and it was the duty of him, and Van Veeteren and all the rest of them, to nail the man - or the woman. It was going to be one hell of a job in fact. They would work for thousands of hours before the case was closed, and when they eventually had all the answers, it would become clear to them that nearly everything they had done had been a complete waste of time. They would realize that if only they'd done this or that right away, they would have cracked it in two days instead of two months.There are many things to like about THE MIND'S EYE: if you are new to the series, you'll have the pleasure of starting with the first in the series; you'll also have the pleasure of getting acquainted with a very likeable detective. He's not young - someone rings the station and asks to be put through to the "grey one". I like the fact that he can admit he has made a mistake.Van Veeteren is empathetic to the victims of crime - he's been where they are now: broken marriage, fragile childhood. There are some truly comic incidents too: imagine him lying on the floor having his back massaged by someone he went to interview. In these days of over long books, THE MIND'S EYE is a quick read.I have a couple of the other titles on my shelves. Must read them!
    • 4/5
      Janek Mattias Mitter, a high school teacher of history and philosophy, wakes up one morning so hung over he cannot remember his own name or where he is. As he, very slowly, moves through his apartment he begins to catch glimmers of memory. But not enough to prepare him for the sight that awaits when he jimmies open the locked bathroom door with a screwdriver. His wife of three months lies dead in the bathtub. And he can remember nothing of the night before.While in custody, he is questioned by Detective Chief Inspector Van Veeteren. Van Veeteren is a melancholy Nordic detective, not quite as depressed as Kurt Wallander, or as ennui filled as Carl Morck, but just enough so that we know this novel takes place somewhere in Northern Europe where winter brings almost constant rain and overcast skies.In addition to the miserable early winter weather, Van Veeteren has other cause for depression: his wife, after an eight month separation (their fourth or fifth such separation), is making noises about returning to him. He seems chronically unable to beat his subordinate, Inspector Münster at badminton and injured his foot during their last game. His son is serving a two year sentence at the state prison for drug smuggling. His car stereo has a "gremlin" which interferes with his ability to enjoy a Vivaldi mandolin concerto. And worse, he has custody of his adult daughter's ailing dog:"Ever since his daughter Jess’s twelfth birthday he had been saddled with the slow-witted Newfoundland bitch, but now all she did was to lie in front of the refrigerator, sicking up foul-smelling yellowish-green lumps, and he was forced to drive home several times a day in order to clean them up.The dog, that is. Not his daughter."He is a self-admittedly outstanding detective almost always able to determine a suspect's guilt:"Nine times out of ten, he was. Well, even more often, if the truth be told. Van Veeteren was generally able to decide if he was looking the culprit in the eye in nineteen cases out of twenty, if not more.No point in hiding his light under a bushel."But in the case of the high school teacher he finds himself in the unusual position of experiencing actual doubt, even though the evidence points to Mitter's guilt. During the trial, Mitter stands by his claim of memory loss while insisting that he did not kill his wife, as in this exchange with the prosecuting attorney:“You mean that you didn’t kill her because you didn’t kill her?”Mitter allowed himself a couple of extra seconds’ thinking time before replying. Then he said, calm and restrained, “No, I know I didn’t kill her, because I didn’t kill her. Just as I’m sure that you know you are not wearing frilly knickers today, because you aren’t. Not today.”There is something about his consistent claim of memory loss, combined perhaps with his ability to make the Inspector smile, that triggers a need in Van Veeteren to continue the investigation during the trial. But in spite of Van Veeteren's doubt and his continuing investigation, Mitter is convicted and sent to a state mental institution.At that point the detective and his team are assigned other cases and life continues for all involved. Until one day, another death occurs and the investigation begins all over again.Van Veeteren is an easy character to like as he combines a certain gruffness of manner, a slightly egotistical attitude, and general world weariness with a penchant for the absurd. Hakan Nesser claims that the novel is set in a mythical Northern European nation because he didn't fell familiar enough with the geography of Sweden to please his German readers. But Nesser is known for subtle humor as displayed with his naming minor characters after other writers; Mankel, Kellerman and Joensuu all appear. And the Van Veeteren name itself is derived from Janwillem van de Wetering, the Dutch author of the Grijpstra and De Gier stories.Hakan Nesser has written nine more Van Veeteren novels, Mind's Eye being the first in the series and the third to be translated into English from the original Swedish by Laurie Thompson. The hardback was published by Pantheon Books (June 30, 2008) runs 288 pages and is available as are paperback and e-book editions at Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Alibris, and iTunes.As usual, there is a lag between the original publication date and the date of translation. Here is a list of those that have been or are in translation1993 The Mind's Eye translated 20081994 Borkmann's Point translated 20061995 The Return translated 20071996 Woman with Birthmark translated 20091997 The Inspector and Silence, translated 20101998 The Unlucky Lottery, translated 20111999 Hour of the Wolf, translation 2012Three more in this series await translation.He has won the Best Swedish Crime Novel Award three times for his work, and the Glass Dagger Award in 2000 for a later book in the Van Veeteren series.Nesser has written another detective series, none of which have yet been translated into English, about Gunnar Barbarotti:"...the new series, the neatly named Barbarotti Quartet. Inspector Gunnar Barbarotti's parents could agree on nothing except they wanted a divorce, which meant his Italian father and Swedish mother battled over his name and luckily mother won because the books are set in Sweden and he became Gunnar rather than Guisseppe Barbarotti.The Italian Swedish detective seems to be a captivating character who makes a bargain with God in which Barbarotti keeps score marking God's performance."I really do need to learn Swedish!
    • 4/5
      Smart, snappy mystery with an appealing detective who is delightfully intuitive.
    • 4/5
      I read two of Nesser's Van Veeteren novels on a recent trip involving cross-country flights and found them to be interesting airplane reads, but not nearly as intriguing as other Scandinavian crime writers. Mind's Eye was the better of the two books, although I felt from the start that the initial suspect in the crime was a character that warranted more development.
    • 5/5
      Nesser deftly explores the psychology of the victims, the criminal, the detective. Stunner of an ending that I should have seen coming. Excellent. How is that one country ,Sweden, produces such good writers of this genre?!.
    • 4/5
      The first in the Inspector Van Veeteren stories to be translated into English, and well worth waiting for. The story is engrossing -- a man wakes up with a horrible hangover, stumbles to the bathroom, and finds his wife dead in the bath. He is found guilty and imprisoned in a mental institution; Van Veeteren isn't altogether happy with this outcome, but sits back lets the law do its work. Then, however, the convicted killer himself is murdered, and it's time for a full scale investigation of what actually happened. Van Veeteren is an engaging detective with an ironic turn of mind that makes this a "funnier" series than most of Scandi Noir (though "funny" isn't the right word: amusing perhaps.) The plotting is careful and the story engrossing. If that weren't enough, one thing will keep me coming back -- where is all this happening? Nesser is a Swedish writer; Van Veeteren sounds Dutch: street names and such could be anywhere in Northern Europe. The country, however, remains a secret/
    • 4/5
      First Line: He woke up and was unable to remember his name.Nineteen times out of twenty, Inspector Van Veeteren knows when he's looking the perpetrator of a crime in the eye. There are countless tiny "tells" that alert him to a person's innocence or his guilt. When teacher Janek Mitter is sent to prison for the murder of his wife, Eva Ringmar, it turns out that this case was number twenty. When Mitter's memory begins to return, he is murdered before he can reveal the identity of the actual killer. Van Veeteren has to set the record straight, clear Mitter's name, and send the right person to prison.Van Veeteren is a character I could get my teeth into and feel some empathy for, since endless overcast weather and darkness tend to depress both of us. Nesser's description brought him to life: "He sat with his bulky body crouched over the cassette recorder, looking like a threatening and malicious trough of low pressure. His face was criss-crossed by small blue veins, many of them burst, and his expression was reminiscent of a petrified bloodhound. The only thing that moved was the toothpick, which wandered slowly from one side of his mouth to the other. He could talk without moving his lips, read without moving his eyes, yawn without opening his mouth. He was much more of a mummy than a person made up of flesh and blood."The plot moves quickly as he tries to find the killer. Although I did find the identity of the murderer to be a bit of a letdown and the ending a little rushed, the bare bones of an excellent mystery series were there to be seen, and I look forward to reading more of Inspector Van Veeteren's adventures.
    • 3/5
      Inspector Van Veeteren investigates a alleged murder by a school teacher. He was her husband and refuses to be helpful. Story centres around the dead woman's past for clues to her murder. It was good - Inspector very likeable. Scandinavian.
    • 4/5
      This is actually the first installment in the series featuring Inspector Van Veeteren, set in Sweden, and it is a good one. I really love Nesser's books, having read the first three in the series so far (Mind's Eye, Borkmann's Point, The Return). In this debut (and you'll never believe it's the first of a series, it's that good), Van Veeteren takes the case of Janek Mitter, who wakes up one morning after a night of heavy drinking to find his wife Eva in the bathtub, dead. The only suspect is Mitter himself, who absolutely cannot remember a thing. Van Veeteren finds himself wondering if indeed Mitter was the culprit, especially after Mitter is found murdered in a hospital for the mentally ill, where he was imprisoned after his trial. Van Veeteren knows that the only way to get to the bottom of these crimes is to find out all he can about their past lives -- especially Eva's. This book is one more in the wonderful set of mysteries written by Nesser. His writing is so good that he will hook you in the first few pages and not let you go until the book is finished. I can very highly recommend this one to others who enjoy Scandinavian crime fiction, and to those who have read Nesser's other books. Mystery readers who want something different than the usual will also enjoy this book as well.
    • 5/5
      "Van Veteran wouldn't be fooled. He sat with his bulky body crouched over the cassette recorder, looking like a threatening and malicious trough of low pressure. His face was crisscrossed by small blue veins, many of them burst, and his expression was reminiscent of a petrified bloodhound. the only thing that moved was the toothpick, which wandered slowly from one side of his mouth to the other. He could talk without moving his lips, read without moving his eyes, yawn without opening his mouth. He was much more of a mummy than a person made up of flesh and blood.But beyond doubt a very efficient police officer."This is Nesser at his most effusive. I wonder how it reads in the original Swedish. Part Nesser's genius is his economy of words. This is one of the rare instances where Nesser is liberal with adjectives. His prose is sparse and the to the point, no shiny objects or distractions. It's all about the crime and the investigation. Amazing, amazing stuff.
    • 5/5
      One need not read this book first if you have not read the other Inspector Van Veeteren mysteries. But Nesser does a good job profiling the inspector's personality and view of the world and view of his job and the life of the murder. A good read and interesting overall. Predictable story line, but solving the mystery is not the primary focus of this type of mystery novel - it is seeing the mystery unfold through the eyes of the inspector. Paul Floyd
    • 4/5
      1st in series. Woman drowned, husband has amnesiz, convicted, killed in cell.